Complete Prose Works

W >> Walt Whitman >> Complete Prose Works

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55

I know the solemn monotone
Of waters calling unto me;
I know from whence the airs have blown,
That whisper of the Eternal Sea;
As low my fires of driftwood burn,
I hear that sea's deep sounds increase,
And, fair in sunset light, discern
Its mirage-lifted Isles of Peace.

Like an invisible breeze after a long and sultry day, death sometimes
sets in at last, soothingly and refreshingly, almost vitally. In not
a few cases the termination even appears to be a sort of ecstasy. Of
course there are painful deaths, but I do not believe such is at all
the general rule. Of the many hundreds I myself saw die in the fields
and hospitals during the secession war the cases of mark' d suffering
or agony _in extremis_ were very rare. (It is a curious suggestion
of immortality that the mental and emotional powers remain to their
clearest through all, while the senses of pain and flesh volition are
blunted or even gone.)

Then to give the following, and cease before the thought gets
threadbare:

Now, land and life, finale, and farewell!
Now Voyager depart! (much, much for thee is yet in store;)
Often enough hast thou adventur'd o'er the seas,
Cautiously cruising, studying the charts,
Duly again to port and hawser's tie returning.
--But now obey thy cherish'd, secret wish,
Embrace thy friends--leave all in order;
To port and hawser's tie no more returning,
Depart upon thy endless cruise, old Sailor!

SOME LAGGARDS YET

THE PERFECT HUMAN VOICE

Stating it briefly and pointedly I should suggest that the human voice
is a cultivation or form'd growth on a fair native foundation. This
foundation probably exists in nine cases out of ten. Sometimes nature
affords the vocal organ in perfection, or rather I would say near
enough to whet one's appreciation and appetite for a voice that
might be truly call'd perfection. To me the grand voice is mainly
physiological--(by which I by no means ignore the mental help, but
wish to keep the emphasis where it belongs.) Emerson says _manners_
form the representative apex and final charm and captivation of
humanity: but he might as well have changed the typicality to voice.

Of course there is much taught and written about elocution, the best
reading, speaking, &c., but it finally settles down to _best_ human
vocalization. Beyond all other power and beauty, there is something in
the quality and power of the right voice (_timbre_ the schools call
it) that touches the soul, the abysms. It was not for nothing that
the Greeks depended, at their highest, on poetry's and wisdom's vocal
utterance by _tete-a-tete_ lectures--(indeed all the ancients did.)

Of celebrated people possessing this wonderful vocal power, patent
to me, in former days, I should specify the contralto Alboni, Elias
Hicks, Father Taylor, the tenor Bettini, Fanny Kemble, and the old
actor Booth, and in private life many cases, often women. I sometimes
wonder whether the best philosophy and poetry, or something like the
best, after all these centuries, perhaps waits to be rous'd out yet,
or suggested, by the perfect physiological human voice.

SHAKSPERE FOR AMERICA

Let me send you a supplementary word to that "view" of Shakspere
attributed to me, publish'd in your July number,[47] and so
courteously worded by the reviewer (thanks! dear friend.) But you have
left out what, perhaps, is the main point, as follows:

"Even the one who at present reigns unquestion'd--of Shakspere--for
all he stands for so much in modern literature, he stands entirely for
the mighty esthetic sceptres of the past, not for the spiritual and
democratic, the sceptres of the future." (See pp. 55-58 in "November
Boughs," and also some of my further notions on Shakspere.)

The Old World (Europe and Asia) is the region of the poetry of
concrete and real things,--the past, the esthetic, palaces, etiquette,
the literature of war and love, the mythological gods, and the myths
anyhow. But the New World (America) is the region of the future, and
its poetry must be spiritual and democratic. Evolution is not the rule
in Nature, in Politics, and Inventions only, but in Verse. I know our
age is greatly materialistic, but it is greatly spiritual, too, and
the future will be, too. Even what we moderns have come to mean by
_spirituality_ (while including what the Hebraic utterers, and mainly
perhaps all the Greek and other old typical poets, and also the
later ones, meant) has so expanded and color'd and vivified the
comprehension of the term, that it is quite a different one from the
past. Then science, the final critic of all, has the casting vote for
future poetry.

Note:

[47] This bit was in "Poet-lore" monthly for September, 1890.

"UNASSAIL'D RENOWN"

The N. Y. _Critic_, Nov. 24, 1889, propounded a circular to several
persons, and giving the responses, says, "Walt Whitman's views
[as follow] are, naturally, more radical than those of any other
contributor to the discussion":

Briefly to answer impromptu your request of Oct. 19--the question
whether I think any American poet not now living deserves a place
among the thirteen "English inheritors of unassail'd renown" (Chaucer,
Spenser, Shakspere, Milton, Dryden, Pope, Gray, Burns, Wordsworth,
Coleridge, Byron, Shelley and Keats,)--and which American poets would
be truly worthy, &c. Though to me the _deep_ of the matter goes down,
down beneath. I remember the London _Times_ at the time, in opportune,
profound and friendly articles on Bryant's and Longfellow's deaths,
spoke of the embarrassment, warping effect, and confusion on America
(her poets and poetic students) "coming in possession of a great
estate they had never lifted a hand to form or earn"; and the further
contingency of "the English language ever having annex'd to it a lot
of first-class Poetry that would be American, not European"--proving
then something precious over all, and beyond valuation. But perhaps
that is venturing outside the question. Of the thirteen British
immortals mention'd--after placing Shakspere on a sort of pre-eminence
of fame not to be invaded yet--the names of Bryant, Emerson, Whittier
and Longfellow (with even added names, sometimes Southerners,
sometimes Western or other writers of only one or two pieces,) deserve
in my opinion an equally high niche of renown as belongs to any on the
dozen of that glorious list.

INSCRIPTION FOR A LITTLE BOOK ON GIORDANO BRUNO

As America's mental courage (the thought comes to me to-day) is so
indebted, above all current lands and peoples, to the noble army
of Old-World martyrs past, how incumbent on us that we clear those
martyrs' lives and names, and hold them up for reverent admiration,
as well as beacons. And typical of this, and standing for it and all
perhaps, Giordano Bruno may well be put, to-day and to come, in our
New World's thankfulest heart and memory.

W.W. CAMDEN, NEW JERSEY, _February 24th, 1890_.

SPLINTERS

While I stand in reverence before the fact of Humanity, the People, I
will confess, in writing my L. of G., the least consideration out of
all that has had to do with it has been the consideration of "the
public"--at any rate as it now exists. Strange as it may sound for
a democrat to say so, I am clear that no free and original and
lofty-soaring poem, or one ambitious of those achievements, can
possibly be fulfill'd by any writer who has largely in his thought
_the public_--or the question, What will establish'd literature--What
will the current authorities say about it?

As far as I have sought any, not the best laid out garden or parterre
has been my model--but Nature has been. I know that in a sense the
garden is nature too, but I had to choose--I could not give both.
Besides the gardens are well represented in poetry; while Nature (in
letter and in spirit, in the divine essence,) little if at all.

Certainly, (while I have not hit it by a long shot,) I have aim'd at
the most ambitious, the best--and sometimes feel to advance that aim
(even with all its arrogance) as the most redeeming part of my books.
I have never so much cared to feed the esthetic or intellectual
palates--but if I could arouse from its slumbers that eligibility
in every soul for its own true exercise! if I could only wield that
lever!

Out from the well-tended concrete and the physical--and in them and
from them only--radiate the spiritual and heroic.

Undoubtedly many points belonging to this essay--perhaps of the
greatest necessity, fitness and importance to it--have been left out
or forgotten. But the amount of the whole matter--poems, preface and
everything--is merely to make one of those little punctures or eyelets
the actors possess in the theatre-curtains to look out upon "the
house"--one brief, honest, living glance.

HEALTH, (OLD STYLE)

In that condition the whole body is elevated to a state by others
unknown--inwardly and outwardly illuminated, purified, made solid,
strong, yet buoyant. A singular charm, more than beauty, flickers out
of, and over, the face--a curious transparency beams in the eyes, both
in the iris and the white--the temper partakes also. Nothing
that happens--no event, rencontre, weather, &c--but it is
confronted--nothing but is subdued into sustenance--such is the
marvellous transformation from the old timorousness and the
old process of causes and effects. Sorrows and disappointments
cease--there is no more borrowing trouble in advance. A man realizes
the venerable myth--he is a god walking the earth, he sees new
eligibilities, powers and beauties everywhere; he himself has a
new eyesight and hearing. The play of the body in motion takes a
previously unknown grace. Merely _to move_ is then a happiness,
a pleasure--to breathe, to see, is also. All the beforehand
gratifications, drink, spirits, coffee, grease, stimulants, mixtures,
late hours, luxuries, deeds of the night, seem as vexatious dreams,
and now the awakening;--many fall into their natural places,
whole-some, conveying diviner joys.

What I append--Health, old style--I have long treasur'd--found
originally in some scrap-book fifty years ago--a favorite of mine (but
quite a glaring contrast to my present bodily state:)

On a high rock above the vast abyss,
Whose solid base tumultuous waters lave;
Whose airy high-top balmy breezes kiss,
Fresh from the white foam of the circling wave--

There ruddy HEALTH, in rude majestic state,
His clust'ring forelock combatting the winds--
Bares to each season's change his breast elate,
And still fresh vigor from th' encounter finds;

With mighty mind to every fortune braced,
To every climate each corporeal power,
And high-proof heart, impenetrably cased,
He mocks the quick transitions of the hour.

Now could he hug bleak Zembla's bolted snow,
Now to Arabia's heated deserts turn,
Yet bids the biting blast more fiercely blow,
The scorching sun without abatement burn.

There this bold Outlaw, rising with the morn,
His sinewy functions fitted for the toil,
Pursues, with tireless steps, the rapturous horn,
And bears in triumph back the shaggy spoil.

Or, on his rugged range of towering hills,
Turns the stiff glebe behind his hardy team;
His wide-spread heaths to blithest measures tills,
And boasts the joys of life are not a dream!

Then to his airy hut, at eve, retires,
Clasps to his open breast his buxom spouse,
Basks in his faggot's blaze, his passions fires,
And strait supine to rest unbroken bows.

On his smooth forehead, Time's old annual score,
Tho' left to furrow, yet disdains to lie;
He bids weak sorrow tantalize no more,
And puts the cup of care contemptuous by.

If, from some inland height, that, skirting, bears
Its rude encroachments far into the vale,
He views where poor dishonor'd nature wears
On her soft cheek alone the lily pale;

How will he scorn alliance with the race,
Those aspen shoots that shiver at a breath;
Children of sloth, that danger dare not face,
And find in life but an extended death:

Then from the silken reptiles will he fly,
To the bold cliff in bounding transports run,
And stretch'd o'er many a wave his ardent eye,
Embrace the enduring Sea-Boy as his son!

Yes! thine alone--from pain, from sorrow free,
The lengthen'd life with peerless joys replete;
Then let me, Lord of Mountains, share with thee
The hard, the early toil--the relaxation sweet.

GAY-HEARTEDNESS

Walking on the old Navy Yard bridge, Washington, D. C., once with a
companion, Mr. Marshall, from England, a great traveler and observer,
as a squad of laughing young black girls pass'd us--then two copper-
color'd boys, one good-looking lad 15 or 16, barefoot, running after
--"What _gay creatures_ they all appear to be," said Mr. M. Then we
fell to talking about the general lack of buoyant animal spirits. "I
think," said Mr. M., "that in all my travels, and all my intercourse
with people of every and any class, especially the cultivated ones,
(the literary and fashionable folks,) I have never yet come across
what I should call a really GAY-HEARTED MAN."

It was a terrible criticism--cut into me like a surgeon's lance. Made
me silent the whole walk home.

AS IN A SWOON.

As in a swoon, one instant,
Another sun, ineffable, full-dazzles me,
And all the orbs I knew--and brighter, unknown orbs;
One instant of the future land, Heaven's land.

L. OF G.

Thoughts, suggestions, aspirations, pictures,
Cities and farms--by day and night--book of peace and war,
Of platitudes and of the commonplace.

For out-door health, the land and sea--for good will,
For America--for all the earth, all nations, the common people,
(Not of one nation only--not America only.)

In it each claim, ideal, line, by all lines, claims, ideals,
temper'd;
Each right and wish by other wishes, rights.

AFTER THE ARGUMENT.

A group of little children with their ways and chatter flow in,
Like welcome rippling water o'er my heated nerves and flesh.

FOR US TWO, READER DEAR.

Simple, spontaneous, curious, two souls interchanging,
With the original testimony for us continued to the last.

MEMORANDA

[Let me indeed turn upon myself a little of the light I have been so
fond of casting on others.

Of course these few exceptional later mems are far, far short of one's
concluding history or thoughts or life-giving--only a hap-hazard pinch
of all. But the old Greek proverb put it, "Anybody who really has
a good quality" (or bad one either, I guess) "has _all_." There's
something in the proverb; but you mustn't carry it too far.

I will not reject any theme or subject because the treatment is too
personal.

As my stuff settles into shape, I am told (and sometimes myself
discover, uneasily, but feel all right about it in calmer moments)
it is mainly autobiographic, and even egotistic after all--which I
finally accept, and am contented so.

If this little volume betrays, as it doubtless does, a weakening hand,
and decrepitude, remember it is knit together out of accumulated
sickness, inertia, physical disablement, acute pain, and listlessness.
My fear will be that at last my pieces show indooredness, and being
chain'd to a chair--as never before. Only the resolve to keep up,
and on, and to add a remnant, and even perhaps obstinately see what
failing powers and decay may contribute too, have produced it.

And now as from some fisherman's net hauling all sorts, and disbursing
the same.]

A WORLD'S SHOW

_New York, Great Exposition open'd in 1853._--I went a long time
(nearly a year)--days and nights--especially the latter--as it was
finely lighted, and had a very large and copious exhibition gallery of
paintings (shown at best at night, I tho't)--hundreds of pictures from
Europe, many masterpieces--all an exhaustless study--and, scatter'd
thro' the building, sculptures, single figures or groups--among the
rest, Thorwaldsen's "Apostles," colossal in size--and very many fine
bronzes, pieces of plate from English silversmiths, and curios from
everywhere abroad--with woods from all lands of the earth--all sorts
of fabrics and products and handiwork from the workers of all nations.

NEW YORK--THE BAY--THE OLD NAME

_Commencement of a gossipy travelling letter in a New York city paper,
May 10, 1879_.--My month's visit is about up; but before I get back
to Camden let me print some jottings of the last four weeks. Have you
not, reader dear, among your intimate friends, some one, temporarily
absent, whose letters to you, avoiding all the big topics and
disquisitions, give only minor, gossipy sights and scenes--just as
they come--subjects disdain'd by solid writers, but interesting to you
because they were such as happen to everybody, and were the moving
entourage to your friend--to his or her steps, eyes, mentality? Well,
with an idea something of that kind, I suppose, I set out on the
following hurrygraphs of a breezy early-summer visit to New York city
and up the North river--especially at present of some hours along
Broadway.

_What I came to New York for_.--To try the experiment of a lecture--to
see whether I could stand it, and whether an audience could--was my
specific object. Some friends had invited me--it was by no means clear
how it would end--I stipulated that they should get only a third-rate
hall, and not sound the advertising trumpets a bit--and so I started.
I much wanted something to do for occupation, consistent with my
limping and paralyzed state. And now, since it came off, and since
neither my hearers nor I myself really collaps'd at the aforesaid
lecture, I intend to go up and down the land (in moderation,) seeking
whom I may devour, with lectures, and reading of my own poems--short
pulls, however--never exceeding an hour.

_Crossing from Jersey city, 5 to 6 P.M._--The city part of the North
river with its life, breadth, peculiarities--the amplitude of sea and
wharf, cargo and commerce--one don't realize them till one has been
away a long time and, as now returning, (crossing from Jersey city to
Desbrosses-st.,) gazes on the unrivall'd panorama, and far down the
thin-vapor'd vistas of the bay, toward the Narrows--or northward up
the Hudson--or on the ample spread and infinite variety, free
and floating, of the more immediate views--a countless river
series--everything moving, yet so easy, and such plenty of room!
Little, I say, do folks here appreciate the most ample, eligible,
picturesque bay and estuary surroundings in the world! This is the
third time such a conviction has come to me after absence, returning
to New York, dwelling on its magnificent entrances--approaching the
city by them from any point.

More and more, too, the _old name_ absorbs into me--MANNAHATTA, "the
place encircled by many swift tides and sparkling waters." How fit a
name for America's great democratic island city! The word itself, how
beautiful! how aboriginal! how it seems to rise with tall spires,
glistening in sunshine, with such New World atmosphere, vista and
action!

A SICK SPELL

_Christmas Day, 25th Dec., 1888_.--Am somewhat easier and freer to-day
and the last three days--sit up most of the time--read and write, and
receive my visitors. Have now been in-doors sick for seven months
--half of the time bad, bad, vertigo, indigestion, bladder, gastric,
head trouble, inertia--Dr. Bucke, Dr. Osler, Drs. Wharton and
Walsh--now Edward Wilkins my help and nurse. A fine, splendid, sunny
day. My "November Boughs" is printed and out; and my "Complete Works,
Poems and Prose," a big volume, 900 pages, also. It is ab't noon, and
I sit here pretty comfortable.

TO BE PRESENT ONLY

_At the Complimentary Dinner, Camden, New Jersey, May 31, 1889_.--Walt
Whitman said: My friends, though announced to give an address, there
is no such intention. Following the impulse of the spirit, (for I am
at least half of Quaker stock) I have obey'd the command to come and
look at you, for a minute, and show myself, face to face; which is
probably the best I can do. But I have felt no command to make a
speech; and shall not therefore attempt any. All I have felt the
imperative conviction to say I have already printed in my books of
poems or prose; to which I refer any who may be curious. And so, hail
and farewell. Deeply acknowledging this deep compliment, with my best
respects and love to you personally--to Camden--to New-Jersey, and to
all represented here--you must excuse me from any word further.

"INTESTINAL AGITATION"

_From Pall-Mall Gazette, London, England, Feb 8, 1890_ Mr. Ernest
Rhys has just receiv'd an interesting letter from Walt Whitman, dated
"Camden, January 22, 1890." The following is an extract from it:

I am still here--no very mark'd or significant change or
happening--fairly buoyant spirits, &c.--but surely, slowly ebbing.
At this moment sitting here, in my den, Mickle street, by the oakwood
fire, in the same big strong old chair with wolf-skin spread over
back--bright sun, cold, dry winter day. America continues--is
generally busy enough all over her vast demesnes (intestinal agitation
I call it,) talking, plodding, making money, every one trying to
get on--perhaps to get towards the top--but no special individual
signalism--(just as well, I guess.)

"WALT WHITMAN'S LAST 'PUBLIC'"

The gay and crowded audience at the Art Rooms, Philadelphia,
Tuesday night, April 15, 1890, says a correspondent of the Boston
_Transcript_, April 19, might not have thought that W. W. crawl'd out
of a sick bed a few hours before, crying,

Dangers retreat when boldly they're confronted,

and went over, hoarse and half blind, to deliver his memoranda and
essay on the death of Abraham Lincoln, on the twenty-fifth anniversary
of that tragedy. He led off with the following new paragraph:

"Of Abraham Lincoln, bearing testimony twenty-five years after his
death--and of that death--I am now my friends before you. Few realize
the days, the great historic and esthetic personalities, with him in
the centre, we pass'd through. Abraham Lincoln, familiar, our own, an
Illinoisian, modern, yet tallying ancient Moses, Joshua, Ulysses, or
later Cromwell, and grander in some respects than any of them; Abraham
Lincoln, that makes the like of Homer, Plutarch, Shakspere, eligible
our day or any day. My subject this evening for forty or fifty
minutes' talk is the death of this man, and how that death will really
filter into America. I am not going to tell you anything new; and it
is doubtless nearly altogether because I ardently wish to commemorate
the hour and martyrdom and name I am here. Oft as the rolling years
bring back this hour, let it again, however briefly, be dwelt upon.
For my own part I hope and intend till my own dying day, whenever the
14th and 15th of April comes, to annually gather a few friends and
hold its tragic reminiscence. No narrow or sectional reminiscence. It
belongs to these States in their entirety--not the North only, but the
South--perhaps belongs most tenderly and devoutly to the South, of
all; for there really this man's birthstock; there and then his
antecedent stamp. Why should I not say that thence his manliest
traits, his universality, his canny, easy ways and words upon the
surface--his inflexible determination at heart? Have you ever
realized it, my friends, that Lincoln, though grafted on the West, is
essentially in personnel and character a Southern contribution?"

The most of the poet's address was devoted to the actual occurrences
and details of the murder. We believe the delivery on Tuesday was
Whitman's thirteenth of it. The old poet is now physically wreck'd.
But his voice and magnetism are the same. For the last month he has
been under a severe attack of the lately prevailing influenza, the
grip, in accumulation upon his previous ailments, and, above all, that
terrible paralysis, the bequest of secession war times. He was dress'd
last Tuesday night in an entire suit of French Canadian grey wool
cloth, with broad shirt collar, with no necktie; long white hair, red
face, full beard and moustache, and look'd as though he might weigh
two hundred pounds. He had to be help'd and led every step. In five
weeks more he will begin his seventy-second year. He is still writing
a little.

INGERSOLL'S SPEECH

_From the Camden Post, N.J., June 2, 1890_ _He attends and makes a
speech at the celebration of Walt Whitman's birthday_.--Walt Whitman
is now in his seventy-second year. His younger friends, literary and
personal, men and women, gave him a complimentary supper last Saturday
night, to note the close of his seventy-first year, and the late
curious and unquestionable "boom" of the old man's wide-spreading
popularity, and that of his "Leaves of Grass." There were thirty-five
in the room, mostly young, but some old, or beginning to be. The great
feature was Ingersoll's utterance. It was probably, in its way, the
most admirable specimen of modern oratory hitherto delivered in the
English language, immense as such praise may sound. It was 40 to 50
minutes long, altogether without notes, in a good voice, low enough
and not too low, style easy, rather colloquial (over and over again
saying "you" to Whitman who sat opposite,) sometimes markedly
impassion'd, once or twice humorous--amid his whole speech, from
interior fires and volition, pulsating and swaying like a first-class
Andalusian dancer.