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a slight sigh, then turned back and went into his doze again. "Little he knew," the poet added, "poor, death-stricken boy, the heart of the stranger that hovered near. The mystic interpretation of some such incident is given in O Tan-Faced PrairieBoy :

You came, taciturn, with nothing to give we but look'd on each other,

When lo! more than all the gifts of the world you gave me.

The issues of the war to Whitman were many. His character was rounded full circle by devotional service. His knowledge of life was infinitely extended. He became the high priest of pain and the apostle of love. The war brought to maturity his large emotional nature, arousing, bringing out, and deciding undreamed of depths of affection. To his dying day he remembered the experience sweet and sad" that

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Many a soldier's loving arms about this neck have cross'd and rested,

Many a soldier's kiss dwells on these bearded lips.

He wished his name might be published as that of the tenderest lover. He sought friends who were not proud of his songs, but of the measureless ocean of love within him.

Beauty, knowledge, inure not to me -yet there are two or three things inure to me,

I have nourish'd the wounded and sooth'd many a dying soldier, And at intervals waiting or in the midst of camp,

Composed these songs.

Dearest comrades, all is over and long gone,

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Perfume from battle-fields rising, up from the fœtor arising.

Perfume therefore my chant, O love, immortal love,

Give me to bathe the memories of all dead soldiers,

Shroud them, embalm them, cover them all over with tender pride.

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Make these ashes to nourish and blossom,

O love, solve all, fructify all with the last chemistry.

Give me exhaustless, make me a fountain,

That I exhale love from me wherever I go like a moist perennial dew,

For the ashes of all dead soldiers South or North.

The war was his tutor in democracy. His "most fervent views of the true ensemble and extent of the States "were gained at this event. He studied Lincoln closely, and caught the deep though subtle and indirect expression of his face. He observed the heroism of soldiers marching to the front, returning from battle, dying on the field or in hospitals, displaying under all circumstances the utmost faith and fortitude, in life courageous, in death sublime. The people were tested, and personality put to proof. He became proud of the armies," the noblest that ever marched."

Race of veterans — race of victors!

Race of the soil, ready for conflict-race of the conquering march !

(No more credulity's race, abiding-temper'd race,)

Race henceforth owning no law but the law of itself,
Race of passion and the storm.

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The race was proven capable of making sacrifices for an ideal purpose. He perceived the new chivalry arising, the chivalry of comradeship. He saw that love lay latent in all hearts, and that a practical comradeship already existed among men. "In the hospitals," he wrote in 1863, among the American soldiers, East and West, North and South, I could not describe to you what mutual attachments, passing deep and tender. Some have died, but the love for them lives so long as I draw breath. The soldiers know how to love too, when once they have the right person. It is wonderful. You see I am running off into the clouds (perhaps my element)."

The war again was the occasion of his own physical prostration, the checking of his enormous vitality at its high tide. He said he volunteered as a nurse because he was so strong and well. But in 1864 the strain, emotional as well as physical, began to tell on him. In 1865 he suffered a temporary prostration, due to malaria and to blood-poisoning absorbed from gangrenous wounds. A slight paralytic attack occurred in 1870. In 1873 he was completely prostrated by paralysis, complicated by malaria and bloodpoisoning. He was brought to Camden, New Jersey, where he lived in retirement till the end, with spells of illness and returning

strength, never for any time freed from physical debility and the inertia of paralysis. The history of the war contains no nobler instance of sacrifice.

The war tested his religion and faith. He was able to give a practical demonstration of his principles of democracy by realizing concretely with thousands of men the joy of manly attachment. The war tried his sanity, his cheerfulness, his faith and optimism, his own essential goodness and charity. In all trials his life was a practical commentary on the book he was writing.

Lastly, the war supplied him with themes for the sweetest and purest of his poems, and incidents and thoughts for the most representative of his prose writings. The Drum-Taps and the poems on Lincoln, unique in their imaginative and spiritual suggestiveness, which contain perhaps the most thrilling summons to arms and at the same time the most deeply moving aspects of suffering and death ever presented in song, were published in 1865, the immediate output of the conflict. Democratic Vistas, his most considerable prose work, appeared in 1871, embodying the thoughts tha sprang from the emotions stirred by the sight of "warlike America rising and breaking chains." His Memoranda of the War, first published in 1875, but written from day to day on the spot of encounter in a vivid, short-hand, impressionistic style, contains the most thrilling and powerful descriptions of battle and hospital scenes that the war records afford. Poems and memoranda, written on odd scraps of paper and in blood-smutched note-books, breathe the very atmosphere of the moment and incident. lectively, these works completely identify the age of Lincoln, with its characteristic scenes, passions, ideas, and flame-like results. Finally, a new interpretation was given to life and the world, the "mystic army" and the "mighty bivouac-field and waiting-camp of all."

As I ponder'd in silence,

Returning upon my poems, considering, lingering long,

A Phantom arose before me with distrustful aspect,
Terrible in beauty, age, and power,

The genius of poets of old lands,

As to me directing like flame its eyes,

With finger pointing to many immortal songs,

And menacing voice, What singest thou? it said,

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Know'st thou not there is but one theme for ever-enduring bards? And that is the theme of War, the fortune of battles,

The making of perfect soldiers.

Be it so, then I answer'd,

I too haughty Shade also sing war, and a longer and greater one

than any,

Waged in my book with varying fortune, with flight, advance and retreat, victory deferr'd and wavering,

(Yet methinks certain, or as good as certain, at the last,) the field the world,

For life and death, for the Body and for the eternal Soul,

Lo, I too am come, chanting the chant of battles,

I above all promote brave soldiers.

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Presently O soldiers, we too camp in our place in the bivouaccamps of green,

But we need not provide for outposts, nor word for the countersign,

Nor drummer to beat the morning drum.

X

Summarizing at this point Whitman's historical relations, it may be said that he connects the two great eras of American history,— the era of independence centering in the Revolutionary War and the era of social union that concentrated in the Civil War; and he connects them with a completeness and integrity that can be presumed of no other American author. And he not only connects the eras historically, but he embodies their results in his own personality. As a child, he received the traditions of the Revolution from those who had participated in the struggle. These traditions related to independence, self-assertion, and pride. They constitute the first principle of a democratic philosophy and the first factor of its practical polity. Whitman himself was a sharer in the toils of the war for union. He became its chief singer, and was the leading spokesman of reconciliation. The second great principle of democracy is love, whose concrete form is federation and union. Leaves of Grass, having as its key-words pride and love, is the exact counterpart of American history thus far. Whitman is the genius of American nationality.

ΧΙ

In 1873, on the occasion of his illness, Whitman removed to Camden, where he continued to reside until his death. With this period no important outward event is associated. The poet, often

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solitary, harassed by pain, grew and ripened inwardly, associating with nature, men, and books. "I came to Camden to die," he said, "but every day I went into the country and naked bathed in sunshine, lived with the birds and squirrels, and played in the water with the fishes. I recovered my health from Nature strange how she carries us through periods of infirmity out into the realms of freedom and health. One of his favorite resorts was Timber Creek, near the Delaware, a place that provided him with "primitive solitudes, recluse and woody banks, sweet-feeding springs, and all the charms that birds, grass, wild-flowers, rabbits and squirrels, and old walnut trees can bring." A favorite spot of observation was the Camden ferry-boat, upon which he would cross and recross the Delaware, absorbed in the spectacle of the day and night. At times he suffered pain, neglect, poverty; but, for the most part, the last years of his life were spent in the enjoyment of kindly associations and in fruitful labor. Specimen Days gives abundant evidence of an inward happiness, even though circumstances often combined against his serenity.

After surmounting three-score and ten,

With all their chances, changes, losses, sorrows,

My parents' death, the vagaries of my life, the many tearing passions of me, the war of '63 and '4,

As some old broken soldier, after a long, hot, wearying march, or haply after battle,

To-day at twilight, hobbling, answering company roll-call, Here, with vital voice,

Reporting yet, saluting yet, the Officer over all.

XII

It is a commonplace observation that Leaves of Grass abstracts a reader from parlors and libraries, but aims to bring him into the region of his own self-activity, in league with the great companions out of doors. The book contains a personality, and is freighted only to a very slight degree with the lore of libraries. Probably not a single learned or bookish allusion is to be found in the whole of Leaves of Grass. It would be a mistake, however, to conclude that Whitman was himself unacquainted with books. He imposed upon his readers by the assumption of his workmen's dress and his hostility to the conventional forms of culture, while pleading for the dignity of the simple man and the value of the culture of life. As a matter of fact, countless books went to the making of

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