After all I think it matters little whether we call him poet or not. Grant
that he is not a poet in the usual or technical sense, but poet-prophet,
or poet-seer, or all combined. He is a poet plus something else. It is
when he is judged less than poet, or no poet at all, that we feel
injustice is done him. Grant that his work is not art, that it does not
give off the perfume, the atmosphere of the highly wrought artistic works
like those of Tennyson, but of something quite different.
We have all been slow to see that his cherished ends were religious rather
than literary; that, over and above all else, he was a great religious
teacher and prophet. Had he been strictly a literary poet, like Lowell, or
Longfellow, or Tennyson,--that is, a writer working for purely artistic
effects,--we should be compelled to judge him quite differently.
"Leaves of Grass" is a gospel--glad tidings of great joy to those who are
prepared to receive it. Its final value lies in its direct, intense,
personal appeal; in what it did for Symonds, who said it made a man of
him; in what it did for Stevenson, who said it dispelled a thousand
illusions; in what it did for Mrs. Gilchrist, who said it enabled her to
find her own soul; in what it does for all earnest readers of it in
blending with the inmost current of their lives. Whitman is the life-giver
of our time. How shall a poet give us life but by making us share his
larger measure of life, his larger hope, his larger love, his larger
charity, his saner and wider outlook? What are the three great life-giving
principles? Can we name them better than St. Paul named them eighteen
hundred years ago,--faith, hope, charity? And these are the cornerstones
of Whitman's work,--a faith so broad and fervent that it accepts death as
joyously as life, and sees all things at last issue in spiritual results;
a hope that sees the golden age ahead of us, not behind us; and a charity
that balks at nothing, that makes him identify himself with offenders and
outlaws; a charity as great as his who said to the thief on the cross,
"This day thou shalt be with me in paradise."
To cry up faith, hope, and charity is not to make men partakers of them;
but to exemplify them in a survey of the whole problem of life, to make
them vital as hearing, or eyesight in a work of the imagination, to show
them as motives and impulses controlling all the rest, is to beget and
foster them in the mind of the beholder.
He is more and he is less than the best of the other poets. The popular,
the conventional poets are mainly occupied with the artistic side of
things,--with that which refines, solaces, beautifies. Whitman is mainly
occupied with the cosmic and universal side of things, and the human and
spiritual values that may be extracted from them. His poetry is not the
result of the same kind of selection and partiality as that we are more
familiar with.
Hence, while the message of Tennyson and his kind is the message of
beauty, the message of Whitman is, in a much fuller sense, the message of
life. He speaks the word of faith and power. This is his distinction; he
is the life-giver. Such a man comes that we may have life, and have it
more abundantly.
The message of beauty,--who would undervalue it? The least poet and
poetling lisps some word or syllable of it. The masters build its temples
and holy places. All own it, all receive it gladly. But the gospel of
life, there is danger that we shall not know it when we hear it. It is a
harsher and more heroic strain than the other. It calls no man to his
ease, or to be lulled and soothed. It is a summons and a challenge. It
lays rude, strong hands upon you. It filters and fibres your blood. It is
more of the frost, the rains, the winds, than of cushions or parlors.
The call of life is a call to battle always. We are stronger by the
strength of every obstacle or enemy overcome.
"Listen! I will be honest with you,
I do not offer the old smooth prizes, but offer rough new prizes,
These are the days that must happen to you:
"You shall not heap up what is called riches,
You shall scatter with lavish hand all that you earn or achieve;
You but arrive at the city to which you were destined--you hardly settle
yourself to satisfaction, before you are called by an irresistible
call to depart.
You shall be treated to the ironical smiles and mockings of those who
remain behind you;
What beckonings of love you receive, you shall only answer with
passionate kisses of parting,
You shall not allow the hold of those who spread their reached hands
toward you.
"Allons! After the GREAT COMPANIONS! and to belong to them!"