Though handsomer and pleasanter to handle than its predecessor2, this Boston edition still wears a countryman’s dress; a heavily stamped orange cover which threatens the symmetry of any library shelf. Evidently, Whitman did not intend it to lie there in peace. It was to be different from the rest, and bad company for them.
It opens on a reproduction of the 1859 painting, which faces an odd-looking lithographed and beflourished title-page. The old Preface has gone for good, and now its place is taken by a Proto-Leaf or Summary, by way of introduction.[265]
The first edition had been a manifesto4 of the American idea in literature and ethics5, and a declaration of the gospel of Self-realisation. The second expanded the mystical meanings involved in this; “think of the soul” running through all, and breaking out continually as a refrain, and it made clearer the message to women already more than hinted in the first. Now in the third edition, emphasis falls upon the personal note, which becomes strangely haunting. The book is not only for the first time a complete and living whole; it is[Pg 149] a presence, a lover, a comrade, and its close is like a death.
Solitary6, singing in the West, says the introductory Leaf,[266] the poet is striking up for a New World; and lo, he beholds7 all the peoples of all time as his interminable audience. For through him, Nature herself speaks without restraint; and through him, the Soul, the ultimate Reality.
He sings for America; for there at last the Soul is acknowledged; and his song will bind9 her together. The Body, Sex, Comradeship, these he sings: but above all, Faith, for he is proclaiming a new religion which includes all others and is worthy10 of America.[267] Of whatever he may seem to write, he is always writing of Religion; for indeed she is supreme11. Love, Democracy, Religion—these three—and the greatest of these is Religion.
The world is unseen as much as seen. The air is full of invisible presences as real as the seen. And his songs also are for those as yet unseen, his children by Democracy, the woman of his love. For them he will reveal the soul, glorious in the body.
Ah, what a glory is this our life, and this our country! Death itself will not carry him away from it. In these fields, men and women in the years to come will ever be discovering him, and he will render them worthy of America as none other can. For he has “arrived,” he is no longer mortal.
If you would behold8 America, seek her in these pages. And if you would triumph and make her triumphant12, you must become his comrade. The final note is one of passionate13 love-longing14 for comradeship.[268]
Such is the summary of the book; but it cannot be so briefly15 dismissed by us, for it is full of suggestions of the inner workings of Whitman’s mind at this period, for us, in some respects, the most characteristic and important of all. For after it there comes the war, the[Pg 150] watershed16 of his life; there he employed and in a sense expended17 all the resources of his manhood, to issue from it upon the slopes of ill-health which lead down into the valley of the shadow. But here he is in his prime, and on the heights.
Here also, his individuality shows most definitely, even in its secondary qualities. The association with men of a somewhat less Bohemian type than were many of his literary friends in New York, and the more cosmopolitan18 atmosphere of the national capital, together with the close intimacy19 with death which the war-hospitals afforded, somewhat quieted the tone of later editions. Here there is more of the na?ve colloquialism20 and mannerism21, the slang and the ejaculations of “the arrogant22 Mannhattanese” which he loves to proclaim himself.[269] It is the edition which is most dear to many an enthusiast23, and most exasperating24 to many a critic.
After the first-written and longest of all the poems, “The Song of Myself,” here called “Walt Whitman,” there follow two large bundles, tied together and labelled respectively “Chants Democratic” and “Leaves of Grass”. The bulk of these consists of material already familiar.
But number four of the Chants,[270] celebrating the organic unity25 of America, is new, and may be quoted as a curious example of Whitman’s style. Here are seven pages of soliloquy practically innocent of a period, flowing along together in a hardly vertebrate sentence, which enumerates26 the different elements included in the union. Strange as it certainly looks, this creation must have been so constructed of set purpose, for Whitman could not be ignorant of the oddity of its appearance, when viewed by the ever-alert humour of the already hostile American critic. Can there possibly be any connection between this style of composition and the larger consciousness of which he had experience? The question[Pg 151] may appear absurd, but I ask it in all seriousness, and would propose an affirmative answer.
Whitman regarded his whole book as a unit, not as a collection. Like the composer who elaborates a single theme into a long-sustained symphony, or the psychological novelist who requires three volumes for the portrayal27 of a personality, he held his meaning suspended in order that it might be more fully28 grasped; and this is true also of his individual poems. The thought he had to convey was not epigrammatic, but a complex of suggestions which merge29 into one as they are read together. I would even venture to suggest that some of these exercises in sustained meaning were also designed to train the faculty30 of apprehending31 the Many-in-One, the Unity, which, as he believed, lies behind all variety. In considering this suggestion one may contrast the emotional results produced by epigrams and long sentences. May not the former be the natural rhythm for wit and the latter for imagination?
The contrast between the essayist on “Man” and the singer of “Myself” is obvious;[271] but the optimism of the eighteenth century epigrammatist seems to be echoed in Whitman’s pages.[272] On the verge32 of war, and in the midst of all the corruption33 of American politics, he has the audacity34 to declare and reiterate35, “Whatever is, is best”. Are we to dismiss it as the shallow utterance36 of a callous37-hearted, healthy-bodied, complacent38 American, deliberately39 blind to the world’s tragedy? A thousand times, no. The pages before and after such declarations are filled with knowledge of suffering and death, of the bereavement40 of love, of the shame that follows sin, and of the desire for a better day. But here and elsewhere, he sees the perfect plan of the ages being fulfilled. From his Pisgah-height, he beholds the stretch of time; and looking out over creation as did the Divine Eye, he, Walt Whitman, beholds that it is all good.
Emerson has written of “the Perfect Whole”; but in the pages before us Whitman specifies41 the parts, seeing[Pg 152] them all illumined by the mystic light of the soul. This lays him open to attack; it is even dangerous from the point of view of morality. Whitman acknowledges as much, but he still has faith in his vision; he is still obedient to the inner impulse which for him at least, is indubitably divine. There must always be a point at which the moralist would fain part company from the mystic: one is occupied in the fields of eternity42, while the other is pre-occupied upon the battlefield of time. There is room for both in a world where time and eternity alike are real, but the toil43 of the seer must not be made subservient44 to that of the warrior45.
Some of the lines of Whitman’s “Hymn46 to the Setting Sun” recall the canticle which Brother Francis used to sing among the olives:
Open mouth of my Soul, uttering gladness,
Eyes of my Soul, seeing perfection,
Natural life of me, faithfully praising things,
Corroborating47 for ever the triumph of things—[273]
and it is all pregnant with the wonder of being. In this it is like his earlier work, but it has added deeper notes to its melody, and has won therewith a finer rhythm. A mellow48 glory of the setting sun irradiates it. All space, the poet reminds us, is filled with soul-life, and the strong chords of that life awake the rhythms of his praise for the joy of the Universal Being.
He greets death with equanimity49, and it is this bell-note of welcome to death which gives the full bass50 to the first Boston edition. America, these poems and their writer, and all the struggling creatures of life, are to find their meaning in death, in transition; they are to slough51 off what is no longer theirs and pass forward into life. Are they then to lose individual identity? No, the soul is identity, and they are of the soul; but that in them which is not the soul will find its meaning in death. There is a spiritual body, which the soul has gathered about itself through the agency of the senses, and that body the soul retains; but the body of the[Pg 153] senses dissolves and finds new uses and new meanings, through death.
We may illustrate52 this thought from the life of the whole tree, which is enriched by the life of every leaf. When the sap withdraws from the leaf, and the leaf shrivels and dies, and the frost and wind carry its corpse53 away and mix it with the mire54, the soul of the leaf still lives in the tree. But the mere55 outer body, which did but temporarily belong to the life of the leaf, finds new value by its destruction and death. Who has not felt the liberating56 joy of the autumn gales57? Who has not rejoiced among the trees, feeling with them the sense of rest and quiescence58 in which the force of life accumulates anew for expression and growth? But for the fallen leaves also we may rejoice, since their atoms have won something by contact with the life of the tree which now they can communicate to the humble59 mire.
In another of these poems,[274] Whitman compares himself with the historian. The latter studies the surface of humanity, while in the former the inner self of the race finds expression. Such is the difference between an historian and a prophet. In another,[275] carrying forward a kindred thought, he declares that he has discovered the story of the past, not in books but in the actual present. To the seer, as to God, the past is not gone by, but is clearly legible in the pages of our current life, if only we would learn to read them. It is hidden from our normal consciousness; but in certain phases of consciousness to which, it would appear, Whitman attained60, it is revealed.
To this deeper consciousness Whitman looked for the fulfilling of his own work and the integration61 of all knowledge in the future. As men shall enter into it, he believed, their work will show the clear evidence of an underlying62 unity;[276] it will cease to be fragmentary, and our libraries, instead of being mere museums filled with specimens63, will become organic like a tree. Then the sense of the cosmos64 will superintend all things that man[Pg 154] makes, as it superintends all the works of nature. A unity already exists, but an unconscious unity, like that of chaos65.[277] His own work is, of course, only a part; a prelude66 to the universal hymn which later poets will raise together. But it is a prelude, and this distinguishes it from other contemporary verse.
America, the land of the Many-in-One, he had discovered as the field for the new poetry.[278] For the divine unity is a living complex of variety. Every heart has its own song, and yet the heart of all song is one. Henceforward, he will go up and down America like the sun, awakening68 the new seasons of the soul. Some of his songs are especially for New York, others for the West, the Centre or the South. But everywhere and to all alike, they cry the messages of Reality, Equality, Immortality69. Neither do they cry only, but they actually create. For song, he says, is no mere sound upon the wind, born but to die; these songs of his are the most real of realities; they will outlast70 centuries, supporting the Democracy of the world.[279]
The section which is specifically entitled Leaves of Grass opens upon a note of that humility71 in which Whitman is supposed to have failed. Throwing wholly aside his egoism and pride, he identifies himself with tiny and ephemeral things—the scum and weed which the sea flings upon Paumanok’s coast.
“As I Ebbed72 with the Ocean of Life”[280] is a most significant poem, which it is impossible to summarise73 briefly. It appears to have been suggested by the experiences of an autumn evening on the Long Island beach, perhaps upon the then lonely sands of Coney Island; an evening in which the divine pride of conscious power and manhood, from which as a rule he wrote in the exaltation of inspiration, ebbed away, and left him struggling with the power of what he calls the electric or eternal self, striving as it were against it to retain his own individual consciousness.
[Pg 155]
Although it is not easy to explain what he means, the passage admirably suggests the complex inner experience of his life at this period. It was filled with battles and adventures of the spirit, and it kept his mind always supplied with ample material for thought. It is no wonder that the endeavour to explain himself, and to keep some kind of record of these explorations and discoveries in the Unknown occupied much of his time, and that these years are somewhat barren of outward incident. The inner experiences of so sane74 and stalwart a man are of the utmost psychological interest, and we cannot lay too much stress upon their importance in Whitman’s story, proving as they do the delicate nervous organisation75 of the man.
As the struggle proceeds, Walt seems to be seized by a strange new feeling. He is fascinated by the tiny wind-rows left by the tide upon the sand, and the sense of a likeness76 between himself and them arises in him, taking the form not so much of a thought as of a consciousness of kinship. The ocean scum and débris reminds him how near to him is the infinite ocean of life and death, and how he himself is but a little washed-up drift, soon to be swallowed in the approaching waters. Doubt overwhelms him; he seems to know nothing of all that he thought he knew; his Soul and Nature make mock at him. He admits that he is but as this tiny nothing.
This mood is a real one in Whitman. It is wrong to think of him as a man who was always complacent and cock-sure; all heroic faith must have its moments of doubt, its crisis of despair, its cry of abandonment upon the cross.
But they are moments only. If he is but this sea-drift, yet he claims the shore as his father: “I take what is underfoot: what is yours, is mine, my father”. So he takes hold upon the Eternal Reality and communes with it, praying that his lips may be touched and utter the great mysteries; for otherwise, these will overwhelm his being.[281] Pride, the full tide of life, will[Pg 156] soon flow again in our veins77; but after all, what are we but a strange complex of sea-drift and changing moods strewed78 here at your feet? It is not pessimism79 but humility which asks that question, the humility which is part of a divine pride.
That pride refuses to blink anything; let us face it all, even to the utmost, he keeps saying. He feels that the soul can and must face all.[282] He has not to make a theory or to justify80 himself, to uphold institutions, or inculcate moralities; he has to open the doors of life in faith. He has to let light in at all the windows. And if it illumines ugliness as well as beauty, sin and shame as well as virtue81 and pride—still it is his part to let in the ever-glorious light. The more the light shines in, the more the Soul is satisfied. In himself he recognises sin and baseness and gives it expression, bringing it to the light.
(O admirers! praise not me! compliment not me! you make me wince82,
I see what you do not—I know what you do not;)
Inside these breast-bones I lie smutch’d and choked,
Beneath this face that appears so impassive, hell’s tides continually run,
Lusts83 and wickedness are acceptable to me,
I walk with delinquents84 with passionate love,
I feel I am of them—I belong to those convicts and prostitutes myself,
And henceforth I will not deny them—for how can I deny myself?[283]
But it is a mistake to think of the mystic, and especially of Whitman, as the mere onlooker86 at life, and the moralist as the practical person. There is ultimately of course no distinction between mystic and moralist, the mystic is the moralist become seer. And he is, perhaps, even more strenuous87 in his life than is the moralist; but life has now assumed for him a different aspect. He is no longer pre-occupied by the hunger and thirst after righteousness—for he feeds satisfied upon the divine bread. He is not worried about sin, because he is conscious of the antiseptic power of the Soul-life which heals the sores of sin, and sloughs88 off the body of corruption. What is evil passes away when life is earnestly[Pg 157] pursued. He sees that everything which exists at all, however evil it may be, exists by reason of some virtue or excellence89 which it possesses, and which fits it to its environment. The wise soul uses the excellence of things, and so things hurt it not at all. The things that are not for it are evil to it; but in the sight of God they are not evil, for all things have their value to Him.
Live your life, then, in faith, not in fear; such is the word of the mystic. Condemn90 nothing; but learn what is proper for your own need; and by sympathy, learn to read the hearts about you, and help them also to live according to the wisdom of the soul. Feed the soul, think of the soul, exercise the soul—and the things, the instincts, the thoughts that are evil to you now, will presently cease to trouble you. For in Whitman’s universe the devil is dead.
It is this point of view, reached in his illumination, which enabled him to look out upon all the shame and evil of the world, and yet to rejoice. I doubt if he had as yet justified91 this attitude to himself by any process of reasoning; and it would be presumptuous92 in me to attempt the task; he simply accepted it as the only possible, or rather the ultimate and highest attitude of the enlightened soul. When one discovers the soul, that is the attitude in which she stands. The joy of the soul fills the universe. Nothing any longer seems unworthy of song. Not for its own sake, perhaps, but for that which it reveals to the soul. And in the exaltation of this soul-sight he sings.
Towards the end of this section, there is a little group of poems which deal with the voice.[284] Whitman recognised that the human voice is capable of expressing more than mere thoughts. For the whole man speaks in the voice; and as the soul becomes conscious, the voice gains in actual timbre93, and wins besides a mystical authority over the heart of the hearer. Each word spoken by the awakened94 soul is freighted with fuller meaning than it carried before, and every word so spoken[Pg 158] has a beauty which the soul gives it. He illustrates95 a kindred thought by dwelling96 upon the different meanings which his own name assumes in different mouths.[285] It would seem as though he realised that power of the name which is familiar to some uncivilised peoples and has been largely forgotten by us.
The section closes with a poignant97 little verse[286] which declares with all the passion of conviction, that this paper is not paper, nor these words mere words; but that this is the Man Walt Whitman, who hails you here and cries farewell. The book is a sacrament; it is the wafer and wine of a Real Presence; it is a symbol pregnant with personality; it is no book, it is a man.
Lift me close to your face till I whisper,
What you are holding is in reality no book, nor part of a book,
It is a man, flushed and full-blooded—it is I—So long!
We must separate—Here! take from my lips this kiss,
Whoever you are, I give it especially to you;
So long—and I hope we shall meet again.
The Salut au Monde carries this Ave atque Vale to each and all.
I have already spoken of “A Word out of The Sea”[287] in which Whitman relates an incident of his childhood on the Long Island coast. This is among the most melodious98 of his chants; and though Death and Love are the themes of all great poets it would be difficult to quote any passage more suggestive of the pathetic mystery of bereavement, than the song which he puts to the notes of the widowed mocking-bird. The bird’s song has purposes unknown to its singer, meanings which are caught by the boy’s heart, and awaken67 there a strange passion and wild chaos, that Death, whose voice is as the accompaniment of the sea to the cry of the bird, can alone soothe99 and order. It is impossible to read this poem and think of its author as ignorant of personal love and personal loss. The notes of despair and triumph blend together here and elsewhere in this edition.
[Pg 159]
We turn now to the Enfans d’Adam, poems of sex, whose name is suggested by Whitman’s outlook on life as on a garden of Eden, and by his conception of himself as it were a reincarnate100 Adam, begetter101 of a new race of happier men.[288]
These are the poems which formed the storm-centre of Emerson’s discussion. They celebrate the love of the body for its correlative body, the bridegroom’s for the bride’s; and they celebrate the concern of the soul in reproduction. The proof and law of all life is that it go forth85 from itself in fertilising power, that it beget102 or conceive; and without this, life and love would be bereft103 of glory. And more: for Whitman broke wholly with that mysticism which once saw in the organs of sex a deformity consequent upon man’s fall; he beheld104 them rather as the vessels105 of a divine communion.
From this mystical view of Whitman’s, Emerson would conceivably have found no reason for dissent107, but the new mysticism was full-blooded and masculine. It sprang out of experience, and was in no respect a substitute for it. When he wrote of the body, Walt used the word mystically it is true, but he meant the body nevertheless, using the word to the full of its meaning. He was very far from the abstract philosophic108 idealism which we usually and often unfairly associate with the transcendentalism of Concord109. Thoreau, for example, the Oriental dreamer, had been thrilled through by the bloody110 and even brutal111 fanaticism112 of John Brown.
Yet Whitman’s virility113 was different from theirs. His celebration of passion was as honest and frank as Omar’s praise of the vine. To him, the begetting114 of children seemed in itself more satisfying to the soul than any words could express. It needed no apologist; but rose out of the region of cold ethics in the divine glow of its ecstatic reality.
Such an attitude, it seems to me, is only possible to a man who has known true love, and has lived a chaste115 and temperate116 life. And these poems, far from representing[Pg 160] Whitman as a man of dissolute habits, indubitably afford the clearest proof, if it were needed, of his temperance and self-control; but that is, happily, a matter which is beyond dispute. He was not a man to seek unlawful pleasures, or to approach life’s mysteries irreverently, neither was he a man to treat womanhood, even when it had covered itself with shame, with anything but the utmost gentleness and chivalry117. It was in the cause of womanhood, if we can say that it was in any cause, that he wrote his poems of sex, seeking, for woman’s sake, to wipe away the shame that still clings about paternity.[289] The physical rites118 of love were beautiful to his sight; and he sought to tear away the obscene draperies and skulking119 thoughts by which they have been hidden.
With this in view, he added an inventory120 of all the items of the flesh to his poem of “The Body Electric,”[290] intended as are all his lists to make the subsequent generalisation more actual. These, he said, are the parts of the soul. For matter and mind are twin aspects of the one reality, which is the soul. All knowledge comes to the soul through the senses, and if we put shame upon any function of the body we cripple something in the soul.
In a singular phrase,[291] he declares that he will be the robust121 husband of the true women of America, the women who await him; meaning, I suppose, that through the medium of his book, he will quicken in those who are fearless and receptive, the conception of the new Humanity. He is Adam, destined122 to be the father of a new race, by the women who are able to receive him. Sexual imagery is rightly used in this connection, not only because it is according to mystical precedent123, but because sex is the profoundest of the passions, as much spiritual as physical, and all reproductive energy is sexual. Whitman believed that until this was recognised, religion and art must remain comparatively sterile124.
The question which these poems raise is far too large[Pg 161] and too delicate for full discussion in this place. And its discussion is rendered more difficult because, present as it is in most of our minds, it is in many still unripe125 for words. The soul knows its own needs and its own hours, and pages like these of Whitman’s are not for every reader. Whitman knew it, and many a time in this volume he asks whether it were not better for you to put the book aside. As for himself, the time had come when these things must be uttered.
The soul must take experience in its own time; but Whitman was convinced that without initiation126 into the mysteries of love, much of life must remain an enigma127 to the individual. It was, it would appear, after initiation that he himself had realised his identity with all things. We speak sometimes of the bestial128 side of our nature, forgetting that when love illuminates129 it, it is this side in particular which redeems130 all that before seemed gross among the creatures.
True to his determination to include all, even the outcast, in his synthesis, Whitman, in another poem,[292] companions publicly with sinners and with harlots. He shares their nature also; they, too, have their place. But if he says they are just as good as the best, it is only when seen by the eyes of a Divine Love. He, as much as any man, realises the handicap of sin; in the end the soul must conquer; but think how sin—the sin of the Pharisee and of the callous heart as much as that of the prostitute—disfigures the temple of the soul, and mars the spiritual with the outward body.
Temperate himself, Whitman’s sympathy for those who sin in the flesh was very real. And indeed for all sins of passion he felt, perhaps, a special understanding. The story runs that while he was still in Boston,[293] he met a lad he had known in New York, who was now, after a drunken brawl131, in which he believed he had killed a companion, escaping from the American police to Canada. The young fellow told Walt his story, and was sent upon his way with that comrade’s kiss of[Pg 162] affection which meant so much more than good advice or charity.
Before closing this section, Whitman returns[294] to the Adamic idea, as though to make his meaning unmistakable. In him, Adam has nearly circled the world, and now looks out across the Pacific to his first birth-place in the East; and still his work is unaccomplished. Still must he go on seeking for his bride, the Future. The passion of creation is upon him, he is strained with yearning133 for that towards which his soul gravitates.
As we finish these poems, we remember how at this time their author impressed those who approached him with two equal qualities, his force and his purity: for great passion is a clear wine in a chaste vessel106. He had a right to say as his last word on this subject, “be not afraid of my body”; for, indeed, it was his soul, enamoured of all things, wholesome134 and pure.
After these poems, comes the “Song of the Road,” and other familiar pieces, and then another group wholly new. These appear to have been written in the autumn of 1859,[295] and are called Calamus; a name either for a reed or for the sweet-flag,[296] which occurs in the Bible and in the pages of Greek and Latin writers, but is here used of a common American pond-reed, a sort of tall sedge or great spear of grass, a yard or so in height, emitting a pungent135 watery136 smell, whose root is used for chewing. In these poems he asserts the soul’s need of society, for life and growth. The gospel of self-realisation thus becomes a social gospel, and the thought gives a political significance to these, the most esoteric of all Whitman’s poems.
He seems more than usually sensitive about them, and dreads138 to have them misunderstood. Proud and jealous, he would drive all but a few away from his[Pg 163] confidences. They are only intended, he says,[297] for his comrades; for it is only they who will understand them.
But in the more obvious sense the poems are for all. It is to comradeship and not to institutions that Whitman looks for a political redemption. He will bind America indissolubly together into the fellowship of his friends.[298] Their friendship shall be called after him,[299] and in his name they shall solve all the problems of Freedom, and bring America to victory. Lovers are the strength of Liberty, comrades perpetuate139 Equality; America will be established above disaster by the love of her poet’s lovers.
Then he turns to himself and his own friends, or rather, perhaps, to his own conscious need for friends. It is curious when one thinks of it, that we have no record of any close friendship, save that of Emerson, dating from these days. And he who knew and loved so many men and women, seems to have carried forward with him no equal friendship from the years of his youth. In this respect, he was solitary as a pioneer. He longed for Great Companions, but he did not meet them at this time upon the open road of daily intercourse140.
Yet was he not alone. Some say he wrote of comradeship because he never found such a comrade as him of whom he wrote;[300] but in one at least of these poems he declares that his life, or at the least his singing, depends upon such comradeship. And the absence of any record merely reminds us that Whitman was chary141 of committing such personal matters to the keeping of a note-book. What record has he left of those women and their children, whose relation to himself must have bulked so largely in the world of his soul? The poems seem to indicate at least one very intimate friendship, more passionately142 given than returned.
Sometimes, as on the beach of Paumanok, doubt[Pg 164] oversets him. Perhaps after all,[301] appearances do not mean what he sees in them. Perhaps the reality, the purpose, lies still undiscovered in them. Perhaps the identity of the human self after death is but a beautiful fable143. There is a perfect answer—shall we say an evasion144?—of these questionings and of all doubts, which fellowship provides.
To me, these, and the like of these, are curiously145 answered by my lovers, my dear friends;
When he whom I love travels with me, or sits a long while holding me by the hand,
When the subtle air, the impalpable, the sense that words and reason hold not, surround us and pervade146 us,
Then I am charged with untold147 and untellable wisdom—I am silent—I require nothing further,
I cannot answer the question of appearances, or that of identity beyond the grave,
But I walk or sit indifferent—I am satisfied,
He ahold of my hand has completely satisfied me.
Then he praises Love; all other joys and enterprises of the heroic soul become but little things when weighed against the life of fellowship, the joy of the presence of the beloved.[302] Is this another of those places where the moralist begs to take his leave of the mystic? Let us beseech148 him to stay, for it is out of the strenuous passions of the soul that all good and lasting149 works for humanity have sprung. It was the face of Beatrice—and for the Italian, it could only have been her face—which drew Dante down through the circles of horror and up the steep slopes of Purgatory150 to Paradise. It was the beauty of the lady Poverty, that enabled her lover to kiss the sores of the lepers in the lazar house below Assisi. What would the Apostles have done in the name of their Lord had they not, like Mary the mystic, chosen the better part of communion with Him instead of fidgetting forever, with Martha, upon the errands of duty?
He writes of Love’s tragedy, and refusal; of the measured love returned for the infinite love accorded.[303] But oftener he dwells upon its joy. The air becomes[Pg 165] alive with music he had never heard before.[304] The passion in his heart responds to a passion of which hitherto he had not dreamed, hidden in the heart of the world, awaiting its hour to break forth. And as these poems have come slowly up from out of the inner purpose of things, to find utterance upon Whitman’s pages, so slowly will their meaning arise in the hearts of those that read them.[305] It is not to be guessed in a moment. For they are freighted with the mystery which unfolds in the patience of the soul.
Although he warns his reader from time to time to beware of him, for he is not at all the man he seems, a note of yearning for confidence cannot be suppressed. He confesses that his very life-blood speaks in these pages,[306] and that his soul is heavy with infinite passion for the love of its Comrades that shall be. Sometimes, as he passes a stranger in the streets, he knows in himself that once they were each other’s; some deep chord of life thrilling, as though with memory, to promise that they will yet come together again.[307] Ah, how many and many an one of these his mystic kin3 must the lands of the earth contain! It is not America only, but the whole human race that he will bind at last into his fellowship, laughing at institutions and at laws, persuading all men by the power of the Soul which is in all.[308] One institution there is which he confesses[309] that he would inaugurate. Let men who love one another kiss when they meet, and walk hand in hand. It is no mere sentiment; he sees that love must have its witness. In warm manly151 love is the mightiest152 power in the universe, a power that laughs at oppressors and at death.[310]
I dreamed in a dream, I saw a city invincible153 to the attacks of the whole of the rest of the earth,
I dreamed that was the new City of Friends,
Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust love—it led the rest,
It was seen every hour in the actions of the men of that city,
And in all their looks and words.
[Pg 166]
Calamus, like the bundle labelled Leaves of Grass, closes on the note of personal presence.[311]
I trust it has already been sufficiently154 suggested that Whitman’s mysticism is not to be confused with much that hitherto has passed under that name. Mysticism it is, for it is the expression of mystical experience; but it is clearly not the mysticism which is completed in a circle of devotion, religious exercises, meditation155 and ecstasy156. It is the mysticism which recreates the world in a new image. Professor Royce, in his most interesting lectures on “The World and the Individual,” has described it, or something very similar to it, under the title of Idealism; and his careful and suggestive elaboration of his theme is the best indirect commentary upon what I have called the mysticism of Whitman with which I am acquainted. It includes an admirable exposition of the meaning of the Soul or Self.
Your whole world, he declares, is your whole Self—Whitman would perhaps have said, it is the mirror which reveals yourself. The Infinite Universe, whereof yours is but a part, is the Self of God. We live, but are not lost in Him, for we are as it were His members. There are two aspects of the human self: the temporal, in which it appears as a mere momentary157 consciousness, and the eternal, which reveals it as an indestructible purpose, the essence of reality. For reality, the professor argues, is the visible expression of purpose or meaning.
To proceed to the social aspect of this teaching: the individual, when he becomes conscious of his world—his Self—becomes conscious, too, that his world is only one aspect of the Universe, that there are a myriad158 others, and that the Universal Life consists of a Fellowship of such Selves as his. Thus, God is the Many-in-One; in Him the Many are one Self and complete. And the Many do not only seek completion in the Divine Unity; they also seek fellowship with one another. The Divine life, which is the basis of Human[Pg 167] life, is thus a life of Fellowship—as the Apostle says, it is Love. It is not merely a trinity, it is a City of Friends; or rather of Lovers, as Edward Carpenter suggested in his recent essays.[312]
Now I am convinced that this thought underlies159 Calamus; not, indeed, as a metaphysical theory, but as one of those overwhelming realisations of the ultimate significance of things which I have described inadequately160 as Whitman’s symbolism. Seeking to plumb161 the depths of passion, he found God. Sex became for him, in its essence, the potency162 of that Life wherein we are One. And comradeship, a passion as intense as that of sex, he beheld as the same relation between spiritual or ?therial bodies.[313] He was aware that the noblest of passions is the most liable to base misunderstandings. But in it alone the soul finds full freedom. Sex passion finds its proper expression in physical rites, it is the passion of the life in Time; on the contrary, the passion of comrades is of eternity and only finds expression in Death.[314] This appears to have been Whitman’s conviction.
Yet another bundle follows Calamus; a packet of more or less personal letters or messages called Messenger Leaves. In subsequent editions they were sorted out into other sections. They are not all new; but among those that now appear for the first time are the daring and noble lines to Jesus.
My spirit to yours, dear brother,
Do not mind because many, sounding your name, do not understand you,
I do not sound your name, but I understand you, (there are others also;)
I specify163 you with joy, O my comrade, to salute164 you, and to salute those who are with you, before and since—and those to come also,
That we all labour together, transmitting the same charge and succession;
We few, equals, indifferent of lands, indifferent of times,
We, enclosers of all continents, all castes—allowers of all theologies,
Compassionaters, perceivers, rapport165 of men,
[Pg 168]
We walk silent among disputes and assertions, but reject not the disputers, nor anything that is asserted, ...
Till we saturate166 time and eras, that the men and women of races, ages to come, may prove brethren and lovers, as we are.[315]
Scattered167 through the generations—so we may read his thought—are those who have come into the cosmic consciousness or larger life, who have passed beyond the reach of time and of mere argument, and who therefore understand one another as others cannot understand them. The love and communion which exists between such Great Companions, is a pledge and earnest of the Society of the Future, when all men shall be one, even as these are one.
The thought may shock those to whom it comes suddenly, if they see in Whitman the “mere man” of their own narrow conception of humanity. But in judging him we must remember that he openly claims for himself and for other men all the Divine attributes which Christians168 are in the habit of ascribing to their Lord. Whitman believed that Jesus identified himself with Humanity; and that all who enter, as he entered, into the cosmic life share in the fellowship of God, even as did he.
More fully than many Christians, Whitman recognised Jesus as literally169 his elder brother; he joined with him in the words “Our Father,” feeling them to be true. And as one reads the gospel narratives170 one ventures to believe that the Master who called the disciples171 his friends, would himself have been eager to welcome the assertion of such a relationship.
Another letter[316] is to one about to die; it is filled not with melancholy172 but with congratulation. The body that dies is but an excrement173, the Self is eternal and goes on into ever fuller sunlight.
Another,[317] which has aroused perhaps more misunderstanding than anything which Whitman wrote, is addressed to a prostitute. It hardly seems to call for[Pg 169] explanation; for it is like the simple offering of the hand of friendship to an outcast; the assertion that for her, too, Whitman’s living eternal comradeship is real and close, accompanied by the injunction that she be worthy of such friendship.
He writes to rich givers[318] in the Franciscan spirit; for he that is willing to give all, is able to accept.
To a pupil[319] he suggests that personality is the tool of all good work and usefulness. To be magnetic is to be great. Come then and first become yourself.
But it is impossible even to refer in passing to all the separate poems, each one with its living suggestion. Some of the briefest are not the least pregnant.
The book closes with poems of departure. A dread137 falls upon him;[320] perhaps after all he may not linger, to go to and fro through the lands he loves, awakening comrades; presently his voice also will cease. But here and now at least his soul has appeared and been realised; and that in itself should be enough.
Then he says his farewell. His words have been for his own era; and in every age, the race must find anew its own poets for its own words. But till America shall have absorbed his message, he must stand, and his influence, his spirit, must endure.[321] After all, he does but seek, with passionate longing, one worthier174 than himself, who yet shall take his place. For him, he has prepared.
Now is he come to die. Without comprehending or questioning, he has obeyed his mystical commission; he has sown the Divine seed with which he was entrusted175; he has given the message with which he was burdened, to women and to young men; now he passes on into the state for which all experience and service has been preparing him. He ceases to sing. His work is accomplished132. Now disembodied and free, he can respond to all that love him, and enter upon the intenser Reality of the Unknown.
[Pg 170]
Dear friend, whoever you are, here, take this kiss,
I give it especially to you—Do not forget me,
I feel like one who has done his work—I progress on,
The unknown sphere, more real than I dreamed, more direct, darts176 awakening rays about me—So long!
Remember my words—I love you—I depart from materials,
I am as one disembodied, triumphant, dead.
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1
eloquence
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| n.雄辩；口才，修辞 | |
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predecessor
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| n.前辈，前任 | |
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kin
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| n.家族，亲属，血缘关系；adj.亲属关系的，同类的 | |
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manifesto
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| n.宣言，声明 | |
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ethics
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| n.伦理学；伦理观，道德标准 | |
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solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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beholds
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| v.看，注视( behold的第三人称单数 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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bind
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| vt.捆，包扎；装订；约束；使凝固；vi.变硬 | |
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worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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14
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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watershed
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| n.转折点，分水岭，分界线 | |
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expended
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| v.花费( expend的过去式和过去分词 )；使用（钱等）做某事；用光；耗尽 | |
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18
cosmopolitan
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| adj.世界性的，全世界的，四海为家的，全球的 | |
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intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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colloquialism
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| n.俗话，白话，口语 | |
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mannerism
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| n.特殊习惯，怪癖 | |
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arrogant
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| adj.傲慢的，自大的 | |
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enthusiast
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| n.热心人，热衷者 | |
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exasperating
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| adj. 激怒的 动词exasperate的现在分词形式 | |
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unity
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| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
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enumerates
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| v.列举，枚举，数( enumerate的第三人称单数 ) | |
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portrayal
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| n.饰演；描画 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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merge
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| v.(使)结合，(使)合并，(使)合为一体 | |
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faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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apprehending
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| 逮捕，拘押( apprehend的现在分词 )； 理解 | |
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verge
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| n.边，边缘；v.接近，濒临 | |
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corruption
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| n.腐败，堕落，贪污 | |
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34
audacity
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| n.大胆，卤莽，无礼 | |
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35
reiterate
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| v.重申，反复地说 | |
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36
utterance
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| n.用言语表达，话语，言语 | |
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37
callous
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| adj.无情的，冷淡的，硬结的，起老茧的 | |
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complacent
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| adj.自满的；自鸣得意的 | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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bereavement
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| n.亲人丧亡，丧失亲人，丧亲之痛 | |
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specifies
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| v.指定( specify的第三人称单数 )；详述；提出…的条件；使具有特性 | |
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42
eternity
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| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
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43
toil
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| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
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subservient
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| adj.卑屈的，阿谀的 | |
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45
warrior
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| n.勇士，武士，斗士 | |
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46
hymn
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| n.赞美诗，圣歌，颂歌 | |
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47
corroborating
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| v.证实，支持（某种说法、信仰、理论等）( corroborate的现在分词 ) | |
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mellow
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| adj.柔和的；熟透的；v.变柔和；(使)成熟 | |
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equanimity
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| n.沉着，镇定 | |
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bass
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| n.男低音(歌手)；低音乐器；低音大提琴 | |
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51
slough
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| v.蜕皮，脱落，抛弃 | |
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52
illustrate
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| v.举例说明，阐明；图解，加插图 | |
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corpse
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| n.尸体，死尸 | |
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mire
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| n.泥沼，泥泞；v.使...陷于泥泞，使...陷入困境 | |
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55
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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56
liberating
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| 解放，释放( liberate的现在分词 ) | |
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57
gales
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| 龙猫 | |
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58
quiescence
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| n.静止 | |
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59
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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60
attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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61
integration
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| n.一体化，联合，结合 | |
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62
underlying
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| adj.在下面的，含蓄的，潜在的 | |
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63
specimens
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| n.样品( specimen的名词复数 )；范例；（化验的）抽样；某种类型的人 | |
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cosmos
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| n.宇宙；秩序，和谐 | |
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chaos
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| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
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prelude
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| n.序言，前兆，序曲 | |
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67
awaken
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| vi.醒，觉醒；vt.唤醒，使觉醒，唤起，激起 | |
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68
awakening
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| n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的 | |
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69
immortality
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| n.不死，不朽 | |
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70
outlast
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| v.较…耐久 | |
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humility
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| n.谦逊，谦恭 | |
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72
ebbed
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| （指潮水）退( ebb的过去式和过去分词 )； 落； 减少； 衰落 | |
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summarise
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| vt.概括，总结 | |
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sane
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| adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的 | |
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75
organisation
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| n.组织，安排，团体，有机休 | |
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76
likeness
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| n.相像，相似（之处） | |
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veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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strewed
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| v.撒在…上( strew的过去式和过去分词 )；散落于；点缀；撒满 | |
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pessimism
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| n.悲观者，悲观主义者，厌世者 | |
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80
justify
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| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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81
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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82
wince
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| n.畏缩，退避，（因痛苦，苦恼等)面部肌肉抽动；v.畏缩，退缩，退避 | |
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83
lusts
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| 贪求（lust的第三人称单数形式） | |
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84
delinquents
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| n.（尤指青少年）有过失的人，违法的人( delinquent的名词复数 ) | |
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85
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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onlooker
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| n.旁观者，观众 | |
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87
strenuous
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| adj.奋发的，使劲的；紧张的；热烈的，狂热的 | |
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88
sloughs
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| n.沼泽( slough的名词复数 )；苦难的深渊；难以改变的不良心情；斯劳(Slough)v.使蜕下或脱落( slough的第三人称单数 )；舍弃；除掉；摒弃 | |
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excellence
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| n.优秀，杰出，(pl.)优点，美德 | |
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90
condemn
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| vt.谴责，指责；宣判(罪犯)，判刑 | |
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justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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presumptuous
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| adj.胆大妄为的，放肆的，冒昧的，冒失的 | |
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timbre
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| n.音色，音质 | |
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awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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illustrates
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| 给…加插图( illustrate的第三人称单数 )； 说明； 表明； （用示例、图画等）说明 | |
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dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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97
poignant
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| adj.令人痛苦的，辛酸的，惨痛的 | |
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melodious
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| adj.旋律美妙的，调子优美的，音乐性的 | |
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soothe
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| v.安慰；使平静；使减轻；缓和；奉承 | |
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reincarnate
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| v.使化身，转生；adj.转世化身的 | |
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101
begetter
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| n.生产者，父 | |
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102
beget
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| v.引起；产生 | |
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103
bereft
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| adj.被剥夺的 | |
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104
beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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105
vessels
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| n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人 | |
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106
vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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107
dissent
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| n./v.不同意，持异议 | |
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108
philosophic
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| adj.哲学的，贤明的 | |
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109
concord
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| n.和谐；协调 | |
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110
bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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111
brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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112
fanaticism
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| n.狂热，盲信 | |
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113
virility
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| n.雄劲，丈夫气 | |
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114
begetting
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| v.为…之生父( beget的现在分词 )；产生，引起 | |
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115
chaste
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| adj.贞洁的；有道德的；善良的；简朴的 | |
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116
temperate
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| adj.温和的，温带的，自我克制的，不过分的 | |
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117
chivalry
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| n.骑士气概，侠义；（男人）对女人彬彬有礼，献殷勤 | |
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118
rites
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| 仪式，典礼( rite的名词复数 ) | |
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119
skulking
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| v.潜伏，偷偷摸摸地走动，鬼鬼祟祟地活动( skulk的现在分词 ) | |
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120
inventory
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| n.详细目录，存货清单 | |
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121
robust
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| adj.强壮的，强健的，粗野的，需要体力的，浓的 | |
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122
destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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123
precedent
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| n.先例，前例；惯例；adj.在前的，在先的 | |
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124
sterile
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| adj.不毛的，不孕的，无菌的，枯燥的，贫瘠的 | |
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125
unripe
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| adj.未成熟的；n.未成熟 | |
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126
initiation
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| n.开始 | |
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127
enigma
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| n.谜，谜一样的人或事 | |
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128
bestial
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| adj.残忍的；野蛮的 | |
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129
illuminates
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| v.使明亮( illuminate的第三人称单数 )；照亮；装饰；说明 | |
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130
redeems
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| 补偿( redeem的第三人称单数 )； 实践； 解救； 使…免受责难 | |
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131
brawl
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| n.大声争吵，喧嚷；v.吵架，对骂 | |
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132
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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133
yearning
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| a.渴望的；向往的；怀念的 | |
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134
wholesome
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| adj.适合；卫生的；有益健康的；显示身心健康的 | |
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135
pungent
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| adj.（气味、味道）刺激性的，辛辣的；尖锐的 | |
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136
watery
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| adj.有水的，水汪汪的；湿的，湿润的 | |
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137
dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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138
dreads
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| n.恐惧，畏惧( dread的名词复数 )；令人恐惧的事物v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的第三人称单数 ) | |
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139
perpetuate
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| v.使永存，使永记不忘 | |
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140
intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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141
chary
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| adj.谨慎的，细心的 | |
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142
passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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143
fable
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| n.寓言；童话；神话 | |
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144
evasion
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| n.逃避，偷漏(税) | |
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145
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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146
pervade
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| v.弥漫，遍及，充满，渗透，漫延 | |
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147
untold
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| adj.数不清的，无数的 | |
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148
beseech
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| v.祈求，恳求 | |
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149
lasting
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| adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持 | |
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150
purgatory
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| n.炼狱；苦难；adj.净化的，清洗的 | |
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151
manly
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| adj.有男子气概的；adv.男子般地，果断地 | |
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152
mightiest
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| adj.趾高气扬( mighty的最高级 )；巨大的；强有力的；浩瀚的 | |
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153
invincible
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| adj.不可征服的，难以制服的 | |
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154
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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155
meditation
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| n.熟虑，（尤指宗教的）默想，沉思，（pl.）冥想录 | |
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156
ecstasy
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| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
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157
momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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158
myriad
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| adj.无数的；n.无数，极大数量 | |
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159
underlies
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| v.位于或存在于（某物）之下( underlie的第三人称单数 )；构成…的基础（或起因），引起 | |
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160
inadequately
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| ad.不够地；不够好地 | |
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161
plumb
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| adv.精确地，完全地；v.了解意义，测水深 | |
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162
potency
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| n. 效力，潜能 | |
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163
specify
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| vt.指定，详细说明 | |
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164
salute
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| vi.行礼，致意，问候，放礼炮；vt.向…致意，迎接，赞扬；n.招呼，敬礼，礼炮 | |
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165
rapport
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| n.和睦，意见一致 | |
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166
saturate
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| vt.使湿透，浸透；使充满，使饱和 | |
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167
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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168
Christians
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| n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 ) | |
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169
literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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170
narratives
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| 记叙文( narrative的名词复数 )； 故事； 叙述； 叙述部分 | |
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171
disciples
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| n.信徒( disciple的名词复数 )；门徒；耶稣的信徒；（尤指）耶稣十二门徒之一 | |
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172
melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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173
excrement
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| n.排泄物，粪便 | |
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174
worthier
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| 应得某事物( worthy的比较级 )； 值得做某事； 可尊敬的； 有（某人或事物）的典型特征 | |
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175
entrusted
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| v.委托，托付( entrust的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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176
darts
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| n.掷飞镖游戏；飞镖( dart的名词复数 )；急驰，飞奔v.投掷，投射( dart的第三人称单数 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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