unwelcome, of a new world; on whether we really believe that the old forms are exhausted; on whether we can say with him 66 Away with old romance ! Away with novels, plots, and plays of foreign courts; Away with love-verses sugar'd in rhyme, the intrigues, amours of idlers," And can also "Raise a voice for far superber themes, for poets and for art, To exalt the present and the real, To teach the average man the glory of his daily walk and trade."1 Here is the ultimate ground of judgment on Whitman's verse; here is the ultimate test which will decide whether he is welcomed or repulsed. Do we long for a larger, deeper life, for a richer experience, no matter how bought? Have we courage enough to quit the shallows for the deep blue? Shall we be content to "glance, and nod, and bustle by," pleased with the gay show, cynically amused by the "pickleherring farce-tragedy," satisfied to be polite and suave, and to skim gracefully the surface of things? Or must we dive down to the tangled roots beneath the ocean floor, penetrate beyond the external show, search eagerly for hidden meanings and subtle suggestions? Do we care supremely for the soul of man, 1 "Song of the Exposition," Leaves of Grass, p. 162, do we readily concede to others that which we claim for ourselves, have we faith in our fellowmen, and in the order of which humanity is a part? Or if not, at least do we desire it, do we reach out with longing for it, do we feel that all else may well be given for this pearl of great price? Whitman's writings are, it may be said, like olives, an acquired taste. But there are some tastes never acquired by some people. And the sleek, respectable, well-fed hosts of Philistia will never probably acquire a taste for the "good, gray poet; " not because of his singular versification, nor his alleged indecencies, nor his absence of the cultivated academic spirit. No; they will dislike him because he is unconventional, uncomfortable, because he makes them ill at ease, because, like Madame Pistol (cidevant Quickly), they hope there is "no need to trouble" themselves with any great thoughts while on an easy path to "Arthur's bosom." 'The household of Podsnap is as fearful of Whitman's glorious audacities as a nervous invalid would be of taking a morning gallop on a thoroughbred. And the Podsnap household is not a small one; it may die out, but it will not be yet. But those whose hearts are stout and daring, whose imagination dilates with wonderment at this great and awful, but splendid mystery in which we are enfolded, whose affections go forth to all the sons and daughters of men, who with all the strength and sincerity of their nature desire fraternity and justice, as they desire personal good for themselves, who are determined to bow to no idols however venerable, but to stand up on their own feet, and confront whatever destiny may bring these will love Whitman. For they will nestle gratefully in these Leaves of Grass, while the viewless air passes over them, and the golden sunshine bathes them in its life-giving waves. For these elect "In certainties now crown themselves assur'd, But even they are but the forerunners. Whitman has no hortus inclusus, no aristocratic paradise. In the endless cycles all will arrive; and upon the first-comers merely lies the duty of helping on the rest. IV. HIS DEMOCRACY. WHITMAN aspires to be even more than America's bard he is the voice of modern democracy. As Virgil uttered his "Arma virumque cano," so does Whitman tell us his theme: "Of Life immense in passion, pulse and power, Cheerful, for freest action form'd under the laws divine, 'The Modern Man I sing." 1 When the phantom of past poetry suggested to him that the theme of the old poets was war, he replies that he sings also of war, but "a larger and greater than any; the field the world, for life and death, for the Body and for the Eternal Soul." To foreign lands who ask him "to define America, her athletic Democracy," he sends his poems that they may discover what it is they want. This is how the Leaves of Grass open to the beholder; the purport and intention of the poet's task is avowed. It is not America only of whom he writes, but of Modern Man, as he is being moulded everywhere by the spirit that first arose and had the fullest, freest scope on the American continent. Whitman therefore sings of the Modern Man as workman, friend, citizen, as husband, 1 "Inscriptions." Leaves of Grass, p. 9. 79 brother, comrade, as pioneer of a new social order, as both material and spiritual, final and most subtle compound of spirit and nature, firmly planted on this rolling earth, and yet "moving about in worlds not realised." The message is as truly for Europe as for America. As representative democratic bard, Whit man exhibits complete freedom from conventionality, a very deep human love, hope for all, faith in the rationality of the world, courage, energy, and the instinct of solidarity. He may be said to begin with the epic of the modern world, in its shirt-sleeves, ploughing and mining, building and weaving, propelling its engines over prairies and mountains, across great rivers and through vast, stormy cities, and steering its gigantic steamers over waters of which Ulysses never dreamed. It is the world of "Titanic forces taking birth,' of strenuous, healthy, defiant, democratic masses; the modern world, in short, as it really is, or is becoming. And from this great plain of physical action the poet ascends to mystic, dimlyguessed spiritual spheres, whence he seems to discern unending progress, till the universe itself appears one vast conscious whole, informed with the spirit of love, and justifying in its ever-ripening issues all the long past of man's painful path from the lower forms of nature to an expanding being utterly beyond our present imagination to conceive. The general course of things is now tending towards a new type of life and to a new attitude of the individual towards the world. All lines seem to be converging towards a new point in the distant horizon. |