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diff --git a/36305-8.txt b/36305-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e1a8d81 --- /dev/null +++ b/36305-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1141 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Day with Walt Whitman, by Maurice Clare + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Day with Walt Whitman + +Author: Maurice Clare + +Release Date: June 3, 2011 [EBook #36305] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A DAY WITH WALT WHITMAN *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Katie Hernandez and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by The Internet Archive) + + + + + + + + + + [Illustration] + + + + [Illustration: THE OPEN ROAD. + + Afoot and light-hearted, I take to the open road, + Healthy, free, the world before me, + The long brown path before me, leading wherever I choose. + + (_Song of the Open Road_).] + + + + A · DAY · WITH + WALT + WHITMAN + + BY MAURICE CLARE + + [Illustration] + + LONDON + HODDER & STOUGHTON + + + + +_In the same Series._ + + + _Tennyson._ + _Wordsworth._ + _Browning._ + _Burns._ + _Byron._ + _Keats._ + _E. B. Browning._ + _Whittier_. + _Rossetti._ + _Shelley._ + _Longfellow._ + _Scott._ + _Coleridge._ + _Morris._ + + + + +A DAY WITH WALT WHITMAN. + + +About six o'clock on a midsummer morning in 1877, a tall old man awoke, +and was out of bed next moment,--but he moved with a certain slow +leisureliness, as one who will not be hurried. The reason of this +deliberate movement was obvious,--he had to drag a paralysed leg, which +was only gradually recovering its ability and would always be slightly +lame. Seen more closely, he was not by any means so old as at first +sight one might imagine. His snow-white hair and almost-white grey beard +indicated some eighty years: but he was vigorous, erect and rosy: his +clear grey-blue eyes were bright with a "wild-hawk look,"--his face was +firm and without a line. An air of splendid vital force, despite his +infirmity, was diffused from his whole person, and defied the fact of +his actual age, which was two years short of sixty. + +Dressing with the same large, leisurely gestures as characterized him in +everything, Walt Whitman was presently attired in his invariable suit of +grey: and by the time the clock touched half-past seven, he was seated +in the verandah, comfortably inhaling the sweet, fresh morning air, and +quite ready for his simple breakfast. + +In this old farmhouse, in the New Jersey hamlet of White Horse, Walt +Whitman had been long an inmate. He was recovering by almost +imperceptible degrees from the breakdown induced by over-strain, mental +and physical, which had culminated in intermittent paralytic seizures +for the last eight years, and had left his robust physique a mere wreck +of its former magnificence. Here, in the absolute peace and seclusion of +the little wooden house, with its few fields and fruit-trees, he lived +in lovable companionship with the farmer-folk, man, wife and sons: and +here, the level, faintly undulated country, "neither attractive nor +unattractive," supplied all the needs of his strenuous nature and healed +him with its calm, curative influences. He steeped himself, month by +month, season after season, in "primitive solitudes, winding stream, +recluse and woody banks, sweet-feeding springs and all the charms that +birds, grass, wild-flowers, rabbits and squirrels, old oaks, +walnut-trees, etc., can bring." Simple fare, these charms might seem to +a townsman: to the "good grey poet" they were not only sufficient but +inexhaustible. Dearly as he loved the "swarming and tumultuous" life of +cities, the tops of Broadway omnibuses, the Brooklyn ferry-boats, the +eternal panorama of the multitude, his true delight was in the vast +expanses, the illimitable spaces, the very earth from which, +Antĉus-like, he drew his vital strength. Out here, in the country +solitudes, alone could he observe how--in a way undreamed of by the +street-dweller,-- + + Ever upon this stage + Is acted God's calm annual drama, + Gorgeous processions, songs of birds, + Sunrise that fullest feeds and freshens most the soul, + The heaving sea, the waves upon the shore, the musical, strong waves, + The woods, the stalwart trees, the slender, tapering trees, + The lilliput countless armies of the grass. + + (_The Return of the Heroes._) + +It may be doubted whether any other poet who has been inspired by +outdoor Nature, has approximated so closely as Whitman to the "shows of +all variety," which nature presents,--from the infinite gradations of +microscopic detail, to the enormous range and sweep of dim vastitudes. +His poetry has a huge elemental quality, akin to that of winds and +clouds and seas. "To speak with the perfect rectitude and insouciance of +the movements of animals, and the unimpeachableness of the sentiment of +trees in the woods and grass by the roadside,"--this was the standard he +had set himself: and, in pursuance of this ideal, he had given his first +and most typically unconventional volume the title "_Leaves of Grass_." +No name could better convey and sum up his meaning in art,--a commixture +of the minute and the universal, the simple and the inexplicable, the +particular and the all-pervading,--the commonplace which is also the +miracle: for to Whitman leaves of grass were this and more. "To me," he +declared, "as I lean and loaf at my ease, observing a spear of summer +grass," + + Every hour of the light and dark is a miracle-- + Every cubic inch of space is a miracle, + +the grass-blades no less so than the "gentle soft-born measureless +light." And, avowedly, from these external expressions of nature he +derived all power of song-- + + I hear you whispering there, O stars of heaven-- + O suns--O grass of graves--O perpetual transfers and promotions,-- + If you do not say anything, how can I say anything? + +Thus he had arrived at declaring, with august arrogance: "Let others +finish specimens--I never finish specimens: I shower them by exhaustless +laws as Nature does, fresh and modern continually." + +Nor are you to suppose that this was a late development of +nature-worship in a man suddenly confronted with teeming glories and +wonderments. All through his life he had been soaking himself in the +mysterious loveliness of the world around. "Even as a boy," he wrote, "I +had the fancy, the wish, to write a poem about the seashore--that +suggesting dividing line, contact, junction, the solid marrying the +liquid--that curious, lurking something (as doubtless every objective +form finally becomes to the subjective spirit) which means far more than +its mere first sight, grand as that is.... I felt that I must one day +write a book expressing this liquid, mystic theme. Afterward ... it came +to me that instead of any special lyrical or epical or literary attempt, +the seashore should be an invisible _influence_, a pervading gauge and +tally for me in my composition." Even as a child, upon the desolate +beaches of Long Island, he had, "leaving his bed, wandered alone, +bare-headed, barefoot," over the sterile sands and the fields beyond, +and explored the secret sources of tragedy that are hidden at the roots +of love. + + Once Paumanok, + When the snows had melted--when the lilac-scent was in the air + and Fifth-month grass was growing, + Up this seashore, in some briers, + Two guests from Alabama--two together, + And their nest, and four light-green eggs, spotted with brown, + And every day the he-bird to and fro near at hand, + And every day the she-bird crouch'd on her nest, silent, with bright + eyes, + And every day I, a curious boy, never too close, never disturbing + them, + Cautiously peering, absorbing, translating. + + * * * * * + + Till of a sudden, + May-be kill'd, unknown to her mate, + One forenoon the she-bird crouch'd not on the nest, + Nor return'd that afternoon, nor the next, + Nor ever appear'd again. + + And thenceforward all summer in the sound of the sea, + And at night under the full of the moon in calmer weather.... + + Yes, when the stars glisten'd, + All night long on the prong of a moss-scallop'd stake, + Down, almost amid the slapping waves, + Sat the lone singer wonderful causing tears + + * * * * * + + I, with bare feet, a child, the wind wafting my hair, + Listen'd long and long.... + + (_Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking_). + +But now the Stafford family were assembled at breakfast and Walt limped +in to join them. Courteously and simply he greeted the various members +of the household,--the dark, silent, diligent Methodist father,--the +spiritually-minded yet busy-handed mother,--the two young fellows, the +married daughter and her little ones. He was the most domesticated, +least troublesome of inmates, and his "large sweet presence" imparted +something to the homely breakfast-table, something of benignity and +tranquillity, which it had lacked before his entrance. "The best man I +ever knew," Mrs. Stafford called him. Her sons adored him; and her +grandchildren were almost like his own, in the love and confidence with +which they curled themselves upon his great grey knee when the meal was +over. For his affection for children, his sense of fatherhood, was a +predominant trait of Whitman's character. Lonely, since his mother's +death, he had lived as regards the closer human relationships: lonely, +in this sense, he was doomed to remain. A veil of secrecy hung over his +past life, which none had ever ventured to lift. Rumours of a lost mate, +as in the song of the Alabama bird upon the shore,--of children whom he +never could claim,--hints of harsh fates and imperious destinies, +occasionally penetrated that close-woven curtain of silence which +covered his most intimate self. But only in his poems had he voiced his +loneliness, and that with the tenderest poignancy of yearning for +"better, loftier love's ideals, the divine wife, the sweet, eternal, +perfect comrade".... + + That woman who passionately clung to me. + Again we wander, we love, we separate again, + Again she holds me by the hand, I must not go, + I see her close beside me with silent lips sad and tremulous. + + * * * * * + + (Be not impatient--a little space--Know you, I salute the air, the + ocean and the land, + Every day, at sundown, for your dear sake, my love.) + +And this was the man who had been blamed for his utter lack of "the +romantic attitude towards women!" But Whitman was no light singer of +casual empty love-lyrics; he was of sterner stuff than that. + + No dainty dolce affettuoso I, + Bearded, sun-burnt, gray-neck'd, forbidding, I have arrived. + + * * * * * + +As breakfast passed, he spoke but little to his companions. His ordinary +mood of "quiet yet cheerful serenity," lay gently on him, and he was +content to sit almost silent, emanating that radiant power, that +"effluence and inclusiveness as of the sun," which none could fail to +note in him. When addressed, he only replied with the brief monosyllable +"Ay? Ay?" (which he pronounced _Oy? Oy?_), and which, slightly inflected +to answer various purposes, served him for all response. + +[Illustration: + + I, with bare feet, a child, the wind wafting my hair, + Listen'd long and long.... + + (_Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking_).] + +The meal was not yet over, for most of the family, when Whitman, rising +abruptly with that startling _brusquerie_ which occasionally offended +his friends, observed "Ta-ta!" to everybody in general and departed--"as +if he didn't care if he never saw us again!" remarked one of the young +men. He left the house and strolled down the green lane, to a wide +wooded hollow, where the stream called Timber Creek went winding among +its lily-leaves beneath the trees. Here Whitman had found, a year +before, "a particularly secluded little dell off one side by my +creek ... filled with bushes, trees, grass, a group of willows, a +straggling bank and a spring of delicious water running right through +the middle of it, with two or three little cascades. Here (he) retreated +every hot day" (_Specimen Days_),--and here, while the summer sun drew +sweet aromatic odours from the tangled water-mints and cresses, he +proceeded slowly now, carrying a portable chair, and with his pockets +filled with note-books; for, as he truly avowed, "Wherever I go, winter +or summer, city or country, alone at home or travelling, I _must_ take +notes." He was about to make sure of a morning's unmitigated +delight,--in the spot where he sought, "every day, seclusion--every day +at least two or three hours of freedom, bathing, no talk, no bonds, no +dress, no books, no manners." + +And each step of the way was a pure joy to him. "What a day!" he +murmured, "what an hour just passing! the luxury of riant grass and +blowing breeze, with all the shows of sun and sky and perfect +temperature, never before so filling me body and soul!" So rhapsodizing +inwardly and drinking in the beauty of sight and sound, he proceeded, +"still sauntering on, to the spring under the willows--musical as soft +clinking glasses--pouring a sizeable stream, pure and clear, out from +its vent where the bank arches over like a great brown shaggy eyebrow or +mouth-roof--gurgling, gurgling ceaselessly; meaning, saying something, +of course (if one could only translate it.)" (_Specimen Days._) + +Here he sat down awhile and revelled in sheer joy of summer opulence. He +enumerated to himself,--laying a store of lovely recollections for +future reference in darker days,--"The fervent heat, but so much more +endurable in this pure air--the white and pink pond-blossoms, with great +heart-shaped leaves, the glassy waters of the creek, the banks, with +dense bushery and the picturesque beeches and shade and turf; the +tremulous, reedy call of some bird from recesses, breaking the warm, +indolent, half-voluptuous silence: the prevailing delicate, yet +palpable, spicy, grassy, clovery perfume to my nostrils,--and over all, +encircling all, to my sight and soul, the free space of the sky, +transparent and blue," (_Specimen Days_,) and, "from old habit, +pencilled down from time to time, almost automatically, moods, sights, +hours, tints and outlines, on the spot." Minutes like these were the +seed time of his art, if that can be called art which was almost one +with Nature. For Walt Whitman had, from the very outset, striven to +obtain that fusion of identity with _Natura Benigna_, which, even if +only momentary, bequeathes a lasting impression on the mind. He had +always felt, with regard to his productions, that "There is a +humiliating lesson one learns, in serene hours, of a fine day or night. +Nature seems to look on all fixed-up poetry and art as something almost +impertinent.... If I could indirectly show that we have met and fused, +even if but only once, but enough--that we have really absorbed each +other and understood each other,"--it sufficed him. Nothing less did: +for he recognised that "after you have exhausted what there is in +business, politics, conviviality, love and so on--have found that none +of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear--what remains? Nature +remains: to bring out from their torpid recesses, the affinities of a +man or woman with the open air, the trees, fields, changes of +seasons--the sun by day and the stars of heaven by night." And, while +confessing, "I cannot divest my appetite of literature, yet I find +myself eventually trying it all by Nature--_first premises_ many call +it, but really the crowning results of all, laws, tallies and proofs.... +I have fancied the ocean and the daylight, the mountain and the forest, +putting their spirit in a judgment on our books. I have fancied some +disembodied soul giving its verdict." (_Specimen Days._) He was "so +afraid," as he phrased it, "of dropping what smack of outdoors or sun or +starlight might cling to the lines--I dared not try to meddle with or +smooth them." To be "made one with Nature," in a deeper sense than ever +any man yet had known, was, in short, his ideal,--and, one may say, his +achievement. For the verdict of the average person, vacant of _his_ +glorious gains, he did not care. Regardless of ridicule, calumny, +contumely, he had pursued his own way to his own goal: till he was able +at last to realize his dream of-- + + Me imperturbe, standing at ease in Nature, + Master of all, or mistress of all--aplomb in the midst of irrational + things. + +And now he was an old man, to look upon,--yet a man surcharged with +electric vigour and daily renewing his physical strength from the +fountains of eternal youth. He was just as full of _élan_, of +enterprise, of the glorious hunger for adventure, as when first he had +proclaimed,-- + + Afoot and light-hearted, I take to the open road, + Healthy, free, the world before me, + The long brown path before me, leading wherever I choose. + + Allons! to that which is endless, as it was beginningless, + To undergo much, tramps of days, rests of nights, + To merge all in the travel they tend to, and the days and nights + they tend to, + Again to merge them in the start of superior journeys; + To see nothing anywhere but what you may reach it and pass it, + To look up or down no road but it stretches and waits for + you--however long, but it stretches and waits for you; + To see no being, not God's or any, but you also go thither. + + (_Song of the Open Road._) + +The big grey man expanded almost visibly in the sun-steeped air, as he +absorbed the exquisite minutiĉ of the green dell into his mind, and +assimilated the music of the wind and stream. Sound of any sort had a +powerfully emotional effect upon him. It was not mere fancy on Whitman's +part that "he and Wagner made one music." With music on the most +colossal scale his poems are fraught from end to end: and while their +technical form may be less finished, less perfected, than those of other +authors,--while they have less melody, they have the multitudinous +harmony, the superb architectonics, the choral and symphonic movement of +the noblest masters. "Such poems as _The Mystic Trumpeter_, _Out of the +Cradle_, _Passage to India_, have the genesis and exodus of great +musical compositions." And to many auditors, the "vast elemental +sympathy" of this unique personality can only be compared to that of +Beethoven, whom he said he had "discovered as a new meaning in music:" +Beethoven, by whom he allowed he "had been carried out of himself, +seeing, hearing wonders:" Beethoven, who, like himself, sought +inspiration continuously in the magic and mystery of Nature. + +[Illustration: THE LUMBERMEN'S CAMP. + + Lumbermen in their winter camp, day-break in the woods, stripes of + snow on the limbs of trees, the occasional snapping, + The glad clear sound of one's own voice, the merry song, the natural + life of the woods, the strong day's work, + The blazing fire at night, the sweet taste of supper, the talk, the + bed of hemlock boughs, and the bear-skin. + + (_Song of the Broad-Axe_).] + +And thus, all Whitman's finest poems have a processional air, like the +evolution of some great symphony--a pageantry of sound, so to speak, +which whirls one forward like a leaf upon a resistless stream. Sometimes +he is superbly triumphant, as in his inaugural _Song of Myself_: + + With music strong I come--with my cornets and my drums, + I play not marches for accepted victors only, + I play great marches for conquer'd and slain persons. + +Sometimes he translates the sonorities of the air into immortal +effluences of meaning: + + Hark, some wild trumpeter--some strange musician, + Hovering unseen in air, vibrates capricious tunes to-night.... + + Blow, trumpeter, free and clear--I follow thee, + While at thy liquid prelude, glad, serene, + The fretting world, the streets, the noisy hours of day, withdraw; + +or he blends all sorts and conditions of beautiful resonance into, +surely, the strangest yet loveliest love-song ever yet set down: + + I heard you, solemn-sweet pipes of the organ, as last Sunday morn I + pass'd the church, + Winds of autumn, as I walked the woods at dusk, I heard your + long-stretch'd sighs up above so mournful, + I heard the perfect Italian tenor singing at the opera, I heard the + soprano in the midst of the quartet singing; + Heart of my love! you too I heard murmuring low through one of the + wrists around my head, + Heard the pulse of you, when all was still, ringing little bells + last night under my ear. + +But now the precious hour had arrived, which to Whitman spelt +revivification and rejuvenescence above all others: the time when, +stripped of all externals, he became the very child of Mother Earth. In +his own description of the process: + +"A light south-west wind was blowing through the tree-tops. It was just +the place and time for my Adamic air-bath.... So, hanging clothes on a +rail near by, keeping old broadbrim straw on head and easy shoes on +feet ... then partially bathing in the clear waters of the running +brook--taking everything very leisurely, with many rests and pauses ... +slow negligent promenades on the turf up and down in the sun ... somehow +I seemed to get identity with each and everything around me, in its +condition. Perhaps the inner, never-lost rapport we hold with earth, +light, air, trees, etc., is not to be realized through eyes and mind +only, but through the whole corporeal body." (_Specimen Days._) + +Power and joy and exhilaration infused his whole frame. "Here," he +murmured, "I realize the meaning of that old fellow who said he was +seldom less alone than when alone. Never before did I get so close to +Nature: never before did she come so close to me." + +And a miracle of transient transformation had been wrought upon him. His +youth was "renewed like the eagle's," his lameness hardly perceptible, +as he reluctantly emerged from the sweet water, and, having dried +himself in the sun-glow, still more reluctantly dressed again. This was +no longer the "battered, wrecked old man," the veteran of life-long +battles with the world: but one who could realize with keenest +perception every sensation of stalwart strength. He might have been, at +this moment, one of his own "lumbermen in their winter camp," enjoying + + Day-break in the woods, stripes of snow on the limbs of trees, + the occasional snapping, + The glad clear sound of one's own voice, the merry song, the natural + life of the woods, the strong day's work, + The blazing fire at night, the sweet taste of supper, the talk, the + bed of hemlock boughs, and the bear-skin. + + (_Song of the Broad-Axe._) + +or a scion of the "youthful sinewy races," whom he had chanted in +_Pioneers_: + + Come, my tan-faced children, + Follow well in order, get your weapons ready; + Have you your pistols? have you your sharpedged axes? + Pioneers! O pioneers!... + + All the past we leave behind! + We debouch upon a newer, mightier world, varied world; + Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labour and the march, + Pioneers! O pioneers! + +Here at last was the true Walt Whitman, superabundant in splendid +vitality and conscious of mental and physical power through every fibre +of his being. + +[Illustration: THE PIONEERS. + + All the past we leave behind! + We debouch upon a newer, mightier world,.... + + Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep.... + Pioneers! O Pioneers! + + (_Pioneers._)] + +One last longing, loving look he cast upon the creek before returning +homewards. The magnificent mid-noon lay full-tide over all, brimming the +uttermost shores of beauty: it was the very apotheosis of summer, the +tangible realization of Whitman's prophetic vision. + + All, all for immortality, + Love like the light silently wrapping all, + Nature's amelioration blessing all, + The blossoms, fruits of ages, orchards divine and certain, + Forms, objects, growths, humanities, to spiritual images ripening. + Give me, O God, to sing that thought, + Give me, give him or her I love this quenchless faith, + In Thy ensemble, whatever else withheld withhold not from us + Belief in plan of Thee enclosed in Time and Space, + Health, peace, salvation universal. + + Is it a dream? + Nay but the lack of it the dream, + And failing it life's lore and wealth a dream, + And all the world a dream. + + * * * * * + +Now he passed back up the lane to the little farmstead, and, entering +in, found the midday meal was served. Mr. Stafford was already seated +and about to say grace. Whitman stopped as he passed behind the farmer's +chair, and clasping Stafford's head in his large, well-formed hands, +became an actual part, as it were, in the benediction. Then he took his +seat in silence. But that irrepressible joyousness which sometimes, +after working on a manuscript, seemed to shine from his face and pervade +his whole body,--that "singular brightness and delight, as though he had +partaken of some divine elixir"--was visible now upon his noble +features. He talked a little, in simple homely phrases,--giving little +idea of the voluminous reserve force within him: telling little +incidents of the War of Secession and anecdotes of his hospital +experiences. He had been a volunteer nurse of exquisite patience and +admirable efficiency throughout those terrible years 1862-64. His +passionate tenderness and sympathy then found vent: and he gave his best +and uttermost: believing that (in his own words) "these libations, +extatic life-pourings, as it were, of precious wine or rose-water on +vast desert-sands or great polluted rivers, taking chances of _no +return_,--what are they but the theory and practice ... of Christ or of +all divine personality?" For in the human, however defaced, he still +could discern the divine and immortal. The worth of every individual +soul was the pivot of all his arts and beliefs: + + "Because, having looked at the objects of the Universe, I find + there is no one, nor any particle of one, but has reference to + the soul." + +Usually, to his sensitive mind, able as it was to realise with the +keenest sympathy every phase of human suffering, the memories of carnage +were repulsive. By day he could shut them off: but by night, he said, + + In clouds descending, in midnight sleep, of many a face in battle, + Of the look at first of the mortally wounded, of that indescribable + look, + Of the dead on their backs, with arms extended wide-- + I dream, I dream, I dream. + + (_Old War Dreams._) + +But he had faith in the future of his country, vast hopes in the +purification wrought out by those sorrowful years: and his poem _To the +Man-of-War Bird_ was but one of many allegories in which he saw his +beloved America rising transfigured from the ashes of the past. + + Thou who hast slept all night upon the storm, + Waking renew'd on thy prodigious pinions, + (Burst the wild storm? above it thou ascended'st, + And rested on the sky, thy slave that cradled thee,).... + + Thou born to match the gale, (thou art all wings,) + To cope with heaven and earth and sea and hurricane, + Thou ship of air that never furl'st thy sails, + Days, even weeks untired and onward, through spaces, realms gyrating, + At dusk that look'st on Senegal, at morn America, + That sport'st amid the lightning-flash and thunder-cloud, + In them, in thy experiences, had'st thou my soul, + What joys! what joys were thine! + +and out of the smoke and din of conflict, he believed, should spring +"the most splendid race the sun ever shone upon," knit in sublime unity +of brotherhood. + +Dinner over, Whitman retired awhile to his own apartment: that fearful +chaos of pell-mell untidiness which was the delight of its occupant and +the despair of Mrs. Stafford. An indescribable confusion it was of +letters, newspapers and books,--an inkbottle on one chair, a glass of +lemonade on another, a pile of MSS. on a third, a hat on the floor.... +Imperturbably composed, the poet surveyed his best-loved books,--Scott, +Carlyle, Tennyson, Emerson,--translations of Homer, Dante, Hafiz, Saadi: +renderings of Virgil, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius,--versions of Spanish +and German poets: most well-worn of all, Shakespeare and the Bible. +Finally, out of the heterogeneous collection he selected George Sand's +_Consuelo_ and seated himself at the window with it. On another +afternoon he would have returned to the creek, but to-day he was +expecting a friend. + +And friends, with him, did not mean mere acquaintances: still less those +visitors who were brought by vulgar curiosity. Although the best of +comrades and one who found companionship most exhilarating, he had a +bed-rock of deep reserve, and "to such as he did not like, he became as +a precipice." But to those with whom he was truly _en rapport_,--whether +by letter or in the flesh,--he was spendthrift of his personality. His +English literary friends,--Tennyson, Rossetti, Buchanan, Browning and +others, had supplied the financial aid which enabled him to recuperate +at Timber Creek: compatriots such as Emerson, John Burroughs, and a host +of old-time friends were welcome visitors. But nothing in his life or in +his literary fortunes, he declared, had brought him more comfort and +support--nothing had more spiritually soothed him--than the "warm +appreciation and friendship of that true full-grown woman," Anne +Gilchrist, the sweet English widow who was now staying with her children +in Philadelphia, to be within easy reach of Whitman. "Among the perfect +women I have known (and it has been very unspeakable good fortune to +have had the very best for mother, sisters and friends), I have known +none more perfect," wrote the poet, "than my dear, dear friend, Anne +Gilchrist." It was this warm-hearted, courageous Englishwoman, "alive +with humour and vivacity," whose musical voice was shortly heard +outside, enquiring for Walt. He hastened down to receive her. + +[Illustration: THE MAN-OF-WAR BIRD. + + Thou born to match the gale, (thou art all wings,) + To cope with heaven and earth and sea and hurricane, + Thou ship of air that never furl'st thy sails, + Days, even weeks untired and onward, through spaces, realms gyrating, + At dusk that look'st on Senegal, at morn America, + That sport'st amid the lightning-flash and thunder-cloud, + In them, in thy experiences, had'st thou my soul, + What joys! what joys were thine! + + (_To the Man-of-War Bird._)] + +Anne Gilchrist's opinion of Whitman was even more enthusiastic than his +appreciation of her. She admired and revered the courage with which he +expounded his theories of life, no less than the expression of them in +words which, as she put it, ceased to be words and became electric +streams. "What more can you ask of the words of a man's mouth," she +exclaimed, "than that they should absorb into you as food and air, to +reappear again in your strength, gait, face--that they should be fibre +and filter to your blood, joy and gladness to your whole nature?" She +alone, of all women, and almost alone among men, had stood forth to +defend him for the "fearless and comprehensive dealing with reality" +which had alienated the conventional and offended the prudish--and she +alone was the recipient, now, of his most intimate thoughts and +aspirations. + +They sat together on the shady piazza, and he unfolded to her, while her +children played around, the hopes and wishes of his heart not only for +America but for all humanity. He said, "My original idea was that if I +could bring men together by putting before them the heart of man with +all its joys and sorrows and experiences and surroundings, it would be a +great thing.... I have endeavoured from the first to get free as much as +possible from all literary attitudinism--to strip off integuments, +coverings, bridges--and to speak straight from and to the heart; ... to +discard all conventional poetic phrases, and every touch of or reference +to ancient or mediĉval images, metaphors, subjects, styles, etc., and to +write _de novo_ with words and phrases appropriate to our own days." He +took her hand as he spoke, as was his wont with a sympathetic listener, +and gazed with eagerness into her serious yet easily-lighted face. His +"terrible blaze of personality" was subdued for the nonce into that +child-like simplicity, that woman-like tenderness, which constituted +some of his chief charms. + +They discussed the work of contemporary poets, English and American. +Whitman, however much he differed from these in theory and method, gave +generous homage to their varied genius. He loved to declaim the +_Ulysses_ and kindred majestically-rolling passages of Tennyson, in a +clear, strong, rugged tone, devoid of all elocutionary tricks or +affectation. He never spoke a line of his own verse, but to recite from +Shakespeare was a great pleasure to him: and he compared the +Shakespearean plays to large, rich, splendid tapestry, like Raffaelle's +historical cartoons, where everything is broad and colossal. For Scott, +whose work, he said, breathed more of the open air than the workshop, he +had unfeigned admiration. Dramatic work and music in all its forms he +discussed with knowledge and fervour. As for the poets of America, he +poured encomium upon them ungrudgingly. "I can't imagine any better luck +befalling these States for a poetical beginning and initiation than has +come from Emerson, Longfellow, Bryant and Whittier." (_Specimen Days._) + +The afternoon shadows stretched themselves out, and at sunset Mrs. +Gilchrist and her children departed. It had been for her a memorable +afternoon: and Whitman had been thoroughly in his element as comrade of +so congenial a soul. Now, as the twilight deepened, he devoted himself +to the consideration of the deepest notes in the whole diapason of human +existence. Never was a man of more exuberant a joy in life: never one +who gazed more courageously into the dim-veiled face of Death,--the +sower of all enigmas, the comforter of all pain. + + Whispers of heavenly death, murmur'd I hear; + Labial gossip of night--sibilant chorals; + Footsteps gently ascending--mystical breezes, wafted soft and low.... + + (Did you think Life was so well provided for--and Death, the purport + of all Life, is not well provided for?)... + I do not doubt that whatever can possibly happen, any where, at any + time, is provided for, in the inherences of things; + I do not think Life provides for all, and for Time and Space--but I + believe Heavenly Death provides for all. + + (_Whispers of Heavenly Death._) + +And his heart once more, as in the matchless threnody for Lincoln, _When +Lilacs last in the dooryard bloomed_, uttered its song of summons and +of welcome. + + Come, lovely and soothing Death, + Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving, + In the day, in the night, to all, to each, + Sooner or later, delicate Death.... + + Dark Mother, always gliding near, with soft feet, + Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome? + Then I chant it for thee--I glorify thee above all. + +The skies deepened into purple, and the march of the stars began: it was +the sacredest hour of the day to Whitman, a period consecrated and set +apart above all. "I am convinced," thought he, "that there are hours of +Nature, especially of the atmosphere, mornings and evenings, addressed +to the soul. Night transcends, for that purpose, what the proudest day +can do." (_Specimen Days._) + +And a new buoyancy quickened in his soul; the indomitable spirit of +enterprise revived within him. Now, at eleven at night, he was more +exhilarated in mind than his body had been in the blue July morning: +and, casting one comprehensive glance upon the burning arcana of the +heavens, that he might carry into his sleep a memory of that glory, he +"desired a better country," with longing and deep solicitude. + + Bathe me, O God, in Thee, mounting to Thee, + I and my soul to range in range of Thee! + + * * * * * + + Passage to more than India! + O secret of the earth and sky! + Of you, O waters of the sea! O winding creeks and rivers! + Of you, O woods and fields! Of you, strong mountains of my land! + Of you, O prairies! Of you, gray rocks! + O morning red! O clouds! O rain and snows! + O day and night, passage to you! + O sun and moon, and all you stars! Sirius and Jupiter! + Passage to you!... + + O my brave soul! + O farther, farther sail! + O daring joy, but safe! Are they not all the seas of God? + O farther, farther, farther sail! + + (_Passage to India_.) + + + _Printed by Percy Lund, Humphries & Co. Ltd.,_ + _Bradford and London._ + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's A Day with Walt Whitman, by Maurice Clare + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A DAY WITH WALT WHITMAN *** + +***** This file should be named 36305-8.txt or 36305-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/3/0/36305/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Katie Hernandez and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by The Internet Archive) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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