WALT WHITMAN (1819-1892) In point of time Whitman belonged to the mid-century group: he was born the same year as Lowell and he issued his first edition of Leaves of Grass as early as 1855, but in spirit and in influence he was wholly of the later period. He was born on Long Island of a family that had been farmers there for generations, but removed early to Brooklyn where until the age of thirteen he attended the city schools. He then found employment at various occupations, among the rest school teaching and house-building and printing office work. At thirty he was editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, but his restless individualism could not long be tied to such slavery. He heard of promising editorial work in New Orleans, made a leisurely excursion thither by way of the Ohio and the Mississippi and remained there for several months. Again in New York. he lived a Bohemian life, supporting himself in various ways, and suddenly in 1855 he put forth, seemingly by a spontaneous impulse, his—as we see it to-day — revolutionary volume of poems. He issued it again with many changes and additions in 1856 and 1860. In 1862 he went to the front to nurse his brother who had been wounded, but finding him in no serious condition, turned to the nursing of others, remaining in the service until near the close of the war. Returning with broken health, he published Drum-Taps, 1866, and later editions of his work in 1867, 1872, 1876, 1881, 1888 and 1891. He suffered a paralytic stroke in 1873, but though much crippled, was able to move about almost to the time of his death at the age of seventy-three. The last years of his life he spent at Camden, New Jersey. It was not until 1865 that Whitman made any impression as a poet. Emerson had greeted the first Leaves of Grass as a revolutionary book, but few seem to have agreed with him. Then had come the tumult of the war and the episode of Leaves of Grass was forgotten. When, however, in 1865 Whitman was discharged from a minor position in the Interior Department at Washington because he was the author of an indecent book,' his friends started a clamor that was heard at length all over the nation. Drum-Taps, 1866, was thus advertised. English critics began to speak, some in superlatives, and gradually Whitman was recognized as something distinctively American, something forceful and compelling, until during the last decade of his life he became an object for pilgrimage, a recognized bard, the poetic voice of Democracy. Criticism of Whitman must recognize always the fact that there were two distinct periods in the poet's life, the period of youth and the period of age. There was no middle-age period. Before the war his poetry centered in the physical: after the war in the spiritual. In the first three editions of Leaves of Grass there is the lawlessness and the exuberance and the physical urge of healthy young life: in the later work, after experience in the hospitals and after the chastening of physical break-down, there is the new view-point of the soul. The Americanism of Whitman is the gospel of equality pressed to the extreme, the measure of men by soul-power rather than by wealth or station, the doctrine of the French Revolution with the emphasis upon 'fraternity. Finally there is a largeness of view to his work that bounds his America only by the boundless soul of man: he is the poet of the primal and the free-aired regions, of the boundless, and the eternal. EUROPE 1 The 72d and 73d Years of These States Suddenly out of its stale and drowsy lair, the lair of slaves, Like lightning it le'pt forth half startled at itself, Its feet upon the ashes and the rags, its hands tight to the throats of kings. O hope and faith! O aching close of exiled patriots' lives! O many a sicken'd heart! Turn back unto this day and make yourselves afresh. 1 The selections from Walt Whitman in the following collection have been made with the permission of Horace Traubel, owner of the copyright. And you, paid to defile the People—you liars, mark! Not for numberless agonies, murders, lusts, For court thieving in its manifold mean forms, worming from his simplicity the poor man's wages, For many a promise sworn by royal lips and broken and laugh'd at in the breaking, 10 Then in their power not for all these did the blows strike revenge, or the heads of the nobles fall; The People scorn'd the ferocity of kings. But the sweetness of mercy brew'd bitter destruction, and the frighten'd monarchs come back, Each comes in state with his train, hangman, priest, tax-gatherer, Soldier, lawyer, lord, jailer, and sycophant. Yet behind all lowering stealing, lo, a shape, 15 Vague as the night, draped interminably, head, front and form, in scarlet folds, 20 Out of its robes only this, the red robes lifted by the arm, One finger crook'd pointed high over the top, like the head of a snake appears. Meanwhile corpses lie in new-made graves, bloody corpses of young men, The rope of the gibbet hangs heavily, the bullets of princes are flying, the creatures of power laugh aloud, And all these things bear fruits, and they are good. 25 Those corpses of young men, Those martyrs that hang from the gibbets, those hearts pierc'd by the gray lead, They live in brothers again ready to defy you, 30 They live in other young men O kings! They were purified by death, they were taught and exalted. Not a grave of the murder'd for freedom but grows seed for freedom, in its turn to bear seed, Which the winds carry afar and re-sow, and the rains and the snows nourish. Not a disembodied spirit can the weapons of tyrants let loose, But it stalks invisibly over the earth, whispering, counseling, cautioning. Is the house shut? is the master away? 35 FRANCE From Leaves of Grass, 1855. A great year and place, The 18th Year of these States A harsh discordant natal scream out-sounding, to touch the mother's heart closer than any yet. I walk'd the shores of my Eastern sea, Heard over the waves the little voice, Saw the divine infant where she woke mournfully wailing, amid the roar of cannon, curses, shouts, crash of falling buildings, 5 |