Walt Whitman, Poet and DemocratWilliam Brown, 1884 - 52 pages |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 6
Page 5
... doubt about his poetic quality is already half - disposed of . If there was a truth in Carlyle's favourite citation from Milton — that " he who would write a heroic poem must make his life a heroic poem " —it is surely still truer that ...
... doubt about his poetic quality is already half - disposed of . If there was a truth in Carlyle's favourite citation from Milton — that " he who would write a heroic poem must make his life a heroic poem " —it is surely still truer that ...
Page 15
... doubt - over most of the odd aspects of humanity , but who at length shrank from the aggressive tendencies developed by the humorous spirit . Whether the truth lies in that view or in Mr. Traill's subtly presented suggestion * that ...
... doubt - over most of the odd aspects of humanity , but who at length shrank from the aggressive tendencies developed by the humorous spirit . Whether the truth lies in that view or in Mr. Traill's subtly presented suggestion * that ...
Page 16
... doubt and gloom . A foreigner , an acute and good man , had impressively said to me , that day - putting in form , indeed , my own observations : ' I have travelled much in the United States , and watched their politicians , and ...
... doubt and gloom . A foreigner , an acute and good man , had impressively said to me , that day - putting in form , indeed , my own observations : ' I have travelled much in the United States , and watched their politicians , and ...
Page 19
... doubt about the country in its essential future since . " There is no arguing down this elemental force of faith ; and he must be well set on his feet who can stedfastly resist it , even with the prediction of Baron Jacobi in ...
... doubt about the country in its essential future since . " There is no arguing down this elemental force of faith ; and he must be well set on his feet who can stedfastly resist it , even with the prediction of Baron Jacobi in ...
Page 28
... doubt . All of us can feel something poetic in the concept of wine ; but what we think of is not so much Hochheimer ; it is a something from grapes , tasting of Flora and the country green — dance , and Provençal song , and sunburnt ...
... doubt . All of us can feel something poetic in the concept of wine ; but what we think of is not so much Hochheimer ; it is a something from grapes , tasting of Flora and the country green — dance , and Provençal song , and sunburnt ...
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
American appetite artistic barbarian beauty bird blank verse Browning Carlyle Carlyle's catalogues cedars century Children of Adam civilisation clear comic confess confidence cracies criticism culture Death Carol demand demo Democratic Vistas divine doctrine earth Eidolons Emerson English poetry essay expression faith fanaticism feeling future George Eliot HARVARD COLLEG heartily Hugo human humour idea inspired judgment labour Leaves of Grass less Lilac lines to Lucasta literary literature looking Lord Tennyson love of comrades lyric manners marriage modern poetry moral natural never night Number optimism optimist Paradise Lost passage passion perhaps pessimism Plato poems poetic pronounce prophet prose protest race reader reason rhyme rhythmic savans Secession Secession war seems sentence sing song soul speech star sung surely Tennyson Theism themes theory things thinker thought tion to-day verse Victor Hugo Vistas WALT WHITMAN writer
Popular passages
Page 40 - I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun, I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags. I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.
Page 40 - The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering. I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.
Page 38 - With the lustrous and drooping star with the countenance full of woe, With the holders holding my hand nearing the call of the bird, Comrades mine and I in the midst, and their memory ever to keep, for the dead I loved so well, For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands - and this for his dear sake, Lilac and star and bird...
Page 46 - Till the war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the battle flags were furl'd In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.
Page 38 - RECONCILIATION WORD over all, beautiful as the sky, Beautiful that war and all its deeds of carnage must in time be utterly lost, That the hands of the sisters Death and Night incessantly softly wash again, and ever again, this soil'd world ; For my enemy is dead, a man divine as myself is dead, I look where he lies white-faced and still in the coffin — I draw near, Bend down and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin.
Page 9 - When I pass to and fro, different latitudes, different seasons, beholding the crowds of the great cities, "New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Chicago, St Louis, San Francisco, New Orleans, Baltimore — when I mix with these interminable swarms of alert, turbulent, good-natured, independent citizens, mechanics, clerks, young persons — at the idea of this mass of men, so fresh and free, so loving and so proud, a singular awe falls upon me.
Page 13 - Their Presidents shall not be their common referee so much as, their poets shall.
Page 40 - I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
Page 36 - WHEN lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd, And the great star early droop'd in the western sky in the night, I mourn'd, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring. Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring, Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west, And thought of him I love.
Page 13 - Not swarming States, nor streets and steamships, nor prosperous business, nor farms, nor capital, nor learning, may suffice for the ideal of man — nor suffice the poet. No reminiscences may suffice either. A live nation can always cut a deep mark, and can have the best authority the cheapest — namely, from its own soul.