Walt Whitman Part 2

And he has also told us that the greatest city--the greatest nation--is "where the citizen is always the head and ideal."

And that

A great city is that which has the greatest men and women, If it be a few ragged huts it is still the greatest city in the whole world.

By this test maybe the greatest city on the continent to-night is Camden.

This poet has asked of us this question:

What do you suppose will satisfy the soul, except to walk free and own no superior?

The man who asks this question has left no impress of his lips in the dust, and has no dirt upon his knees.

He was great enough to say:

The soul has that measureless pride which revolts from every lesson but its own.

He carries the idea of individuality to its utmost hight:

What do you suppose I would intimate to you in a hundred ways, but that man or woman is as good as G.o.d?

And that there is no G.o.d any more divine than Yourself?

Glorying in individuality, in the freedom of the soul, he cries out:

O to struggle against great odds, to meet enemies undaunted!

To be entirely alone with them, to find how much one can stand!

To look strife, torture, prison, popular odium, face to face!

To mount the scaffold, to advance to the muzzles of guns with perfect nonchalance!

To be indeed a G.o.d!

And again;

O the joy of a manly self-hood!

To be servile to none, to defer to none, not to any tyrant known or unknown, To walk with erect carriage, a step springy and elastic, To look with calm gaze or with a flas.h.i.+ng eye, To speak with full and sonorous voice out of a broad chest.

To confront with your personality all the other personalities of the earth.

Walt Whitman is willing to stand alone. He is sufficient unto himself, and he says:

Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune.

Strong and content I travel the open road.

He is one of

Those that look carelessly in the faces of Presidents and Governors, as to say "Who are you?"

And not only this, but he has the courage to say: "Nothing, not G.o.d, is greater to one than one's self."

Walt Whitman is the poet of Individuality--the defender of the rights of each for the sake of all--and his sympathies are as wide as the world. He is the defender of the whole race.

VI.

HUMANITY.

The great poet is intensely human--infinitely sympathetic--entering into the joys and griefs of others, bearing their burdens, knowing their sorrows. Brain without heart is not much; they must act together. When the respectable people of the North, the rich, the successful, were willing to carry out the Fugitive Slave law, Walt Whitman said:

I am the hounded slave, I wince at the bite of the dogs, h.e.l.l and despair are upon me, crack and again crack the marksmen, I clutch the rails of the fence, my gore dribs, thinn'd with the ooze of my skin, I fall on the weeds and stones, The riders spur their unwilling horses, haul close, Taunt my dizzy ears, and beat me violently over the head with whip-stocks.

Agonies are one of my changes of garments, I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the wounded person....

I ... see myself in prison shaped like another man, And feel the dull unintermitted pain.

For me the keepers of convicts shoulder their carbines and keep watch, It is I let out in the morning and barr'd at night.

Not a mutineer walks handcuff'd to jail but I am handcuff'd to him and walk by his side.

Judge not as the judge judges, but as the sun falling upon a helpless thing.

Of the very worst he had the infinite tenderness to say: "Not until the sun excludes you will I exclude you."

In this age of greed when houses and lands, and stocks and bonds, outrank human life; when gold is more of value than blood, these words should be read by all:

When the psalm sings instead of the singer, When the script preaches instead of the preacher, When the pulpit descends and goes instead of the carver that carved the supporting desk.

When I can touch the body of books by night or day, and when they touch my body back again, When a university course convinces like a slumbering woman and child convince, When the minted gold in the vault smiles like the night-watchman's daughter, When warrantee deeds loafe in chairs opposite and are my friendly companions, I intend to reach them my hand, and make as much of them as I do of men and women like you.

VII.

The poet is also a painter, a sculptor--he, too, deals in form and color. The great poet is of necessity a great artist. With a few words he creates pictures, filling his canvas with living men and women--with those who feel and speak. Have you ever read the account of the stage-driver's funeral? Let me read it:

Cold dash of waves at the ferry-wharf, posh and ice in the river, half-frozen mud in the streets, A gray discouraged sky overhead, the short last daylight of December, A hea.r.s.e and stages, the funeral of an old Broadway stage-driver, the cortege mostly drivers.

Steady the trot to the cemetery, duly rattles the death-bell, The gate is pa.s.s'd, the new-dug grave is halted at, the living alight, the hea.r.s.e uncloses, The coffin is pa.s.s'd out, lower'd and settled, the whip is laid on the coffin, the earth is swiftly shovel'd in, The mound above is flatted with the spades--silence, A minute--no one moves or speaks--it is done, He is decently put away--is there any thing more?

He was a good fellow, free-mouth'd, quick-temper'd, not bad-looking, Ready with life or death for a friend, fond of women, gambled, ate hearty, drank hearty, Had known what it was to be flush, grew low-spirited toward the last, sicken'd, was helped by a contribution, Died, aged forty-one years--and that was his funeral.