Part 27

he demands of those who would create the art of America.

His poems abound in natural images and objects, but there is rarely a trace of the method and spirit of the so-called nature poets, some of whom bedeck Nature with jewelry and finery till we do not know her.

In one of his nature jottings, written in 1878 at his country retreat not far from Camden, New Jersey, he speaks thus of the emotional aspects and influences of Nature:

I too, like the rest, feel these modern tendencies (from all the prevailing intellections, literature, and poems) to turn everything to pathos, ennui, morbidity, dissatisfaction, death. Yet how clear it is to me that those are not the born results, influences of Nature at all, but of our own distorted, sick, or silly souls. Here amid this wide, free scene, how healthy, how joyous, how clean and vigorous and sweet!

I do not wonder that Whitman gave such a shock to the reading public sixty years ago. This return, in a sense, to aboriginal Nature, this sudden plunge into the great ocean of primal energies, this discarding of all ornamentation and studied external effects of polish and elaboration, gave the readers of poetry a chill from which they are not yet wholly recovered. The fireside, the library corner, the seat in the garden, the nook in the woods: each and all have their charm and their healing power, but do not look for them in Walt Whitman. Rather expect the mountain-tops, the surf-drenched beach, and the open prairies. A poet of the cosmos, fortified and emboldened by the tremendous discoveries and deductions of modern science, he takes the whole of Nature for his province and dominates it, is at home with it, affiliates with it through his towering personality and almost superhuman breadth of sympathy.

The egotism of Whitman was like the force of gravity, like the poise of the earth, the centrality of the orbs. Nothing could disturb it, no burden was too great for it to bear. He seemed always to have in mind the self-control and the insouciance of Nature. He would fain try himself by the self-balanced orbs. His imagination was fired by the undemonstrative earth; he would be as regardless of observation as it was. He was moved by the unsophisticated freshness of Nature. He saw that the elemental laws never apologized; he would emulate the level he planted his house by:

“these shows of the day and night, I will know if I am to be less than they are.”

He will not be outfaced by irrational things:

“I will see if I have no meanings, while the houses and ships have meanings, I will see if the fishes and birds are to be enough for themselves, and I not to be enough for myself. I match my spirit against yours, you orbs, growths, mountains, brutes. Copious as you are, I absorb you all in myself, and become the master myself.”

It is these cosmic and natural-universal standards to which Whitman appeals, that mark him off from all other poets or bards who have yet appeared, and which, I hope, justify me in singling him out and giving him a place in this volume.

THE END

The Riverside Press CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS U . S . A

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within the text and consultation of external sources.

Some hyphens in words have been silently removed, some added, when a predominant preference was found in the original book.

Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text, and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained.

Pg 182: ‘Java man of Du Bois’ replaced by ‘Java man of Dubois’.