Feinberg/Whitman Literary File Poetry File Proud Music of the Sea-Storm (1869). Proof Sheets. Feinberg/Whitman Literary File Poetry File Proud Music of the Sea-Storm (1869) (Oversz 4-13) Proof Sheets 28Proud Music of the Sea Storm 1869 Proof Sheet First printed in Atlantic Monthly. W.W. Draft Letter to Emerson who placed it with James T. Fields. Paid $30. Letter and cheque in Feinberg Collection.[*1209 SEE 494*] 1881 Spirit That Form'd This Scene: worksheets, A.MS.(3p. 23 x 20, 20 1/2 x 18, 16 1/2 x 19 cm.) Written in ink, with a few changes and most of last page in pencil, on sheets made by pasting together (some on top) 6 pieces cut from larger sheets (p. 1), 5 strips pasted on a sheet of stationery (p. 2), and a rougher piece which seems taken from a pad, 179, 114, 73= 366 words [1] Starry Night 528 [? fashion's these] Spirit that form'd this scene. [Lines] Written [on Kenosha Summit, after traversing] in Platt Canon, Colorado. [? fashion'd these] Spirit that form's this scene, These [formless] lawless tumbled, [useless][roseate] rock-piles [gray][and] bare and red [and sad], (Not placid meadows, gardens, graded plougher's fields- but for a reckless different abundant special purports of thine own,) [over]1210 limitless in far-receding silent vistas These lawless heaven-ambitious peaks, primitive These gorges, turbulent, clear streams--this savage [This listless] These freshness [lawless] formless wild arrays, for reasons of their own, [own he] I know thee, savage spirit--we [we] have communed together, Mine too [the] such wild arrays, [for] [with] for reason[s] of of [its] their own, Was't charged against my chants they had forgotten art? To fuse within themselves its [laws] rules [proportions] precise, [its] and, delica- tess? The [dulcet] [singers] lyrist's measur'd beat--the wrought-out temple's [polish'd] grace--column polish'd [regular] and [finish'd] arch forget? But thou that revelest here--[spirit] spirit that th [fashion'd these] form'd this scene, [They] They [I] have remembered thee. [more][*1211*] Spirit That Form'd This Scene: 2 [*[2]*] a 1881 Spirit that form'd this Scene (Lines written on Kenosha summit, after passing through Platt Canon Colorado) form'd this scene Spirit the xxxxxxx --these [matted] rock-piles gray and sad, These [said] lawless heaven-aspiring peaks gorges, running streams--this [This] That savage freshness, [and these gorges] to emulate [work unusable here] This wild array for reasons of thine own [And] X Not [fruit] roses, [nor go] [wheat] meadows nor plougher' fields, yet for this wilful purport Tis charged (and may be true) I have forgotten Art [*These*] [*[over]*]1212 Nor laws and [To] fused within my chants its delicatess; But thou that revelest [in thine own alone] here--spirit, [Spirit] that lurkist invisible here, I have remember'd thee [3] a forgotten Form The arch, the linel column, [linl] [?] [gras] the wrought-out temple, To fust within [my songs] themselves art's grace and delicatesse [To] The wrought-out temples' carefully measured grace -- column and studied arch, [T To fuse within my songs art's] [grace and] [I too have] know thee, savage-- [not here alone the] spirit [I too have] - mine too a [mine too a] wild array thine [for reasons, of mine own]PROUND MUSIC OF THE SEA-STORM. BY WALT WHITMAN. 1. PROUD music of the sea-storm! Blast that careers so free, whistling across the prairies! Strong hum of forest tree-tops! Wind of the mountains! Personified dim shapes! you hidden orchestras! You serenades of phantoms, with instruments alert, Blending, with Nature's rhythmus, all the tongues of nations; You chords left as by vast composers! you choruses! You formless, free, religious dances! you from the Orient! You undertone of rippling waters, rivers, pouring cataracts; You sounds from distant guns, with galloping cavalry! Echos of camps, with all the different bugle-calls! Trooping tumultuous, filling the midnight late, bending me powerless, Entering my lonesome slumber chamber - Why have you seized me? 2. Come forward, O my Soul, and let the rest retire; Listen - lose not - it is toward thee they tend; Parting the midnight, entering my slumber-chamber, For thee they sing and dance, O Soul. A festival song! The duet of the bridegroom and the bride = a marriage-march, With joyous voices - lips of love, and hearts of lovers, fill'd to the brim with love; The red flush'd cheecks, and perfumes - the cortege swarming, full of friendly faces, young and old, To flutes' clear notes and sounding harps' cantabile. 3. Now loud approaching drums! Victoria! see at thou in powder-smoke the banners torn but flying? the rout of the baffled? Hearest those shouts of a conquering army? (Ah, Soul, the sobs of women - the wounded groaning in agony, The hiss and crackles of flames - the blacken'd ruins - the embers of cities, The dirge and desolation of mankind.) 4. Now the great organ sounds, Tremulous - while underneath, (as the hid footholds of the earth, On which arising, rest, and leaping forth, depend, All shapes of beauty, grace and strength - all hues we know, Green blades of grass, and warbling bards - children than gambol and play - the clouds of heaven above,) The strong base stands, and its pulsations intermits not, Bathing, supporting, merging all the rest - maternity of all the rest; And with it every instrument in multitudes, The players playing - all the world's musicians, The solemn hymns and masses, rousing adoration, All passionate love-chants, sorrowful appeals, The measureless sweet vocalists of ages, And for their solvent setting, Earth's own diapason, Of winds and woods and mighty ocean waves; A new composite orchestra - binder of years and climes - ten-fold renewer, As of the far-back days the poets tell - the Paradisio, The straying thence, the separation long, but now the wandering done, The journey done, the Journeyman come home, And Man and Art, with Nature fused again. 5. Tutti! for Earth and Heaven! The Almighty Leader now for me, for once, has signal'd with his wand. The manly strophe of the husbands of the world, And all the wives responding. The tongues of violins! (I think O tongues, ye tell this heart, that cannot tell itself; This brooding, yearning heart, that cannot tell itself.) 6. Ah, from a little child, Thou knowest, Soul, how to me all sounds became music; My mother's voice, in lullaby or hymn; (The voice - O tender voices - memory's loving voices! Last miracle of all - O dearest mother's, sister's, voice;) The rain, the growing corn, the breeze among the long-leav'd corn, The measur'd sea-wave beating on the sand, The twittering bird, the hawk's sharp scream, The wild-fowl's notes at night, as flying low, migrating north or south, The psalm in the country church, or mid the clustering trees, The fiddler in the tavern - the glee, the long-strung sailor-song, The lowing cattle, bleating sheep - the crowing cock at dawn. 7. Now airs antique and medieval fill me! I see and hear old harpers with their harps, at Welsh festivals; I hear the minnesingers, and their lays of love, I hear the minstrels, gleemen, troubadours, of the feudal ages. Above, below, the songs of current lands; The German airs of friendship, wine and love, The plaintive Irish ballads, merry jigs and dances —English warbles, Chansons of France, Scotch tunes—and over all, Italia's peerless compositions. Across the stage, with pallor on her face, yet lurid passion, Stalks Norma, brandishing the dagger in her hand. I see poor crazed Lucia's eyes' unnatural gleam; Her hair down her back falls loose and dishevell'd. I see where Ernani, walking the bridal garden, Amid perfumes of night-roses, radiant, holding his bride by the hand, Hears the infernal call, the death-pledge of the horn. To crossing swords, and gray hairs bared to heaven, The clear, electric base and baritone of the world, The trombone duo—Libertad forever! From Spanish chestnut-trees' dense shade, By old and heavy convent walls, a wailing song, Song of lost love—the torch of youth and life quench'd in despair, Song of the dying swan—Fernando's heart is breaking. Awaking from her woes at last, retriev'd Amina sings; Copious as stars, and glad as morning light, the torrents of her joy. (The teeming lady comes! The lustrous orb—Venus contralto—the blooming mother, Sister of loftiest gods—Alboni's self I hear.) 9. I hear those odes, symphonies, operas; I hear in the William Tell, the music of an arous'd and angry people; I hear Meyerbeer's Huguenots, the Prophet or Robert; Gounod's Faust, or Mozart's Don Juan. 10. I hear the dance-music of all nations, The waltz, (some delicious measure, lapsing, bathing me in bliss;) The bolero, to tinkling guitars and clattering castanets. I see religious dances old and new, I hear the sound of the Hebrew lyre, I see the Crusaders marching, bearing the cross on high, to the martial clang of cymbals; I hear dervishes monotonously chanting, interspersed with frantic shouts, as they spin around, turning always towards Mecca; I see the rapt religious dances of the Persians and the Arabs; Again at Eleusis, home of Ceres, I see the modern Greeks dancing, I hear them clapping their hands, as they bend their bodies, I hear the metrical shuffling of their feet. I see again the wild old Corybantian dance, the performers wounding each other; I see the Roman youth, to the shrill sound of flageolets, throwing and catching their weapons, As they fall on their knees, and rise again. I hear from the Mussulman mosque the muezzin calling; I see the worshippers within, (nor form, nor sermon, argument, nor word, But rhapsodes, silent, devout—rais'd, glowing heads—ecstatic faces.) 11. The instruments, chants, of far-off climes resume themselves, The Egyptian harp of many strings, The primitive chants of the Nile boatmen; The sacred imperial hymns of China, To the delicate sounds of the king, (the stricken wood and stone;) Or to Hindu flutes, and the fretting twang of the Vina, A band of bayaderes. 12. Now Asia, Africa leave me—Europe, seizing, inflates me; To organs huge, and bands, I hear as from vast concourses of voices, Luther's strong hymn, Eine feste Burg ist unser Gott; Rossini's Stabat Mater dolorosa; Or, floating in some high cathedral dim, with gorgeous color'd windows, The passionate Agnus Dei, or Gloria in Excelsis. 13. Mighty maestros! And you, sweet singers of old lands—Soprani! Tenori! To you a new bard, carolling free in the west, Obeisant, sends his love. Such led, me thee, O Soul! (All senses, shows and objects lead to thee, But now it seems to me, sound leads o'er all the rest.) 14. I hear the annual singing of the children in St. Paul's Cathedral; Or, under the high roof of some colossal hall, the symphonies, oratorios of Beethoven, Handel, or Haydn; The Creation, in billows of godhood laves me. Give me to hold all sounds, (I, madly struggling, cry,) Fill me with all the voices of the universe, Endow me with their throbbings—Nature's also, The tempests, waters, winds—operas and chants —marches and dances, Utter—pour in—for I would take them all. 15. Then I woke softly, And pausing, questioning awhile the music of my dream, And questioning all those reminiscences—the tempest on the sea, And all the songs of sopranos and tenors, And those rapt oriental dances, of religious fervor, And the sweet varied instruments, and the diapason of organs, And all the artless plaints of love, and grief and death, I said to my silent, curious Soul, out of the bed of the slumber-chamber, Come, for I have found the clew I sought so long, Let us go forth refresh'd amid the day, Cheerfully tallying life, walking the world, the real, Nourish'd henceforth by our celestial dream. And I said, moreover, Haply, what thou hast heard, O Soul, was not the sound of winds, Nor dream of stormy waves, nor sea-hawk's flapping wings, nor harsh scream, Nor vocalism of sun-bright Italy, Nor German organ majestic—nor vast concourse of voices—nor layers of harmonies; Nor strophes of husbands and wives—nor sound of marching soldiers, Nor flutes, nor harps, nor the different bugle-calls of camps; But, to a new rhythmus fitted for thee, Poems, vaguely wafted in night air, uncaught, unwritten, Which, let us go forth in the bold day, and write. Proud Music of the Sea-Storm. By Walt Whitman 1. Proud music of the sea-storm! Blast that careers so free, whistling across the prairies! Strong hum of forest tree-tops! Wind of the mountains! Personified dim shapes! you hidden orchestras! You serenades of phantoms, with instruments alert, Blending, with Nature's rhythmus, all the tongues of nations; You chords left as by vast composers! you choruses! You formless, free, religious dances! you from the Orient! You undertone of rippling waters, rivers, pouring cataracts; You sounds from distant guns, with galloping cavalry! Echos of camps, with all the different bugle-calls! Trooping tumultuous, filling the midnight late, bending me powerless, Entering my lonesome slumber-chamber -- Why have you seized me? 2. Come forward, O my Soul, and let the rest retire; Listen -- lose not-- it is toward thee they tend; Parting the midnight, entering my slumber- chamber, For thee they sing and dance, O Soul. A festival song! The duet of the bridegroom and the bride-- a marriage-march, With joyous voices-- lips of love, and hearts of lovers, fill'd to the brim with love; The red flush'd cheeks, and perfumes -- the cortege swarming, full of friendly faces, young and old, To flutes' clear notes and sounding harps' cantabile. 3. Now loud approaching drums! Victoria! see st thou in powder- smoke the banners torn but flying? the rout of the baffled? Hearest those shouts of a conquering army? (Ah, Soul, the sobs of women -- the wounded groaning in agony, The hiss and crackle of flames -- the blacken'd ruins -- the embers of cities, The dirge and desolation of mankind.) 4. Now the great organ sounds, Tremulous -- while underneath, (as the hid foot- holds of the earth, On which arising, rest, and leaping forth, depend, All shapes of beauty, grace and strength -- all hues we know, Green blades of grass, and warbling birds -- children that gambol and play -- the clouds of heaven above,) The string base stands, and its pulsations intermits not, Bathing, supporting, merging all the rest -- mater- nity of all the rest; And with it every instrument in multitudes, The players playing -- all the world's musicians, The solemn hymns and masses, rousing adoration, All passionate love-chants, sorrowful appeals, The measureless sweet vocalists of ages, And for their solvent setting, Earth's own diapason, Of winds and woods and mighty ocean waves; A new composite orchestra -- binder of years and climes -- ten- fold renewer, As of the far-back days the poets tell -- the Paradisio, The straying thence, the separation long, but now the wandering done, The journey done, the Journeyman come home, And Man and Art, with Nature fused again. 5. Tutti! for Earth and Heaven! The Almighty Leader now for me, for once, has signal'd with his wand. The manly strophe of the husbands of the world, And all the wives responding. The tongues of violins! (I think O tongues, ye tell this heart, that cannot tell itself; This brooding, yearning heart, that cannot tell itself.) 6. Ah, from a little child, Thou knowest, Soul, how to me all sounds became music; The mother's voice, in lullaby or hymn; (The voice -- O tender voices -- memory's loving voices! Last miracle of all -- O dearest mother's, sister's, voices;) The rain, the growing corn, the breeze among the long-leav'd corn, The measur'd sea-wave beating on the sand, The twittering bird, the hawk's sharp scream, The wild-fowl's notes at night, as flying low, migrating north or south, The psalm in the country church, or mid the clustering trees, The fiddle in the tavern -- the glee, the long-strung sailor-song, The lowing cattle, bleating sheep -- the crowing cock at dawn. 7. Now airs antique and medieval fill me! I see and hear old harpers with their harps, at Welsh festivals; I hear the minnesingers, and their lays of love, I hear the minstrels, gleemen, troubadours, of the feudal ages. 8. Above, below, all songs of current lands; The German airs of friendship, wine and love, The plaintive Irish ballads, merry jigs and dances -- English warbles, Chansons of France, Scotch tunes -- and over all, Italia's peerless compositions. Across the stage, with pallor on her face, yet lurid passion, Stalks Norma, brandishing the dagger in her hand. I see poor crazed Lucia's eyes' unnatural gleam; Her hair down her back falls loose and dishevell'd. I see where Ernani, walking the bridal garden, Amid perfumes of night-roses, radiant, holding his bride by the hand, Hears the infernal call, the death-pledge of the horn. To crossing swords, and grey hairs bared to heaven, The clear, electric base and baritone of the world, The trombone duo -- Libertad for ever! From Spanish chestnut trees' dense shade, By old and heavy convent walls, a wailing song, Song of lost love -- the torch of youth and life quench'd in despair, Song of the dying swan --- Fernando's heart is breaking. Awaking from her woes at last, retriev'd Amina sings; Copious as stars, and glad as morning light, the torrents of her joy. (The teeming lady comes! The lustrous orb -- Venus contralto -- the blooming mother, Sister of loftiest gods -- Alboni's self I hear.) 9. I hear those odes, symphonies, operas; I hear in the William Tell, the music of an arous'd and angry people; I hear Meyerbeer's Huguenots, the Prophet, or Robert; Gonoud's Faust, or Mozart's Don Juan. 10. I hear the dance-music of all nations, The waltz, (some delicious measure, lapsing, bathing me in bliss;) The bolero, to tinkling guitars and clattering castanets. I see religious dances old and new, I hear the sound of the Hebrew lyre, I see the Crusaders marching, beating the cross on high, to the martial clang of cymbals; I hear dervishes monotonously chanting, interspersed with frantic shouts, as they spin around, turning always towards Mecca; I see the rapt religious dances of the Persians and the Arabs; Again at Eleusis, home of Ceres, I see the modern Greeks dancing, I hear them clapping their hands, as they bend their bodies, I hear the metrical shuffling of their feet. I see again the wild old Corybantian dance, the performers wounding each other; I see the Roman youth, to the shrill sound of flageolets, throwing and catching their weapons, As they fall on their knees, and rise again. I hear from the Mussulman (?)sque the muezzin calling; I see the worshippers within, (nor form, nor sermon, argument, nor word, But rhapsodes, silent, devout -- rais'd, glowing heads -- extatic faces.) 11. The instruments, chants, of far-off climes resume themselves, The Egyptian harp of many strings, The primitive chants of the Nile boatmen; The sacred imperial hymns of China, To the delicate sounds of the king, (the stricken wood and stone;) Or to Hindu flutes, and the fretting twang of the Vina, A band of bayaderes. 12. Now Asia, Africa leave me -- Europe, seizing, inflates me; To organs huge, and bands, I hear as from vast concourses of voices, Luther's string hymn, Eine feste Burg ist unser Gott; Rossini's Stabat Mater dolorosa; Or, floating in some high cathedral dim, with gorgeous color'd windows, The passionate Agnus Dei, or Gloria in Excelsis. 13. Mighty maestros! And you, sweet singers of old lands -- Soprani! Tenori! To you a new bard, carolling free in the west, Obeisant, sends his love. Such led me thee, O Soul! (All senses, shows and objects lend to thee, But now it seems to me, sound leads o'er all the rest.) 14. I hear the annual singing of the children in St. Paul's Cathedral; Or, under the high roof of some colossal hall, the symphonies, oratorios of Beethoven, Handel, or Haydn; The Creation, in billows of godhood laves me. Give me to hold all sounds, (I, madly struggling, cry,) Fill me with all the voices of the universe, Endow me with their throbbings -- Nature's also, The tempests, waters, winds -- operas and chants -- marches and dances, Utter -- pour in -- for I would take them all. 15. Then I woke softly, And pausing, questioning awhile the music of my dream, And questioning all those reminiscences -- the tempest on the sea, And all the songs of sopranos and tenors, And those rapt oriental dances, of religious fervor, And the sweet varied instruments, and the diapason or organs, And all the artless plaints of love, and grief and death, I said to my silent, curious Soul, out of the bed of the slumber chamber, Come, for I have found the clue I sought so long. Let us go forth refresh'd amid the day, Cheerfully tallying life, walking the world, the real, Nourish'd henceforth by our celestial dream. And I said, moreover, Haply, what thou hast heard, O Soul, was not the sound of winds, Nor dream of stormy waves, nor sea-hawk's flapping wings, nor harsh scream, Nor vocalism of sun-bright Italy, Nor German organ majestic -- nor vast concourse of voices -- nor layers of harmonies; Nor strophes of husbands and wives -- nor sound of marching soldiers, Nor flutes, nor harps, nor the different bugle-calls of camps; But, to a new rhythmus fitted for thee, Poems, vaguely wafted in the night air, uncaught, unwritten, Which, let us go forth in the bold day, and write.Feinberg/Whitman Literary File Poetry File Spirit That Form'd This Scene (1881). A Ms. draft. 29 (oversz 4-13)[Starry Night] 5-28 Spirit that form'd this scene. [Lines] Written [on Kenosha Summit, after traversing] in Platte Cañon Colorado. Spirit that form'd this scene, These [formless] lawless tumbled [useless] rock-piles [gray and] bare and red [and sad]. Not [plain] meadows, [roseate] gardens, graded plougher's fields - but for [a reckless [?] abandons] especial purports of thine own, These [lawless] earnestless heaven-ambitious peaks in far-receding silent vistas, These gorges, turbulent, clear streams - this [savage] primitive [This limitless lawless] These freshness formless wild arrays for reasons of their own, I know thee, savage spirit - we have communed together, Mine too [the] such wild arrays [for with] for reasons of [its] their own. Was't charged against my chants they had forgotten art? To fuse within themselves its [laws] rules precise [proportions and its] and delicatesse? The [? singers] lyrist's measur'd beat - the wrought-out temple's [polish'd ] grace - column and polish'd [regular finished] arch forgot? But thou that revelest here - [spirit] spirit that form'd [?fashioned these] this scene, [They] They have remembered thee.a 1881 Spirit that form'd this scene (Lines written in Kenosha summit, after passing through Platte Canon Colorado) Spirit that formed this scene These marked unmarked rock-piles gray and sad. These said lawless heaven-aspiring peaks gorge running stream this savage freshness. and these gorges [?] here This wild array but reckons of these own' X Not found roses, meadow's (unknown) ploughin' fields, yet for they wilful purport Tis charged (and may be true) I have forgotten To Nor Art fused within my chants laws and its delicatesse; But thou that revelest here - spirit, that lurkist invisible here, I have remembered theeFrom the United States Review. WALT WHITMAN AND HIS POEMS. An American bard at last! One of the rough, large, proud, affectionate, eating, drinking, and breeding, his costume manly and free, his face sunburnt and bearded, his posture, strong and erect, his voice bringing hope and prophecy to the generous races of young and old. We shall cease shamming and be what we really are. We shall start an athletic and defiant literature. We realize now how it is, and what was most lacking. The interior American republic shall also be declared free and independent. For all our intellectual people, followed by their books, poems, novels, essays, editorials, lectures, tuitions, and criticisms, dress by London and Paris nobles, receive what is received there, obey the authorities, settle disputes by the old tests, keep out of rain and sun, retreat to the shelter of houses and schools, trim their hair, shave, touch not the earth barefoot, and enter not the sea except in a complete bathing dress. One sees unmistakably genteel persons, traveled, college-learned, used to be served by servants, converting without heat or vulgarity, supported on chairs, or walking through handsomely carpeted parlors, or along shelves bearing well bound volumes, and walls adorned with curtained and collared portraits, and china things, and nick-nacks. But where in American literature is the first show of America? Where are the gristle and beards, and broad breasts, and space and ruggedness and nonchalance that the souls of the people love? Where is the tremendous outdoors of these states? Where is the majesty of the federal mother, seated with more than antique grace, calm, just, indulgent to her brood of children, calling them around her, regarding the little and the large and the younger and the older with the perfect impartiality? Where is the vehement growth of our cities? Where is the spirit of the strong rich life of the American mechanic, farmer, miller, hunter, and miner? Where is the huge composite of all other nations, east in a fresher and brawnier matrix, grinning adolescence, and needed this day live and arrogant to lead the marches of the world? Self-reliant, with haughty eyes, assuming to himself all the attributes of his country, steps Walt Whitman into literature, talking like a man unaware that there was ever a hitherto such a production as a book, or such a being as a writer. Every move of him has the free play of muscle of one who never knew what it was to feel that he stood in the presence of superior. Every word that falls from his mouth shows silent disdain and defiance of the old theories and forms. Every phrase announces new laws: not once do his lips unclose except in conformity with them. With light and rapid touch he first indicates in prose the principles of the foundation of a race of poets so deeply to spring from the American people, and become ingrained through them, that their Presidents shall not be the common referees so much that as that great race of poets shall. He proceeds himself to exemplify this new school, and set models for their expression and range of subjects. He makes audacious and naïve use of his own body and soul. He mush re-create poetry with the elements always at hand. He must imbue it with himself as he is, disorderly, fleshy, and sensual, a lover of things, yet a lover of men and women shove the whole of the other objects of the universe. His work is to be achieved by unusual methods. Neither elastic or romantic is he, nor a materialist any more than a spiritualist. Not a whisper comes out of him of the old stock talk and rhyme of poetry – not the first recognition of gods or goddesses, or Greece or Rome. No breath of Europe, or her monarchies or priestly conventions, or her notices of gentlemen and ladies founded on the idea of caste, seems ever to have fanned his face or been inhaled into his lungs. But in the stead pour vast and fluid the fresh mentality of this mighty age, and the realities of this mighty continent, and the sciences and inventions and discoveries of the present world. Not geology, nor mathematics, nor chemistry, nor navigation, nor astronomy, nor anatomy, nor phrenology, nor engineering, is more true to itself than Walt Whitman is true to them. They and the other sciences underlie his whole [?nciure]. In the beauty of the work of the poet, he affirms are the test and final applause of science. Affairs then are this man’s poems. He will still inject nature through civilization. The movement of his verses is the sweeping movement of great care of living people, with a general government and state and manie[?]col governments, charts, commerce, manufactures, arsenals, steamships, railroads, telegraphs, cities with paved streets, and aqueducts and police and [?] myriads of travelers arriving and departing – newspapers, music, elections, and all the features and practices of the nineteenth century in the wholesomeness of race and the only stable forms of politics at present upon the earth. Along his words spread the broad impartialities of the United States. No innovations must be permitted on the stern severities of our liberty and equality. Undecked also is this poet with sentimentalism, or jingle, or nice conceits or flowery similes. He appears in his poems surrounded by women and children, and by young men, and by common objects and qualities. He gives to each just what belongs to it, neither more nor less. That person nearest him, that person he ushers hand in hand with himself. Duly take places in his flowing procession, and step to the rounds of the newer and larger music, the essence of American things, and past and present events – the enormous diversity of temperature and agriculture and m[?] – the tribes of red aborigines – the weatherbeaten vessels entering new ports, or making landings on rocky coasts – the first settlements north and south – the rapid [?] and impatience of outside control – the sturdy defiance of ’76, and the war and peace, and the leadership of Washington, and the formation of the constitution – the union always surrounded by blatherers and always calm and impregnable – the perpetual coming of immigrants – the wharf-hemmed cities and superior marine – the unsurveyed interior – the loghouse and clearings and wild animals and hunters and trappers – the fisheries and whaling and gold-digging –the endless gestation of new states – the convening of Congress every December, the members coming up from all climates, and from the uttermost parts – the noble character of the free American workman and work woman – the fierceness of the people when well-rounded – the ardor of their friendships – the large amativeness – the equality of the female with the male – the Yankee swap – the New York firemen and the target excursion – the southern plantation life – the character of the northeast of the northwest and southwest – and the character of America and the American people everywhere. For these the old usages of poets afford Walt Whitman no means sufficiently fit and free, and he rejects the old usages. The styles of the bard that is waited for is to be transcendent and new. It is to be indirect and not direct or descriptive or epic. In quality is to go through there to in [?} more. Let the age and wars (he says) of other nations be chanted, and their eras and characters be illustrated, and that finish the verse. Not so (he continues) the great psalm of the republic. Here the theme is creative and has vista. Here comes one among the well-beloved stonecutters, and announces himself, and plans with decision and science, and sees the solid and beautiful forms of the future where there are now no solid forms. The style of these poems, therefore, is simply their own style, new-born and red. Nature may have given the hint to the author of the ‘Leaves of Grass,’ but there exists no book or fragment of a book which can have given the hint to them. All beauty, he says, comes from beautiful blood and a beautiful brain. His rhythm and uniformity he will conceal in the roots of his verses, not to be seen of themselves, but to break forth lovely as lilacs on a bush, and take shapes compact as the shapes of melons or chestnuts or pears. The poems of the ‘ Leaves of Grass’ are twelve in number. Walt Whitman at first proceeds to put his own body and soul into the new versification: “I celebrate myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belongs to me, as good belongs to you.” He leaves houses and their shattered rooms, for the open air. He drops disguise and ceremony, and walks forth with the confidence and gayety of a child. For the old decorums of writing he substitutes new decorums. He will have the earth receive and return his affection: he will stay with it as the bridegroom stays with the bride. The coolbreath’d ground, the slumbering and liquid trees, the just-gone sunset, the vitreous poet of the fall moon, the tender and the growing night, he salutes and touches, and they touch him. The sea supports him, and hurries him off with its powerful and crooked fingers. Dash me with amorous wet! then he says, I can repay you. By this writer the rules of polite circles are dismissed with scorn. Your stale modesties, he seems to say, are filthy to such a man as I. “I believe in the flesh and the appetites, Seeing, hearing and feeling are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle. I do not press my finger across my mouth, I keep as delicate around the bowels as around the head and heart, Copulation is not more rank to me than death is.” No sniveller or skulker or tea-drinking poet or puny person or prude is Walt Whitman. He will bring poems fit to fill the days and nights – fit for men and women wit the attributes of throbbing blood and flesh. The body, he teaches, is beautiful. Sex is also beautiful. Are you to be put down, he seems to ask, to that shallow level of literature and conversation that stops a man’s recognizing the delicious pleasure of his sex, or a woman hers? Nature he proclaims inherently clean. Sex will not be put aside. It is a great ordination of the universe. He works the muscle of the male and the teeming fibre of the female throughout his writings, as wholesome realities, impure only by deliberate intentions and effort. To men and women he says, You can have healthy and powerful breeds of children on no less terms than those of mine. Follow me and there shall be taller and richer crops of humanity on the earth. In the Leaves of Grass are the facts of eternity and immortality, largely treated. Happiness is no dream and perfection no dream. Amelioration is my leaves, he says with calm voice, and progress is my lesson and the lesson of all things. Then his persuasion becomes a taunt, and his love bitter and compulsory. With strong and steady call he addresses men. Come, he seems to say, from the midst of all that you have been your whole life surrounding yourself with. Leave all the preaching and teaching of others, and mind only these words of mine. “Long enough have you dreamed contemptible dreams, Now I wash the gum from your eyes, You must habit yourself to the dazzle of the light and of every moment of your life. Long have you timidly waded, holding a plank by the shore, Now I will you to be a bold swimmer, To jump off in the midst of the sea, and rise again and nod to me and shout, and laughingly dash with your hair. I am the teacher of athletes, " He that by me spreads a wider breast than my own proves the width of my own, He most honors my style who learns under is to destroy the teacher The boy I live, the same becomes an man not through his own drive but in his right, Worked, rather than virtuous out of conformity or fear, Fond of his sweetheart, relishing well his steak, Unrequited love or a slight cutting him worse than a wound cuts, First rate to ride, to fight, to hit the bull's eyes to sail a skiff, to sing a song, or to play on the banjo. Preferring scars and faces fitted with smallpox over all latherers and those that keep out of the sun. I teach straying away from me, yet who can stray from me? I follow you whenever you are from the present hour; My words itch at your ears till you understand them. I do not say these things for a dollar, or to fill up the time while I wait for a boat ; It is you talking just as much as myself . . . . I act as the tongue of you, It was tied in your mouth . . . . in mine it begins to be loosened I swear I will never mention love or death inside a house, And I swear I never will translate myself at all, only to him or her who privately stays with me in the open air The eleven other poems have either distinct purposes, curiously veiled. Theirs is no writer to be gone through with in a day or month. Rather it is his pleasure to elude you and provoke you for deliberate purposes of his own. Doubtless in the scheme this man has built for himself the writing of poems is but a proportionate of the whole. It is plain that public and private performance, politics, love, friendship, behavior, the art of [?], science, society, the American people, the perception of the great novelties of city and country, all have their equal call upon him and receive equal attention. In politics he could enter with the dream and reality of love he stows in poetry. His scope of life is the amplest of any yet in philosophy. He is the true spiritualist. He recognizes no annihilation or death or loss of identity. He is the largest love and sympathizer that has appeared in literature. He loves the earth and sun and the animals. He does not separate the learned from the unlearned, the northerner from the southerner, the white from the black, or the native from the immigrant just landed at the wharf. Every day he seems to say, appears excellent to me, every employment is adorned, and every male and female is glorious "The press of my feet in the Earth springs a hundred affections, They score the best I can do to relate them. I am enamored of growing outdoors Of men that live among cattle or taste of the ocean or ponds, Of the builders and steerers of ships, of the wielders of axes and mauls, of the drivers of horses I can eat and sleep with them week in and week out. What is commonest can cheapest and neatest and easiest in Me, Me going is for my chances spending for vast returns, Adorning myself to bestow myself on the first that will take me, Not asking the sky to come down to my goodwill, Scattering is freely forever If health were not his distinguishing attribute the poet world would be the very hariot of persons. Right and left he flings his arms, drawing men and woman with undeniable love to his close embrace, loving the clasp of their hands, the touch of their necks and breasts, and the sound of their voice. All else seems to born up under his fierce affection for purpose. Politics, religions, in situations, art quickly fall aside before them. In the whole universe he says, I see nothing more divine than the human soul. "When the psalm sings instead of singer, "When the script preaches instead of the preacher "When the pulpit descends and goes instead of the carver that carved the supporting desk When the sacred vessels of the lots of the Eucharist, or the lath and plast, procreate as effectually as the young silversmiths or bakers, or the masons in their overall When a university course convinces like slumbering, women and child convince. When the minted gold in the vault smiles like the nightwatchman's daughter When warrantee deeds loafe in chairs opposite and are my friendly companions I intend to reach them my hand and make as much as them as I make of men and woman. " Who then is that insolent unknown? Who is it, praising himself as if others were not fit to do it, and coming tough and unbidden among writers to unsettle what was settled, and to revolutionize, in fact our modern civilization I, Walt Whitman was born Long Island, on the hills about thirty miles from the greatest American city, on the last day 1819, and has grown up in Brooklyn and New York to be thirty-six years old to enjoy perfect health, and to understand his country and its spirit Interrogations more than this, and that will not be put off unanswered, spring continually through the perusal of these Leaves of Grass: If these were to be elected, out of the incalculable volume of printed matter in existence, any single work to stand for America and her times, should this be work? Must not the true American poet indeed absorb all others, and present a new and far more ample and vigorous type? Has not the time for school of live writing and tuition consistent with the principles of these poems? Consistent with the free spirit of this age, and with the American truths? Consistent with the sublimity or immortality and the directness of commonsense? If is this poem the United States have found their poetic voice and taken measure and form, is it any more than beginning? Walt Whitman himself disclaims singularity in his work, and announces the coming after him of great [?] of poets, and that he but lifts his finger to give the signal. Was he not needed? Has not literature been bred in and in long enough? Has it not become unbearably artificial? Shall a man of faith and practice in the simplicity of real things be called eccentric, while the disciple of the fictitious school writes without question? Shall it still be the amazement of the light and dark that freshness of expression is the rarest quality of them all? You have come in good time, Walt Whitman! In opinions, in manners, in costumes, in books, in the aims and occupancy of life, in associates, in poems, conformity to all unnatural and tainted customs passes without remark, while perfect naturalness, health, faith, self resilience, and all primal expressions and the manliest love and friendship, subject on the the state and controversy of the world.forgotten Form The arch, the [lintel] column, [look] [grace] the wrought-out temple, To fuse within [my songs] themselves arts' grace [To] and delicatesse The wrought out temples' carefully measured grace - column and studied arch, [No fuse within my songs arts'] [grace am] I [too have] know thee savage - spirit- [I too have not here alone] the mine too a [mine too a] wild array. [for reasons of thine own]