"I wish you'd come oftener--I see you so seldom, lad," said the old man,
half-plaintively.
I did not explain that we had never met before--that I had come from New
York purposely to see him. He thought he knew me. And so he did--as much
as I could impart. The rest was irrelevant. As to my occupation or name,
what booted it!--he had no curiosity concerning me. I grasped his
outstretched hand in both of my own.
He said not a word; neither did I.
I turned and made my way to the ferry--past the whispering lovers on the
doorsteps, and over the railway-tracks where the noisy engines puffed. As
I walked on board the boat, the wind blew up cool and fresh from the
West. The star in the East grew brighter, and other stars came out,
reflecting themselves like gems in the dark blue of the Delaware.
There was a soft sublimity in the sound of the bells that came echoing
over the waters. My heart was very full, for I had felt the thrill of
being in the presence of a great and loving soul.
It was the first time and the last that I ever saw Walt Whitman.
* * * * *
A good many writers bear no message: they carry no torch.
Sometimes they excite wonder, or they amuse and divert--divert us from
our work. To be diverted to a certain degree may be well, but there is a
point where earth ends and cloud-land begins, and even great poets
occasionally befog the things they would reveal.
Homer was seemingly blind to much simple truth; Vergil carries you away
from earth; Horace was undone without his Mæcenas; Dante makes you an
exile; Shakespeare was singularly silent concerning the doubts,
difficulties and common lives of common people; Byron's corsair life does
not help you in your toil, and in his fight with English Bards and Scotch
Reviewers we crave neutrality; to be caught in the meshes of Pope's
"Dunciad" is not pleasant; and Lowell's "Fable for Critics" is only
another "Dunciad." But above all other poets who have ever lived, the
author of "Leaves of Grass" was the poet of humanity.
Milton knew all about Heaven, and Dante conducts us through Hell, but it
was left for Whitman to show us Earth. His voice never goes so high that
it breaks into an impotent falsetto, neither does it growl and snarl at
things it does not understand and not understanding does not like. He was
so great that he had no envy, and his insight was so sure that he had no
prejudice. He never boasted that he was higher, nor claimed to be less
than any of the other sons of men. He met all on terms of absolute
equality, mixing with the poor, the lowly, the fallen, the oppressed, the
cultured, the rich--simply as brother with brother. And when he said to
an outcast, "Not till the sun excludes you will I exclude you," he voiced
a sentiment worthy of a god.
He was brother to the elements, the mountains, the seas, the clouds, the
sky. He loved them all and partook of them all in his large, free,
unselfish, untrammeled nature. His heart knew no limits, and feeling his
feet mortised in granite and his footsteps tenoned in infinity he knew
the amplitude of time.
Only the great are generous; only the strong are forgiving. Like Lot's
wife, most poets look back over their shoulders; and those who are not
looking backward insist that we shall look into the future, and the vast
majority of the whole scribbling rabble accept the precept, "Man never
is, but always to be blest."
We grieve for childhood's happy days, and long for sweet rest in Heaven
and sigh for mansions in the skies. And the people about us seem so
indifferent, and our friends so lukewarm; and really no one understands
us, and our environment queers our budding spirituality, and the frost of
jealousy nips our aspirations: "O Paradise, O Paradise, the world is
growing old; who would not be at rest and free where love is never cold."
So sing the fearsome dyspeptics of the stylus. O anemic he, you bloodless
she, nipping at crackers, sipping at tea, why not consider that, although
evolutionists tell us where we came from, and theologians inform us
where we are going to, yet the only thing we are really sure of is that
we are here!
The present is the perpetually moving spot where history ends and
prophecy begins. It is our only possession: the past we reach through
lapsing memory, halting recollection, hearsay and belief; we pierce the
future by wistful faith or anxious hope; but the present is beneath our
feet.
Whitman sings the beauty and the glory of the present. He rebukes our
groans and sighs--bids us look about on every side at the wonders of
creation, and at the miracles within our grasp. He lifts us up, restores
us to our own, introduces us to man and to Nature, and thus infuses into
us courage, manly pride, self-reliance, and the strong faith that comes
when we feel our kinship with God.
He was so mixed with the universe that his voice took on the sway of
elemental integrity and candor. Absolutely honest, this man was unafraid
and unashamed, for Nature has neither apprehension, shame nor vainglory.
In "Leaves of Grass" Whitman speaks as all men have ever spoken who
believe in God and in themselves--oracular, without apology or
abasement--fearlessly. He tells of the powers and mysteries that pervade
and guide all life, all death, all purpose. His work is masculine, as the
sun is masculine; for the Prophetic Voice is as surely masculine as the
lullaby and lyric cry are feminine.
Whitman brings the warmth of the sun to the buds of the heart, so that
they open and bring forth form, color, perfume. He becomes for them
aliment and dew; so these buds become blossoms, fruits, tall branches and
stately trees that cast refreshing shadows.
There are men who are to other men as the shadow of a mighty rock in a
weary land--such is Walt Whitman.