V

Ofolden time, when it came to passThat the beautiful god, Jesus, should finish his work on earth,Then went Judas, and sold the divine youth,And took pay for his body.Curst was the deed, even before the sweat of the clutching hand grew dry;And darkness frown’d upon the seller of the like of God,Where, as though earth lifted her breast to throw him from her, and heaven refus’d him,He hung in the air, self-slaughter’d.The cycles, with their long shadows, have stalked silently forwardSince those days—many a pouch enwrapping meanwhileIts fee, like that paid for the son of Mary.And still goes one, saying,“What will ye give me, and I will deliver this man unto you?”And they make the covenant, and pay the pieces of silver.Look forth, deliverer,Look forth, first-born of the dead,Over the tree-tops of Paradise;See thyself in yet-continued bonds,Toilsome and poor, thou bear’st man’s form again,Thou art reviled, scourged, put into prison,Hunted from the arrogant equality of the rest;With staves and swords throng the willing servants of authority,Again they surround thee, mad with devilish spite;Toward thee stretch the hands of a multitude, like vultures’ talons,The nearest spit in thy face, they smite thee with their palms;Bruised, bloody, and pinion’d is thy body,More sorrowful than death is thy soul.Witness of anguish, brother of slaves,Not with thy price closed the price of thine image:And still Iscariot plies his trade.

Ofolden time, when it came to passThat the beautiful god, Jesus, should finish his work on earth,Then went Judas, and sold the divine youth,And took pay for his body.

Curst was the deed, even before the sweat of the clutching hand grew dry;And darkness frown’d upon the seller of the like of God,Where, as though earth lifted her breast to throw him from her, and heaven refus’d him,He hung in the air, self-slaughter’d.

The cycles, with their long shadows, have stalked silently forwardSince those days—many a pouch enwrapping meanwhileIts fee, like that paid for the son of Mary.

And still goes one, saying,“What will ye give me, and I will deliver this man unto you?”And they make the covenant, and pay the pieces of silver.

Look forth, deliverer,Look forth, first-born of the dead,Over the tree-tops of Paradise;See thyself in yet-continued bonds,Toilsome and poor, thou bear’st man’s form again,Thou art reviled, scourged, put into prison,Hunted from the arrogant equality of the rest;With staves and swords throng the willing servants of authority,Again they surround thee, mad with devilish spite;Toward thee stretch the hands of a multitude, like vultures’ talons,The nearest spit in thy face, they smite thee with their palms;Bruised, bloody, and pinion’d is thy body,More sorrowful than death is thy soul.

Witness of anguish, brother of slaves,Not with thy price closed the price of thine image:And still Iscariot plies his trade.

The soul,Forever and forever—longer than soil is brown and solid—longer than water ebbs and flows.

Each is not for its own sake,I say the whole earth and all the stars in the sky are for religion’s sake.

In this broad earth of ours,Amid the measureless grossness and the slag,Enclosed and safe within its central heart,Nestles the seed perfection.By every life a share or more or less,None born but it is born, conceal’d or unconceal’d the seed is waiting.

Do you not see O my brothers and sisters?It is not chaos or death—it is form, union, plan—it is eternal life—it is Happiness.

The song is to the singer, and comes back most to him,The love is to the lover, and comes back most to him—it cannot fail.

I see Hermes, unsuspected, dying, well-beloved, saying to the peopleDo not weep for me,This is not my true country, I have lived banish’d from my true country, I now go back there,I return to the celestial sphere where every one goes in his turn.

This is an attempt, incomplete but fairly representative as to sources, to trace the changing view during half a century of Leaves of Grass and its author.

Sonnetsand apostrophes in large number addressed to Walt Whitman during the later years of his life, and since his passing away, have appeared in fugitive form in widely separated sources. A selection of these may prove of interest by reason of the names attached, as well as because of the subject:

Thegood gray poet” gone! Brave hopeful Walt!He might not be a singer without fault,And his large rough-hewn rhythm did not chimeWith dulcet daintiness of time and rhyme.He was no neater than wide Nature’s wild,More metrical than sea winds. Culture’s child,Lapped in luxurious laws of line and lilt,Shrank from him shuddering, who was roughly builtAs cyclopean temples. Yet there rangTrue music through his rhapsodies, as he sangOf brotherhood, and freedom, love and hope,With strong, wide sympathy which dared to copeWith all life’s phases, and call nought unclean.Whilst hearts are generous, and whilst woods are green,He shall find hearers, who in a slack timeOf puny bards and pessimistic rhyme,Dared to bid men adventure and rejoice.His “yawp barbaric” was a human voice;The singer was a man. AmericaIs poorer by a stalwart soul today,And may feel pride that she hath given birthTo this stout laureate of old Mother Earth.

—Punch

Good-bye, Walt!Good-bye from all you loved of Earth—Rock, tree, dumb creature, man and woman—To you their comrade human.The last assaultEnds now, and now in some great world has birthA minstrel, whose strong soul finds broader wings,More brave imaginings.Stars crown the hill-top where your dust shall lie,Even as we say good-bye,Good-bye, old Walt!

—Edmund Clarence Stedman

Hewas in love with truth and knew her near—Her comrade, not her suppliant on the knee:She gave him wild melodious words to beMade music that should haunt the atmosphere.She drew him to her bosom, day-long dear,And pointed to the stars and to the sea,And taught him miracles and mystery,And made him master of the rounded year.Yet one gift did she keep. He looked in vain,Brow-shaded, through the darkness of the mist,Marking a beauty like a wandering breathThat beckoned, yet denied his soul a tryst:He sang a passion, yet he saw not plainTill kind earth held him and he spake with death.

—Harrison S. Morris

Somefind thee foul and rank and fetid, Walt,Who cannot tell Arabia from a sty.Thou followeth Truth, nor feareth, nor doth halt;Truth: and the sole uncleanness is a lie.

—William Watson

Presageof strength yet to be, voice of the youngest of Time,Singer of the golden dawn,From thy great message must come light for the bettering days,Joy to the hands that toil,Might to the hopes that droop,Power to the Nation reborn,Poet and master and seer, helper and friend unto men,Truth that shall pass into the life of us all!

—Louis J. Block

Sendbut a song oversea for us,Heart of their hearts who are free,Heart of their singer to be for usMore than our singing can be;Ours, in the tempest at error,With no light but the twilight of terror;Send us a song oversea!Sweet-smelling of pine-leaves and grasses,And blown as a tree through and throughWith the winds of the keen mountain passes,And tender as sun-smitten dew;Sharp-tongued as the winter that shakesThe wastes of your limitless lakes,Wide-eyed as the sea-line’s blue.O strong-winged soul with propheticLips hot with the bloodbeats of song,With tremor of heartstrings magnetic,With thoughts as thunders in throng,With consonant ardours of chordsThat pierce men’s souls as with swordsAnd hale them hearing along.

Sweet-smelling of pine-leaves and grasses,And blown as a tree through and throughWith the winds of the keen mountain passes,And tender as sun-smitten dew;Sharp-tongued as the winter that shakesThe wastes of your limitless lakes,Wide-eyed as the sea-line’s blue.

O strong-winged soul with propheticLips hot with the bloodbeats of song,With tremor of heartstrings magnetic,With thoughts as thunders in throng,With consonant ardours of chordsThat pierce men’s souls as with swordsAnd hale them hearing along.

—Algernon Swinburne

Serene,vast head, with silver cloud of hair,Lined on the purple dusk of deathA stern medallion, velvet set—Old Norseman throned, not chained upon thy chair:Thy grasp of hand, thy hearty breathOf welcome thrills me yetAs when I faced thee there.Loving my plain as thou thy sea,Facing the east as thou the west,I bring a handful of grass to thee,The prairie grasses I know the best—Type of the wealth and width of the plain,Strong of the strength of the wind and sleet,Fragrant with sunlight and cool with rain—I bring it, and lay it low at thy feet,Here by the eastern sea.

Loving my plain as thou thy sea,Facing the east as thou the west,I bring a handful of grass to thee,The prairie grasses I know the best—Type of the wealth and width of the plain,Strong of the strength of the wind and sleet,Fragrant with sunlight and cool with rain—I bring it, and lay it low at thy feet,Here by the eastern sea.

—Hamlin Garland

Itossupon Thy grave,(After Thy life resumed, after the pause, the backward glance of Death;Hence, hence the vistas on, the march continued,In larger spheres, new lives in paths untrodden,On! till the circle rounded, ever the journey on!)Upon Thy grave,—the vital sod how thrilled as fromThy limbs and breast transpired,Rises the spring’s sweet utterance of flowers,—I toss this sheaf of song, these scattered leaves of love!For thee, Thy Soul and Body spent for me,—And now still living, now in love, transmitting stillThy Soul, Thy Flesh to me, to all!—These variant phrases of the long-immortal chantI toss upon Thy grave!

—George Cabot Lodge

Iamno slender singing birdThat feeds on puny garden seed!My songs are stronger than those heardIn ev’ry wind-full, shallow reed!My pipes are jungle-grown and needA strong man’s breath to blow them well;A strong soul’s sense to solve their spellAnd be by their deep music stirred.My voice speaks not, in lisping notes,The madrigals of lesser minds!My heart tones thunder from the throatsOf throbbing seas and raging winds;And yet, the master-spirit findsThe tenderness of mother earthIs there expressed, despite the dearthOf tinkle tunes like dancing motes!My hand strokes not a golden lyreThreaded with silver—spider spun!The strings I strike are strands of fire,Strung from Earth’s center to the Sun!Thrilled with passion, ev’ry one!With songs of forest, corn, and vine;Of rushing water, blood, and wine;Of man’s conception and desire!But listen, comrade! This I say:In all of all I give my heart!With lover’s voice I bid you stayTo share with me the better partOf all my days! nights! thoughts! and startWith far-spread arms to welcome you,And we will shout a song so trueThat it shall ring for aye and aye.

My voice speaks not, in lisping notes,The madrigals of lesser minds!My heart tones thunder from the throatsOf throbbing seas and raging winds;And yet, the master-spirit findsThe tenderness of mother earthIs there expressed, despite the dearthOf tinkle tunes like dancing motes!

My hand strokes not a golden lyreThreaded with silver—spider spun!The strings I strike are strands of fire,Strung from Earth’s center to the Sun!Thrilled with passion, ev’ry one!With songs of forest, corn, and vine;Of rushing water, blood, and wine;Of man’s conception and desire!

But listen, comrade! This I say:In all of all I give my heart!With lover’s voice I bid you stayTo share with me the better partOf all my days! nights! thoughts! and startWith far-spread arms to welcome you,And we will shout a song so trueThat it shall ring for aye and aye.

—Ray Clarke Rose

Yourlonely muse, unraimented with rhyme,Her hair unfilleted, her feet unshod,Naked and not ashamed demands of GodNo covering for her beauty’s youth or prime.Clad but with thought, as space is clad with time,Or both with worlds where man and angels plod,She runs in joy, magnificently odd,Ruggedly wreathed with flowers of every clime.And you to whom her breath is sweeter farThan choicest attar of the martyred roseMore deeply feel mortality’s unrestThan poets born beneath a happier star,Because the pathos of your grand reposeShows that all earth has throbbed within your breast.

—Albert Edmund Lancaster

Theysay that thou art sick, art growing old,Thou Poet of unconquerable health,With youth far-stretching, through the golden wealthOf autumn, to Death’s frostful, friendly cold;The never-blenching eyes, that did beholdLife’s fair and foul, with measureless content,And gaze ne’er sated, saddened as they bentOver the dying soldier in the foldOf thy large comrade love:—then broke the tear!War-dream, field-vigil, the bequeathëd kiss,Have brought old age to thee; yet, Master, now,Cease not thy song to us; lest we should missA death-chant of indomitable cheer,Blown as a gale from God;—Oh, sing it thou!

—Aaron Leigh

Opureheart singer of the human frameDivine, whose poesy disdains controlOf slavish bonds! each poem is a soul,Incarnate born of thee, and given thy name.Thy genius is unshackled as a flameThat sunward soars, the central light its goal;Thy thoughts are lightnings, and thy numbers rollIn Nature’s thunders that put art to shame.Exalter of the land that gave thee birth,Though she insult thy grand gray years with wrongOf infamy, foul-branding thee with scarsOf felon-hate, still shalt thou be on earthRevered, and in Fame’s firmament of songThy name shall blaze among the eternal stars!

—Leonard Wheeler

OTitansoul, ascend your starry steep,On golden stair, to gods and storied men!Ascend! nor care where thy traducers creep.For what may well be said of prophets, whenA world that’s wicked comes to call them good?Ascend and sing! As kings of thought who stoodOn stormy heights, and held far lights to men,Stand thou, and shout above the tumbled roar,Lest brave ships drive and break against the shore.What though thy sounding song be roughly set?Parnassus’ self is rough! Give thou the thought,The golden ore, the gems that few forget;In time the tinsel jewel will be wrought.Stand thou alone, and fixed as destiny,An imaged god that lifts above all hate;Stand thou serene and satisfied with fate;Stand thou as stands the lightning-riven tree,That lords the cloven clouds of gray Yosemite.Yea, lone, sad soul, thy heights must be thy home;Thou sweetest lover! love shall climb to theeLike incense curling some cathedral dome,From many distant vales. Yet thou shalt be,O grand, sweet singer, to the end alone.But murmur not. The moon, the mighty spheres,Spin on alone through all the soundless years;Alone man comes on earth; he lives alone;Alone he turns to front the dark unknown.

—Joaquin Miller

Iknewthere was an old, white-bearded seerWho dwelt among the streets of Camden town;I had the volumes which his hand wrote down—The living evidence we love to hearOf one who walks reproachless, without fear.But when I saw that face, capped with its crownOf snow-white almond-buds, his high renownFaded to naught, and only did appearThe calm old man, to whom his verses tell,All sounds were music, even as a child;And then the sudden knowledge on me fell,For all the hours his fancies had beguiled,No verse had shown the Poet half so wellAs when he looked into my face and smiled.

—Linn Porter

Friend Whitman!wert thou less serene and kind,Surely thou mightest (like the bard sublime),Scorned by a generation deaf and blind,Make thine appeal to the avenger TIME;For thou art none of those who upward climb,Gathering roses with a vacant mind.Ne’er have thy hands for jaded triflers twinedSick flowers of rhetoric and weeds of rhyme.Nay, thine hath been a Prophet’s stormier fate.While LINCOLN and the martyr’d legions waitIn the yet widening blue of yonder sky,On the great strand below them thou art seen,Blessing, with something Christ-like in thy mien,A sea of turbulent lives, that break and die.

—Robert Buchanan

Darknessand death? Nay, Pioneer, for theeThe day of deeper vision has begun;There is no darkness for the central sunNor any death for immortality.At last the song of all fair songs that be,At last the guerdon of a race well run,The upswelling joy to know the victory won,The river’s rapture when it finds the sea.Ah, thou art wrought in an heroic mould,The Modern Man upon whose brow yet staysA gleam of glory from the age of gold—A diadem which all the gods have kissed.Hail and farewell! Flower of the antique days,Democracy’s divine protagonist.

—Francis Howard Williams

Tranquilas stars that unafraidPursue their way through space,Vital as light, unhoused as wind,Unloosed from time and place;Solemn as birth, and sane as death,Thy bardic chantings move;Rugged as earth, and salt as sea,And bitter-sweet as love.

Tranquilas stars that unafraidPursue their way through space,Vital as light, unhoused as wind,Unloosed from time and place;

Solemn as birth, and sane as death,Thy bardic chantings move;Rugged as earth, and salt as sea,And bitter-sweet as love.

—May Morgan

Onemaster poet royally her own,Begot of Freedom, bore our Western World:A poet, native as the dew impearl’dUpon her grass; a brother, thew and bone,To mountains wild, vast lakes and prairies lone;One, life and soul, akin to speech unfurl’d,And zeal of artisan, and song not curl’dIn fronded forms, or petrified in tone.High latitudes of thought gave breath to him;The paps he suck’d ran not false shame for milk;No bastard he! but virile truth in limbAnd soul. A Titan mocking at the silkThat bound the wings of song. A tongue of flame,Whose ashes gender an immortal name.

—Joseph W. Chapman

Thoulover of the cosmos vague and vast,In which thy virile mind would penetrateUnto the rushing, primal springs of fate,Ruling alike the future, present, past:Now, having breasted waves beyond death’s blast,New Neptune’s steeds saluted, white and great,And entered through the glorious Golden Gate.And gained the fair celestial shores at last,Still worship’st thou the Ocean? thou that triedTo comprehend its mental roar and surge,Its howling as of victory and its dirgeFor continents submerged by shock and tide.By that immortal ocean now what cheer?Do crews patrol and save the same as here?

—Edward S. Creamer

Allhail to thee! WALT WHITMAN! Poet, Prophet, Priest!Celebrant of Democracy! At more than regal feastTo thee we offer homage, and with our greenest bayWe crown thee Poet Laureate on this thy natal day.We offer choice ascription—our loyal tribute bring,In this the new Olympiad in which thou reignest king.POET of the present age, and of æons yet to be,In this the chosen homestead of those who would be free—Free from feudal usage, from courtly sham and cant;Free from kingcraft, priestcraft, with all their rot and rant!PROPHET of a race redeemed from all conventual thrall,Espouser of equal sexship in body, soul, and all!PRIEST of a ransom’d people, endued with clearer light;A newer dispensation for those of psychic sight.We greet thee as our mentor, we meet thee as our friend,And to thy ministrations devotedly we lendThe aid that comes from fealty which thou hast made so strong,Thro’ touch of palm, and glint of eye, and spirit of thy song.We magnify thy mission, we glorify thy aim,Unfalteringly adhered to through ill-report and blame—The fretting of the groundlings, the fumings of the pit,The jibes and jeers and snarls and sneers which men mistake for wit.We knew the rising splendor of thy sun could never waneUntil, the earth encompass’d, it sank in dazzling flame.In faith assured we waited as in patience thou didst wait,Knowing full well the answer must sooner come or late.And come it has, sufficingly, the discord disappearsUntil today again is heard the music of the spheresProclaiming thee the well-beloved, peer of the proudest peers.

—Henry L. Bonsall

Hefell asleep when in the century’s skiesThe paling stars proclaimed another day—He, genial still, amidst the chill and gray,With smiling lips and trustful, dauntless eyes;He, the Columbus of a vast emprise,Whose realization in the future lay;He, who stepped from the well-worn, narrow wayTo walk with Poetry in larger guise.And fortunate, despite of transient griefs,The years announce him in a new born age;The ship of his fair fame, past crags and reefs,Sails bravely on, and less and less the rageOf gainsaying winds becomes; while to his phraseThe world each day gives ampler heed and praise!

—William Struthers

Herehealth we pledge you in one draught of song,Caught in this rhymster’s cup from earth’s delight,Where English fields are green the whole year long—The wine of might,That the new-come spring distills, most sweet and strong,In the viewless air’s alembic, that’s wrought too fine for sight.Good health! we pledge, that care may lightly sleep,And pain of age be gone for this one day,As of this loving cup you take, and, drinking deep,Are glad at heart straightwayTo feel once more the friendly heat of the sunCreative in you (as when in youth it shone),And pulsing brainward with the rhythmic wealthOf all the summer whose high minstrelsyShall soon crown field and tree,To call back age to youth again, and pain to perfect health.

—Ernest Rhys

Iloafand invite my soulAnd what do I feel?An influx of life from the great central powerThat generates beauty from seedling to flower.I loaf and invite my soulAnd what do I hear?Original harmonies piercing the dinOf measureless tragedy, sorrow and sin.I loaf and invite my soulAnd what do I see?The temple of God in the perfected man.Revealing the wisdom and end of earth’s plan.

—Elizabeth Porter Gould

Hepassed amid the noisy throngs,His elbow touched with theirs;They grumbled at their petty wrongs,Their woes and cares;They asked if “Princeton stood to win”;Or what they should invest;They told with gusto and with grinSome futile jest.They jostled him and passed him by,Nor slacked their eager pace;They did not mark that noble eye,That noble face.So carelessly they let him go,His mien they could not scan,—Thinker whom all the world would know,Our greatest man.

Hepassed amid the noisy throngs,His elbow touched with theirs;They grumbled at their petty wrongs,Their woes and cares;

They asked if “Princeton stood to win”;Or what they should invest;They told with gusto and with grinSome futile jest.

They jostled him and passed him by,Nor slacked their eager pace;They did not mark that noble eye,That noble face.

So carelessly they let him go,His mien they could not scan,—Thinker whom all the world would know,Our greatest man.

Max J. Herzberg

Hereends this book written by Henry EduardLegler, arranged in this form by Laurence C. Woodworth, Scrivener, and printed for the Brothers of the Book at the press of The Faithorn Company, Chicago, 1916.

Incipit Vita Nova

Back to Index Next