icanism to be caught and delineated. The most stimulating portions of Whitman's poems, those glowing with the light and warmth of true inspiration, are precisely those in which he forgets his self-imposed mission. It is when he gives free rein to his fancy and imagination that he attains to the great heights of song, above and independent of time and place. Then it is that his individuality, his "nationalism," if you will, is most true, because most spontaneous and most inartificial. Just as critics are tardily recognizing in Nathaniel Hawthorne the most distinctively national American romancist, so they may yet see in the subtler, deeper and more spiritual passages of Whitman certain phases far better indicative of his Americanism than are his spread-eagle democracy and vaunting radicalism. His melodious chant, "The Mystic Trumpeter," for instance, is in some respects one of the greatest poems written in America. No one, after reading it, can rightfully accuse Whitman of always ignoring literary art. It is more of a rhapsody than a poem, beginning with a few simple notes, gradually rising to a higher key as the poet yields himself more and more to the divinely mysterious influence. The fretting world, the streets, the noisy hours of day withdraw, A holy calm descends like dew upon me, It is the spirit of the poet himself that responds to the breath of the divine trumpeter and vibrates with the sad notes of the feudal past, of love and of war, of enslaved, oppressed humanity, "the wrongs of ages, baffled feuds and hatreds," and of man's struggle for redemption. In a powerful antistrophe the notes of sadness are suddenly turned to those of triumph as they attain a yet higher strain and are brought to a close in "a glad, exulting, culminating song." A vigor more than earth's is in thy notes, Marches of victory-man disenthral'd--the conqueror at last, Hymns to the universal God from universal man-all joy! A reborn race appears, a perfect world, all joy! Women and men in wisdom, innocence and health-all joy! A satisfactory analysis of Whitman's poetry would be impossible within the limits of this article. There is so much that is susceptible of different constructions, that an exhaustive commentary would far exceed in bulk the substantial volume that now includes his completed "Leaves." It is only by bringing to bear a hearty and sincere sympathy that the reader can duly appreciate these really wonderful utterances. To paraphrase the poet's own language, these poems are but leaves and roots, scents from the wild woods, and pond-side, "breezes of land and love set from living shores" to those on "the living sea," frost-mellowed berries, early spring twigs and yet unfolded buds. To him who brings the warm sunshine of a sympathetic spirit they will open and bring form, color and perfume, and become flowers, fruits and trees. Whitman delights in figurative speech, mounting sometimes to an almost oriental hyperbole. This Mr. Stedman, in his essay on Whitman, suggests that certain passages in the "Song of Myself" had their origin in the Book of Job. Yet it is not so much the apparent imitativeness as the elemental quality of so much of Whitman's verses, to which the critic later called attention, that suggests resemblance to the great bards of the ages. In the 1860 edition of the "Leaves" appeared a collection of poems entitled "Chants Democratic and Native American." grouping was afterward abandoned and the "Chants" themselves scattered throughout the volume in more appropriate relative positions. The second of these was the one now called "The Song of the Broad-ax." Amid much that is superfluous, this chant fairly well represents the genius of our poet at its prime. Strong, elemental, grand, is the sweep of this chant, imaginative, retrospective and prophetic, fitly according with the suggestions of an implement that has been so important a factor in the history of progress. The assonance of the opening lines, by the way, shows how natural to our poet are the ordinary ornaments of English verse, and may serve as a hint of the struggle that it cost him to emancipate himself from the fetters of conventional meter. Weapon shapely, naked, wan, Gray-blue leaf by red heat grown, helve pro- As if ashamed of being betrayed into anything like metrical formalism in his opening, the author gives us in the body of the piece some of probably the most extraordinary lines that ever disfigured a serious "song." The poet considered them essential to his purpose, however, and without such. lines it would not be the representative song that it is. It is in the elemental grandeur of such poems as "Song of the Broad-ax," "Proud Music of the Storm," "Song of the Redwood Tree," "By Blue Ontario's Shore," "Song of the Open Road," and "Salut au Monde," that the poet's strength is shown. His simple graphic language is drawn from nature herself, from the sun, the air, the winds and storms, the oceans and the prairies. Life, death and man are his themes. Nature in all her rugged, uncouth charms is his mistress, and he can nothing in nature that is not pure, elevated and devoid of evil. It is not surprising that Thoreau was among the first to understand Whitman. There was a kinship of genius between the two, though in many respects so unlike. It must have been with a thrill of sympathetic pleasure that the author of "Walden" read in the "Song of Myself," see whispers through the "Leaves of Grass," is thoroughly genuine. In reading Whitman we do not feel that we are reading his impressions of nature, so much as the very words of nature herself. In a poem written in his old age he refers to the great bards and their achievements, stately and beautiful. "These!" he exclaims, These, O sea, all these I'd gladly barter, Would you the undulation of one wave, its trick to me transfer, Or breathe one breath of yours upon my verse, And leave its odor there. Our poet has never been accused of false modesty in judging his own work, but in this instance he has at least by implication, underestimated himself. As far as possible he has transferred to his pages not only the breath and odor of the sea, but the sighing of the breeze, the shadows of the forest, the impressiveness of the hills, the vastness of the rolling prairies, "the proud music of the storm," the glow of the "sun at noon refulgent," and the cooling airs of "tender and growing night." But under all the outward forms and signs of nature, is the deeper spiritual meaning which the poet alone can interpret. In the wonderful dirge beginning, "Out of the cradle endlessly rocking," the poet beautifully illustrates this power. The man, "yet by these tears a little boy again," is carried back in memory to the scenes of his childhood upon the shore of Paumanok, where "two feather'd guests from Alabama" came one May and built their nest. One of these birds disappears. The song of the survivor mourning his lost mate, is one of the sweetest and tenderest of threnodies. It shows how musical unrhymed and even unmetrical language may become under the hand of a master. This song awakens a thousand echoes in the boy's heart: Demon or bird! (said the boy's soul), Nevermore shall I escape, nevermore the reverberations, Nevermore the cries of unsatisfied love be absent from me, Never again leave me to be the peaceful child I was before what there in the night, By the sea under the yellow and sagging moon, The messenger there arous'd, the fire, the sweet hell within, The unknown want, the destiny of me. And the boy in the extremity of his sorrow calls upon the sea waves for the word final, superior to all: Whereto answering, the sea, Whisper'd me through the night, and very plainly before daybreak, Lisp'd to me the low and delicious word death. The closing passages naturally suggest Poe. In fact, a critical essay might be written on the points of likeness and difference between the two poets, the one of gloom, the other of joy, as exemplified in "The Raven," and this lyric of the mockingbird. Poe's messenger was a "bird or devil," bringing its tidings of utter despair. Whitman's was a "bird or demon" (the latter word being used in its primitive sense), and his message of death, as finally interpreted by the sea, inspires the listener with the courage and comfort of hope. But it Death has been a favorite topic among American_versifiers ever since the days of the early Puritans, though nothing worthy of note was produced on the subject until the appearance of "Thanatopsis." was reserved for Whitman to deal with it in a way that was at once genuine and unconventional. His attitude is entirely distinct from the austere serenity of Bryant, the abiding hope of Longfellow, the morbid intensity of Poe, the confiding trust of Whittier and the intellectual calm of Emerson. In spite of his frequently vague and disjointed utterances, Whitman inculcates a well-defined system of philosophy, strengthened and confirmed perhaps, but not originated by his study of the great German thinkers. Roaming in thought over the universe, as he says, he saw the "little that is good hastening toward Immortality," and the vast all that is called evil "hastening to merge itself and become lost and dead." He believed that everything has its appointed purpose, that each individual is an indispensable part of the universe. Excepting that in a certain sense evil "merges itself and becomes lost," there is no such thing as annihilation. In his cosmic economy there is a constant, continual progression; "there is no stoppage and can be no stoppage." Before the doctrine of evolution had received its present wide recognition, he sang the development of the human soul from "the huge first nothing." His songs of death and immortality are therefore of utmost significance as illustrating the poetic interpretations of modern scientific deductions. Progression and co-ordination, he insists, are the laws of the universe, and death is an advance upon life. I have dream'd that the purpose and essence of the known life, the transient, Is to form and decide identity for the unknown life, the permanent. Though the "quicksand years" may whirl schemes of life may fail, the self, the soul, him he knows not whither, and all the the final substance must remain. Death, the purport of all life," forms no exception to the rule that all things have been duly provided for. "I do not," he says, "think Life provides for all and for Time and Space, but I believe Heavenly Death pro vides for all." forever flowing, (Or is it the plashing of tears? the measureless waters of human tears?) universe" for life and joy, praise for "objects He utters his praise to the "fathomless and knowledge curious," and for love, but more than all for "the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death." To him death is "lovely and soothing," the "dark mother always gliding near with soft feet," the serenades, while he joyously sings of the dead "strong deliveress" to whom he sends glad Lost in the loving ocean of thee, And he refers to The night in silence under many a star, The ocean shore, and the husky whispering wave whose voice I know, And the soul turning to thee, O vast and wellveil'd death, And the body gratefully nestling close to thee. With the mystery of God he dares not dally. Nor is he "curious about God," in whom he believes more than does "any priest." Everywhere and in all objects he sees something of God. I find letters from God drop't in the street, and everyone is signed by God's name, And I leave them where they are, for I know that wheresoe'er I go, Others will punctually come forever and ever. Whitman's religious faith and love were as instinctive in him as filial affection. "No man has ever yet been half devout enough," he says, "None has yet adored or worshiped half enough." He had early asserted, I say the real and permanent grandeur of these As everything is of God, what we call evil, as one of the facts of existence, is as worthy of consideration as what we call good. This is a familiar doctrine, even in American literature. But though other poets have sung of the identity of good and evil, Whitman "takes up the task eternal, and the burden and the lesson" of life, death and immortality, and goes far beyond where "the elder races halted." With uncompromising audacity, he gives Satan himself an equal place on the "Square Deific" with the members of the Trinity. The meaning, of course, is apparent. Without the existence of an opposing, repelling force there would be no incentive to effort. As Cranch expresses it, Satan as the Prince of Evil is The shadow and reverse of God The type of mixed and interrupted good; The clod of sense, without whose earthly base, You spirit flowers can never grow and bloom. Though he nowhere seeks to penetrate the impenetrable, Whitman places no limitations the actions of the human soul. upon He sings in the "Song of Myself" (1855): I am an acme of things accomplish'd, and an incloser of things to be, My feet strike an apex of the apices of the stairs; On every step bunches of ages, and larger bunches between the steps; All below duly travel'd and still I mount and mount. Rise after rise bow the phantoms behind me; Afar down I see the huge first Nothing-I know I was even there; I waited unseen and always, and slept through the lethargic mist, And took my time, and took no hurt from the fetid carbon. Whitman was not the first to interpret poetically the teachings of modern science, but in the lines that follow the last quotation is the boldest recognition to be found in contemporary verse of the doctrine of evolution. Great scientific achievements, as represented at a New York exposition, or as typified in the opening of a new passage to India, appeal vividly to his imagination. The two poems suggested by those events are characteristic, the one as the chant of triumphant democracy, the other as the hymnal of humanity at large. As Whitman is greater as a cosmic than as a national poet, "Passage to India" is a nobler poem than his "Song of the Exposition." One section of the former well illustrates his command of picturesque language: Not you alone, proud truths of the world, Not you alone, ye facts of modern science, But myths and fables of eld, Asia's, Africa's The far-darting beams of the spirit, the unloos'd fables, dreams, The deep-diving Bibles and legends, O you fables spurning the known, eluding the hold of the known mounting to heaven! You lofty and dazzling towers, pinnacled, red as roses, burnish'd with gold! Towers of fables immortal fashion'd from mortal dreams, You too I welcome, and fully the same as the rest! You too with joy I sing. As there are no material obstacles that cannot be overcome by modern science, so there is no spiritual barrier before which the soul should shrink in fear or doubt. Passage indeed, O soul, to primal thought, ... Are thy wings plumed indeed for such far flights? O soul, voyagest thou indeed on voyages like those? Disportest thou on waters such as those? Passage to you, your shores, ye aged fierce enigmas! Passage to you, to mastership of you, ye strangling problems! You, strew'd with the wrecks of skeletons, that, living never reach'd you Sail forth-steer for the deep waters only, Reckless, O soul, exploring I with thee and thou with me, For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go, And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all. O farther, farther sail! O daring joy, but safe! Are they not all the seas of God? O farther, farther, farther sail! More than any other poet of recent times, Whitman resembles the rhapsodists of old. The great significance of our four years of storm and strife found in him an impassioned interpreter. With all the intensity of his vigorous nature, he partook of the prevalent spirit. He comprehended at once the terrible meaning of that uprising; the self-sacrifice, the American devotion to an idea, the supremity of loyalty above all other considerations. He stopped not to argue or convince. Believing the struggle to be inevitable, he hailed its approach as a harbinger of a stronger, more indissoluble union, and was one of the first to rejoice at its termination and to hold out the olive branch of reconciliation. In his humane ministrations to the sick and wounded, he recognized the hapless victims as Americans only, and many were the blessings breathed upon him from the lips of Confederate as well as Federal dying soldiers. From the "year that suddenly sang by the mouths of the round-lipp'd cannon," until the close of the war, his labors at home or in the hospitals, in camp or in field, never faltered. The thrilling exaltation, the stern determination, the sacrifices and martyrdoms, the public losses and private sufferings, in a word, what we call the "war spirit" of the time, has been caught and perpetuated in the collection of poems fitly entitled "Drumtaps." In these is evident a greater polish, but not less strength, than in his earlier chants. They were appropriately supplemented by his "Memories of President Lincoln."If Lowell has given us the best poetic characterization of our "martyr poetic chief," Whitman in his burial hymn of Lincoln, beginning, "When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd," has written the greatest of all dirges called out by the tragedies of the war. The period from 1861 to 1865 was an important one in the poet's as well as in the nation's life. Its experiences were necessary to the full development of his personality, his "self," and he appropriately includes them and their reminiscence as an essential element in his poem of humanity. To the question as to what constitutes the greatness of Whitman's poetry, it is impossible to give a categorical answer. Different readers receive quite contradictory impressions. To my own mind the poet's chief characteristic is his elemental grandeur, as already noted. Subordinate to this may be mentioned his robust imagination, his love of nature, his humanity, his spirituality, his profound optimism, his virile strength, his courage, faith and hope. He seems a universal rather than distinctively national poet. His greatest attributes have been shared by famous writers and thinkers before him, regardless of time or place. His attempts to transfer to his pages a reflection of his nation's material vastness has, it seems to me, proved a failure. His artificial formlessness has been successful only as a protest against an equally unnatural formalism, not as an example to be followed by others. His efforts to symbolize American life and aspirations resulted in depicting phases that for the most part were but fleeting and transitory. In one respect, however, his true Americanism happily manifests itself. This is his possession of the quality which he attributes to Lincoln |