Walt Whitman Yesterday and Today Part 4

Parna.s.sus' self is rough! Give thou the thought, The golden ore, the gems that few forget; In time the tinsel jewel will be wrought.

Stand thou alone, and fixed as destiny, An imaged G.o.d that lifts above all hate; Stand thou serene and satisfied with fate; Stand thou as stands the lightning-riven tree, That lords the cloven clouds of gray Yosemite.

Yea, lone, sad soul, thy heights must be thy home; Thou sweetest lover! love shall climb to thee Like incense curling some cathedral dome, From many distant vales. Yet thou shalt be, O grand, sweet singer, to the end alone.

But murmur not. The moon, the mighty spheres, Spin on alone through all the soundless years; Alone man comes on earth; he lives alone; Alone he turns to front the dark unknown.

--_Joaquin Miller_

I knew there was an old, white-bearded seer Who dwelt among the streets of Camden town; I had the volumes which his hand wrote down-- The living evidence we love to hear Of one who walks reproachless, without fear.

But when I saw that face, capped with its crown Of snow-white almond-buds, his high renown Faded to naught, and only did appear The calm old man, to whom his verses tell, All sounds were music, even as a child; And then the sudden knowledge on me fell, For all the hours his fancies had beguiled, No verse had shown the Poet half so well As when he looked into my face and smiled.

--_Linn Porter_

Friend Whitman! wert thou less serene and kind, Surely thou mightest (like the bard sublime), Scorned by a generation deaf and blind, Make thine appeal to the avenger TIME; For thou art none of those who upward climb, Gathering roses with a vacant mind.

Ne'er have thy hands for jaded triflers twined Sick flowers of rhetoric and weeds of rhyme.

Nay, thine hath been a Prophet's stormier fate.

While LINCOLN and the martyr'd legions wait In the yet widening blue of yonder sky, On the great strand below them thou art seen, Blessing, with something Christ-like in thy mien, A sea of turbulent lives, that break and die.

--_Robert Buchanan_

Darkness and death? Nay, Pioneer, for thee The day of deeper vision has begun; There is no darkness for the central sun Nor any death for immortality.

At last the song of all fair songs that be, At last the guerdon of a race well run, The upswelling joy to know the victory won, The river's rapture when it finds the sea.

Ah, thou art wrought in an heroic mould, The Modern Man upon whose brow yet stays A gleam of glory from the age of gold-- A diadem which all the G.o.ds have kissed.

Hail and farewell! Flower of the antique days, Democracy's divine protagonist.

--_Francis Howard Williams_

Tranquil as stars that unafraid Pursue their way through s.p.a.ce, Vital as light, unhoused as wind, Unloosed from time and place;

Solemn as birth, and sane as death, Thy bardic chantings move; Rugged as earth, and salt as sea, And bitter-sweet as love.

--_May Morgan_

One master poet royally her own, Begot of Freedom, bore our Western World: A poet, native as the dew impearl'd Upon her gra.s.s; a brother, thew and bone, To mountains wild, vast lakes and prairies lone; One, life and soul, akin to speech unfurl'd, And zeal of artisan, and song not curl'd In fronded forms, or petrified in tone.

High lat.i.tudes of thought gave breath to him; The paps he suck'd ran not false shame for milk; No b.a.s.t.a.r.d he! but virile truth in limb And soul. A t.i.tan mocking at the silk That bound the wings of song. A tongue of flame, Whose ashes gender an immortal name.

--_Joseph W. Chapman_

Thou lover of the cosmos vague and vast, In which thy virile mind would penetrate Unto the rus.h.i.+ng, primal springs of fate, Ruling alike the future, present, past: Now, having breasted waves beyond death's blast, New Neptune's steeds saluted, white and great, And entered through the glorious Golden Gate.

And gained the fair celestial sh.o.r.es at last, Still wors.h.i.+p'st thou the Ocean? thou that tried To comprehend its mental roar and surge, Its howling as of victory and its dirge For continents submerged by shock and tide.

By that immortal ocean now what cheer?

Do crews patrol and save the same as here?

--_Edward S. Creamer_

All hail to thee! WALT WHITMAN! Poet, Prophet, Priest!

Celebrant of Democracy! At more than regal feast To thee we offer homage, and with our greenest bay We crown thee Poet Laureate on this thy natal day.

We offer choice ascription--our loyal tribute bring, In this the new Olympiad in which thou reignest king.

POET of the present age, and of aeons yet to be, In this the chosen homestead of those who would be free-- Free from feudal usage, from courtly sham and cant; Free from kingcraft, priestcraft, with all their rot and rant!

PROPHET of a race redeemed from all conventual thrall, Espouser of equal s.e.xs.h.i.+p in body, soul, and all!

PRIEST of a ransom'd people, endued with clearer light; A newer dispensation for those of psychic sight.

We greet thee as our mentor, we meet thee as our friend, And to thy ministrations devotedly we lend The aid that comes from fealty which thou hast made so strong, Thro' touch of palm, and glint of eye, and spirit of thy song.

We magnify thy mission, we glorify thy aim, Unfalteringly adhered to through ill-report and blame-- The fretting of the groundlings, the fumings of the pit, The jibes and jeers and snarls and sneers which men mistake for wit.

We knew the rising splendor of thy sun could never wane Until, the earth encompa.s.s'd, it sank in dazzling flame.

In faith a.s.sured we waited as in patience thou didst wait, Knowing full well the answer must sooner come or late.

And come it has, sufficingly, the discord disappears Until today again is heard the music of the spheres Proclaiming thee the well-beloved, peer of the proudest peers.

--_Henry L. Bonsall_

He fell asleep when in the century's skies The paling stars proclaimed another day-- He, genial still, amidst the chill and gray, With smiling lips and trustful, dauntless eyes; He, the Columbus of a vast emprise, Whose realization in the future lay; He, who stepped from the well-worn, narrow way To walk with Poetry in larger guise.

And fortunate, despite of transient griefs, The years announce him in a new born age; The s.h.i.+p of his fair fame, past crags and reefs, Sails bravely on, and less and less the rage Of gainsaying winds becomes; while to his phrase The world each day gives ampler heed and praise!

--_William Struthers_

Here health we pledge you in one draught of song, Caught in this rhymster's cup from earth's delight, Where English fields are green the whole year long-- The wine of might, That the new-come spring distills, most sweet and strong, In the viewless air's alembic, that's wrought too fine for sight.

Good health! we pledge, that care may lightly sleep, And pain of age be gone for this one day, As of this loving cup you take, and, drinking deep, Are glad at heart straightway To feel once more the friendly heat of the sun Creative in you (as when in youth it shone), And pulsing brainward with the rhythmic wealth Of all the summer whose high minstrelsy Shall soon crown field and tree, To call back age to youth again, and pain to perfect health.

--_Ernest Rhys_

I loaf and invite my soul And what do I feel?

An influx of life from the great central power That generates beauty from seedling to flower.

I loaf and invite my soul And what do I hear?

Original harmonies piercing the din Of measureless tragedy, sorrow and sin.

I loaf and invite my soul And what do I see?

The temple of G.o.d in the perfected man.

Revealing the wisdom and end of earth's plan.

--_Elizabeth Porter Gould_

He pa.s.sed amid the noisy throngs, His elbow touched with theirs; They grumbled at their petty wrongs, Their woes and cares;

They asked if "Princeton stood to win"; Or what they should invest; They told with gusto and with grin Some futile jest.

They jostled him and pa.s.sed him by, Nor slacked their eager pace; They did not mark that n.o.ble eye, That n.o.ble face.

So carelessly they let him go, His mien they could not scan,-- Thinker whom all the world would know, Our greatest man.

_Max J. Herzberg_