Biography. Walt Whitman (1819-1892) was born in Huntington, Long Island, and educated in the public schools of Brooklyn. He left school at the early age of thirteen to make his own way in life. At different times he was school teacher, carpenter, builder, journalist, and poet. During the Civil War he became a volunteer nurse in and about Washington, D. C., and the story of his unselfish hospital service is one of the most inspiring that has come down to us from that war. Lincoln said of him, “Well, he looks like a man!”
Two points about Whitman are worthy of notice. The first is that he was a man of intensely democratic sympathies. He wrote of “the dear love of comrades” as the real means for bringing about a better understanding among men of every nation, a better government, and the end of war. He loved every part of America, and all America’s sons and daughters.
The word “democracy” constantly occurs in his poetry and his prose, and by it he means the cultivation of love and coöperation among men. He had a vision of the time when autocratic government, and all forms of selfishness, should cease among men; like Burns, he dwelt on the time when men all over the world should be brothers.
The second point is closely related to the first. In his dislike for conventional and exclusive life he objected even to the form developed for poetry through centuries. He was a lover of freedom, even in writing. So he rarely uses rimes and stanzas. He calls his form “chants,” and so they are, chants of human brotherhood and sympathy.
Discussion. 1. Who is it that the poet hears singing? 2. In stanza 1, what “varied carols” does he hear? 3. What do you think was the poet’s underlying idea in writing this poem? 4. Do you think that he meant to point out that the road to happiness is the road to work?
Phrases