"_Says indifferently and alike 'How are you, friend?' to the President
at his levee, And he says 'Good-day, my brother,' to Cudge that hoes in
the sugar-field_."
Long ago, when the politicians were wrong, when the judges were
subservient, when the pulpit was a coward, Walt Whitman shouted:
"_Man shall not hold property in man._"
"_The least develop'd person on earth is just as important and sacred
to himself or herself as the most develop'd person is to himself or
herself._"
This is the very soul of true democracy.
Beauty is not all there is of poetry. It must contain the truth. It is
not simply an oak, rude and grand, neither is it simply a vine. It is
both. Around the oak of truth runs the vine of beauty.
Walt Whitman utters the elemental truths and is the poet of democracy.
He is also the poet of individuality.