XXXVII

When he died, Punch thus expressed what may well be deemed the fair judgment of his fellows:

WALT WHITMAN

The good gray poet" gone! Brave, hopeful Walt ! He might not be a singer without fault,

And his large, rough-hewn rhythm did not chime
With dulcent daintiness of time and rhyme.
He was no neater than wide Nature's wild,
More metrical than sea winds. Culture's child,
Lapped in luxurious laws of line and lilt,

Shrank from him shuddering, who was roughly built

As cyclopean temples. Yet there rang

True music through his rhapsodies, as he sang
Of brotherhood, and freedom, love and hope,
With strong, wide sympathy which dared to cope
With all life's phases, and call nought unclean.
Whilst hearts are generous, and whilst woods are

green.

He shall find hearers, who, in a slack time

Of puny bards and pessimistic rhyme,
Dared to bid men adventure and rejoice.
His "yawp barbaric" was a human voice;
The singer was a man. America

Is poorer by a stalwart soul to-day,

And may feel pride that she hath given birth
To this stout laureate of old Mother Earth.

1 Leaves of Grass. 12:456. New York, 1860.

2 Poems of Walt Whitman, selected and edited by William Michael Rossetti. 16:403. London, 1868.

3 Specimen Days and Collect, by Walt Whitman. 12:374. Philadelphia, 1882-3.

4 In re Walt Whitman, edited by his literary executors, Horace L. Traubel, Robert Maurice Bucke, and Thomas B. Harned. 8:452. Philadelphia, 1893.

5 Whitman. A Study by John Burroughs. 16:268, Boston, 1896.

6 Poets of America, by Edmund Clarence Stedman. 12:536. Boston, 1897.

7 Walt Whitman, The Critic, April 2, 1891.

8 Day with Walt Whitman, New York World, Nov. 8, '91. 9 Beloved Walt Whitman, New York World, Oct. 6, 1890. 10 Walt Whitman and the Poetry of the Future, E. P. M. in New York Sun, Nov. 19, 1892.

11 Walt Whitman's Autobiography, New York Herald, June 1, 1889.

18 Walt Whitman, the Man. By Thomas Donaldson, New York, 1897.

Harriet Beecher Stowe