Walt Whitman, Poet and DemocratWilliam Brown, 1884 - 52 pages |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 5
Page 13
... carried with a confidence that no adversity will dash . And how Whitman's confidence rays out from his first page ! Other poets have sung democracy in moments of expansion , or when goaded by the sight of war and depression he alone ...
... carried with a confidence that no adversity will dash . And how Whitman's confidence rays out from his first page ! Other poets have sung democracy in moments of expansion , or when goaded by the sight of war and depression he alone ...
Page 17
... carried the day in a majority of the Northern States - in the large cities , leading off with New York and Philadelphia , by tremendous majorities . The events of '61 amazed everybody North and South , and burst all prophecies and ...
... carried the day in a majority of the Northern States - in the large cities , leading off with New York and Philadelphia , by tremendous majorities . The events of '61 amazed everybody North and South , and burst all prophecies and ...
Page 23
... carried out , would work extensive changes in social relations . People profess to believe in evolution , yet treat every new speculation as less an error than a crime . At least let Whitman , his morals in other respects being granted ...
... carried out , would work extensive changes in social relations . People profess to believe in evolution , yet treat every new speculation as less an error than a crime . At least let Whitman , his morals in other respects being granted ...
Page 24
... carrying the war into the enemy's country , refreshingly parodied of late in Mr. Swinburne's attacks on Carlyle , but no one can pronounce the " memorandum at a venture " other than the dignified deliverance of a high - minded man , who ...
... carrying the war into the enemy's country , refreshingly parodied of late in Mr. Swinburne's attacks on Carlyle , but no one can pronounce the " memorandum at a venture " other than the dignified deliverance of a high - minded man , who ...
Page 47
... carry the discussion further . Whitman has himself indicated one answer in his general preface : " Human thought , poetry or melody , must leave dim escapes and outlets - must possess a certain fluid , ærial character ; akin to space ...
... carry the discussion further . Whitman has himself indicated one answer in his general preface : " Human thought , poetry or melody , must leave dim escapes and outlets - must possess a certain fluid , ærial character ; akin to space ...
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 Emerson English poetry essay expression faith fanaticism feeling future George Eliot heartily Hugo human humour idea inspired judgment labour Leaves of Grass less Lilac 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 question race reader reason rhyme rhythmic savans Secession Secession war seems sentence Shakespeare sing song soul speech star sung surely Tennyson Theism themes theory things thinker thought tion to-day verdict on Whitman verse Victor Hugo Vistas WALT WHITMAN writer
Popular passages
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 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 - 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 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 18 - Confess that to severe eyes, using the moral microscope upon humanity, a sort of dry and flat Sahara appears, these cities, crowded with petty grotesques, malformations, phantoms, playing meaningless antics. Confess that everywhere, in shop, street, church, theatre, barroom, official chair, are pervading flippancy and vulgarity, low cunning, infidelity...
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 9 - But always, instead, a parcel of dandies and ennuyees, dapper little gentlemen from abroad, who flood us with their thin sentiment of parlors, parasols, piano-songs, tinkling rhymes, the five-hundredth importation — or whimpering and crying about something, chasing one aborted conceit after another, and forever occupied in dyspeptic amours with dyspeptic women.
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.