WALT WHITMAN. WAL WALTER WHITMAN (1819-1892) was born at West Hills, Long Island, N.Y., as the son of a poor farmer and carpenter. After a scanty education at a Brooklyn public school, he was apprenticed to a printer. Then he taught for some years at country schools, and at last (1839) turned to journalism, mostly residing in New York and Brooklyn. During the Civil War he served as volunteer army nurse (1863-65); and, from 1865-74, held various government clerkships in Washington. Compelled by partial paralysis to give up his official duties, he withdrew to a quiet home at Camden, N.J., where he spent the last 18 years of his life, liberally supported by his English and American admirers. Whitman was a poet of high originality and audacity and of great lyrical fervour; but he was somewhat lacking in spiritual refinement. His poetry, collected as Leaves of Grass (1855), Drum- Taps (1865), and Passage to India (1870), discarded the wonted forms of verse, and adopted unrhymed, irregular, recitative measures, which, in spite of occasional lapses into prose, are capable of noble rhythmical effects. His prose works, such as Democratic Vistas (1870), Specimen Days and Collect (1882), and November Boughs (1888), are remarkable for an extremely loose, but direct and highly impressionistic style, and mainly consist of short impromptu sketches of American scenes and of his experiences during the War. Both his prose and poetry show him a keen patriot and a passionate herald of American Democracy. AFTER THE BATTLE OF BULL RUN, JULY 1861. [From Specimen Days (1882)] All this sort of feeling was destin'd to be arrested and revers'd by a terrible shock the battle of first Bull Run certainly, as we now 6 know it, one of the most singular fights on record. (All battles, and their results, are far more matters of accident than is generally thought; but this was throughout a casualty, 10 a chance. Each side supposed it had won, till the last moment. One had, in point of fact, just the same right to be routed as the other. By a fiction, or series of fictions, the 15 national forces at the last moment exploded in a panic and fled from the field.) The defeated troops commenced pouring into Washington over the Long Bridge at daylight on 20 Monday, 22d - day drizzling all through with rain. The Saturday and Sunday of the battle (20th, 21st,) had been parch'd and hot to an extreme the dust, the grime and 25 smoke, in layers, sweated in, follow'd by other layers again sweated in, absorb'd by those excited souls their clothes all saturated with the clay-powder filling the air - stirr'd up everywhere on the dry roads and 30 trodden fields by the regiments, swarming wagons, artillery, &c. all the men with this coating of murk and sweat and rain, now recoiling back, pouring over the Long 35 Bridge - a horrible march of twenty miles, returning to Washington baffled, humiliated, panic-struck. Where are the vaunts, and the proud boasts with which you went forth? Where 40 are your banners, and your bands of music, and your ropes to bring back your prisoners? back your prisoners? Well, there isn't a band playing and there isn't a flag but clings ashamed and 45 lank to its staff. 55 casionally, a rare regiment, in perfect | anywhere, on the steps of houses, up close by the basements or fences, 105 they say nothing; but the devil snickers in their faces.) During the forenoon Washington gets all over 76 motley with these defeated soldiers queer-looking objects, strange eyes and faces, drench'd (the steady rain drizzles on all day) and fearfully worn, hungry, haggard, blister'd in 80 the feet. Good people (but not overmany of them either,) hurry up something for their grub. They put washkettles on the fire, for soup, for coffee. They set tables on the side85 walks wagon-loads of bread are purchas'd, swiftly cut in stout chunks. Here are two aged ladies, beautiful, the first in the city for culture and charm, they stand with store of eating 90 and drink at an improvis'd table of rough plank, and give food, and have the store replenish'd from their house every half-hour all that day; and there in the rain they stand, active, 95 silent, white-hair'd, and give food, though the tears stream down their cheeks, almost without intermission, the whole time. Amid the deep excitement, crowds and motion, and 100 desperate eagerness, it seems strange to see many, very many, of the of the soldiers sleeping in the midst of all, sleeping sound. They drop down them, as they lay, sulkily drips the rain. As afternoon pass'd, and evening 115 came, the streets, the bar-rooms, knots everywhere, listeners, questioners, terrible yarns, bugaboo, mask'd batteries, our regiment all cut up, &c. -stories and story-tellers, windy, 120 bragging, vain centres of street-crowds. Resolution, manliness, seem to have abandon'd Washington. The principal hotel, Willard's, is full of shoulderstraps thick, crush'd, creeping 125 with shoulder-straps. (I see them, and must have a word with them. There you are, shoulder-straps! but where are your companies? where are your men? Incompetents! never 130 tell me of chances of battle, of getting stray'd, and the like. I think this is your work, this retreat, after all. Sneak, blow, put on airs there in Willard's sumptuous parlors and 135 bar-rooms, or anywhere planation shall save you. Bull Run is your work; had you been half or one-tenth worthy your men, this would never have happen'd.) no ex 140 Meantime, in Washington, among the great persons and their entourage, a mixture of awful consternation, uncertainty, rage, shame, helplessness, and stupefying disappointment. The 145 worst is not only imminent, but already here. In a few hours perhaps before the next meal the secesh generals, with their victorious hordes, will be upon us. The dream 150 of humanity, the vaunted Union we thought so strong, so impregnable 155 -- lo! it seems already smash'd like a china plate. One bitter, bitter hour perhaps proud America will never again know such an hour. She must pack and fly no time to spare. Those white palaces the domecrown'd capitol there on the hill, so 160 stately over the trees shall they be left or destroy'd first? For it is certain that the talk among certain of the magnates and officers and clerks and officials everywhere, 165 for twenty-four hours in and around Washington after Bull Run, was loud and undisguised for yielding out and out, and substituting the southern rule, and Lincoln promptly abdicating and departing. If the secesh officers and forces had immediately follow'd, and by a bold. Napoleonic movement had enter'd Washington the first day, (or even 176 the second,) they could have had 170 things their own way, and a power- PATROLLING BARNEGAT. [From Drum Taps (1865)] Wild, wild the storm, and the high sea running, Steady the roar of the gale, with incessant undertone muttering, 12 Along the midnight edge by those milk-white combs careering, RECONCILIATION. Word over all, beautiful as the sky! and ever again, this soil'd world; For 4 my enemy is dead, a man divine as myself is dead; I look where he lies white-faced and still in the coffin Bend down, and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin. 8 I draw near, From WHEN LILACS LAST IN THE DOORYARD BLOOM'D. For the Burial of President Lincoln, † 15 April 1865. [From Passage to India (1870)] When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd, And the great star early droop'd in the western sky in the night, O powerful, western, fallen star! O shades of night! O moody, tearful night! O great star disappear'd! O the black murk that hides the star! O harsh surrounding cloud, that will not free my soul! 12 In the dooryard fronting an old farm-house near the white-wash'd palings, Stands the lilac-bush, tall-growing, with heart-shaped leaves of rich green, With many a pointed blossom, rising delicate, with the perfume strong I love, With every leaf a miracle and from this bush in the dooryard, 16 With delicate-color'd blossoms and heart-shaped leaves of rich green, A sprig with its flower I break. 20 24 In the swamp, in secluded recesses, A shy and hidden bird is warbling a song. Solitary the thrush, The hermit withdrawn to himself, avoiding the settlements, Song of the bleeding throat, Death's outlet song of life, (for well, dear brother, I know, Over the breast of the spring, the land, amid cities, Amid lanes and through old woods, where lately the violets peep'd from the ground, spotting the gray debris, Amid the grass in the fields each side of the lanes, passing the endless grass, Passing the yellow-spear'd wheat, every grain from its shroud in the darkbrown fields uprisen, Passing the apple-tree blows of white and pink in the orchards, 32 Night and day journeys a coffin. Coffin that passes through lanes and streets, Through day and night, with the great cloud darkening the land, With the pomp of the inloop'd flags, with the cities draped in black, 36 With the show of the States themselves as of crape-veil'd women standing, With processions long and winding, and the flambeaus of the night, With the countless torches lit, with the silent sea of faces, and the unbared heads, With the waiting depot, the arriving coffin, and the sombre faces, With dirges through the night, with the thousand voices rising strong and solemn, With all the mournful voices of the dirges pour'd around the coffin, The dim-lit churches and the shuddering organs where amid these you journey, With the tolling, tolling bells' perpetual clang, 44 Here, coffin that slowly passes, I give you my sprig of lilac. (Not for you, for one, alone; Blossoms and branches green to coffins all I bring; 48 For fresh as the morning, thus would I chant a song for you, O sane and All over bouquets of roses, sacred death. O death, I cover you over with roses and early lilies; 52 Copious I break, I break the sprigs from the bushes; 56 For you and the coffins all of you, O death.) O western orb sailing the heaven, 66 Now I know what you must have meant, as a month since I walk'd, As I walk'd in silence the transparent shadowy night, As I saw you had something to tell as you bent to me night after night, As you droop'd from the sky low down as if to my side, (while the other 60 As we wander'd together the solemn stars all look'd on,) night, (for something, I know not what, kept me from sleep,) As the night advanced, and I saw on As I stood on the rising ground in the the rim of the west how full you were of woe, breeze in the cool transparent night, was lost in the netherward black of the night, 64 As my soul in its trouble dissatisfied sank, as where you, sad orb, Concluded, dropt in the night, and was gone. Sing on there in the swamp, O singer bashful and tender! I hear your notes, I hear your call, 68 I hear, I come presently, I understand you; But a moment I linger, for the lustrous star has detain'd me, The star, my departing comrade, holds and detains me. O how shall I warble myself for the dead one there I loved? 72 And how shall I deck my song for the large sweet soul that has gone? |