Chapter Writers of New York and Pennsylvania of Index by Simonds History of American Literature

intense in their realism. The death of Lincoln inspired two poems which command universal admiration: When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd and O Captain! My Captain! This last poem is in rhymed stanzas, and shows Whitman's poetical power at its best.

The Strength of Whitman.

The sea is the subject of many fine passages in these strange compositions. A Paumanok Picture, Patroling Barnegat, With Husky-Haughty Lips, O Sea, may be cited as examples, this last especially a marvel of descriptive power. To the poems of this interesting group, many as impressively suggestive could easily be added. The bird-songs in Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking and When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd are remarkable lyrics. To the Man-of-War-Bird is another poem easily to be appreciated. A picture dramatic in spirit and singularly vivid, is that descriptive of the old mariner's passing, in Old Salt Kossabone.

"Far back, related on my mother's side,
Old Salt Kossabone, I'll tell you how he died:
(Had been a sailor all his life -- was nearly 90 -- lived with his married grandchild, Jenny;
House on a hill, with view of bay at hand, and distant cape, and stretch to open sea;)
The last of afternoons, the evening hours, for many a year his regular custom,
In his great arm chair by the window seated,
(Sometimes, indeed, through half the day,)
Watching the coming, going of the vessels, he mutters to himself. --
And now the close of all:
One struggling outbound brig, one day, baffled for long -- cross-tides and much wrong going,
At last at nightfall strikes the breeze aright, her whole luck veering,
And swiftly bending round the cape, the darkness proudly entering, cleaving, as he watches,
`She's free -- she's on her destination" -- these the last words -- when Jenny came, he sat there dead,
Dutch Kossabone, Old Salt, related on my mother's side, far back."

More and more, as one learns to read Whitman, -- and the reading should be aloud, -- his strength grows upon the reader. The eccentricity, the uncouth forms, the jargon of names and words, disturb him less. In some degree he must respond to the pervading spirit of comradeship, of sympathy -- boundless, indiscriminate. All mankind is brother and sister; everything in nature is wholesome and divine.

"He says indifferently and alike How are you friend? to the President at his levee,
And he says Good- day my brother, to Cudge that lives in the sugar-field,
And both understand him and know that his speech is right."¹

This is certainly the spirit of democracy speaking. The question is, Is it poetry?

The End.

In 1873, a stroke of paralysis incapacitated the poet, and Whitman, who had held a clerkship in Washington, removed to Camden, New Jersey, where his later life was spent. Here he lived in comparative poverty, but with the companionship of a few intimate friends, and with the knowledge of a growing body of disciples who cared more for their master's teaching than about his style of utterance. Tributes of recognition from Great Britain and the Continent gratified him. He began to be regarded by some enthusiasts as an oracle, and the poet seemed not averse to the rôle. Specimen Days and Collect, autobiographical data in prose, was published in 1882. A new collection of verse, November Boughs, appeared in 1888. The seventieth birthday of the poet was marked by greetings from all parts of the world. A new edition of Leaves of Grass was issued, together with the new poems collected under the title Sands at Seventy. A final volume, Good-bye my Fancy (1891), contained his last poems. Whitman died March 26, 1892.

The influence of Whitman upon his immediate contemporaries appeared negligible; but the notable development of free verse twenty years later owes much to his example. The spirit of Whitman, indeed, speaks again in the voices of the "new" poets appearing in the second decade of the twentieth century.