IX.
The attitude of Whitman toward religion has not been understood. Towards all forms of worship, towards all creeds, he has maintained the attitude of absolute fairness. He does not believe that Nature has given her last message to man. He does not believe that all has been ascertained. He denies that any sect has written down the entire truth. He believes in progress, and, so believing, he says:
We consider bibles and religions divine—I do not say they are not divine,I say they have all grown out of you, and may grow out of you still,It is not they who give the life, it is you who give the life.*****His [the poet's] thoughts are the hymns of the praise of things,In the dispute on God and eternity he is silent.*****Have you thought there could be but a single supreme?There can be any number of supremes—one does not countervailanother any more than one eyesight countervails another.
Upon the great questions, as to the great problems, he feels only the serenity of a great and well-poised soul.
No array of terms can say how much I am at peace about God and about death.
I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least,Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself....In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass,I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every one is sign'd by God's name.
The whole visible world is regarded by him as a revelation, and so is the invisible world, and with this feeling he writes:
Not objecting to special revelations—considering a curl ofsmoke or a hair on the back of my hand just ascurious as any revelation.
The creeds do not satisfy, the old mythologies are not enough; they are too narrow at best, giving only hints and suggestions; and feeling this lack in that which has been written and preached, Whitman says:
Magnifying and applying come I,Outbidding at the start the old cautious hucksters,Taking myself the exact dimensions of Jehovah,Lithographing Kronos, Zeus his son, and Hercules his grandson,Buying drafts of Osiris, Isis, Belus, Brahma, Buddha,In my portfolio placing Manito loose, Allah on a leaf, the crucifix engraved,With Odin and the hideous-faced Mexitli, and every idol and image,Taking them all for what they are worth, and not a cent more.
Whitman keeps open house. He is intellectually hospitable. He extends his hand to a new idea. He does not accept a creed because it is wrinkled and old and has a long white beard. He knows that hypocrisy has a venerable look, and that it relies on looks and masks—on stupidity—and fear. Neither does he reject or accept the new because it is new. He wants the truth, and so he welcomes all until he knows just who and what they are.
X.
PHILOSOPHY.
Walt Whitman is a philosopher.
The more a man has thought, the more he has studied, the more he has traveled intellectually, the less certain he is. Only the very ignorant are perfectly satisfied that they know. To the common man the great problems are easy. He has no trouble in accounting for the universe. He can tell you the origin and destiny of man and the why and the wherefore of things. As a rule, he is a believer in special providence, and is egotistic enough to suppose that everything that happens in the universe happens in reference to him.
A colony of red ants lived at the foot of the Alps. It happened one day, that an avalanche destroyed the hill; and one of the ants was heard to remark: "Who could have taken so much trouble to destroy our home?"
Walt Whitman walked by the side of the sea "where the fierce old mother endlessly cries for her castaways," and endeavored to think out, to fathom the mystery of being; and he said:
I too but signify at the utmost a little wash'd-up drift,A few sands and dead leaves to gather,Gather, and merge myself as part of the sands and drift*****Aware now that amid all that blab whose echoes recoil uponme I have not once had the least idea who or what I am,But that before all my arrogant poems the real Me standsyet untouch'd, untold, altogether unreach'd,Withdrawn far, mocking me with mock-congratulatory signs and bows,With peals of distant ironical laughter at every word I have written,Pointing in silence to these songs, and then to the sand beneath....I perceive I have not really understood any thing, not a singleobject, and that no man ever can.
There is in our language no profounder poem than the one entitled "Elemental Drifts."
The effort to find the origin has ever been, and will forever be, fruitless. Those who endeavor to find the secret of life resemble a man looking in the mirror, who thinks that if he only could be quick enough he could grasp the image that he sees behind the glass.
The latest word of this poet upon this subject is as follows:
"To me this life with all its realities and functions is finally a mystery, the real something yet to be evolved, and the stamp and shape and life here somehow giving an important, perhaps the main, outline to something further. Somehow this hangs over everything else, and stands behind it, is inside of all facts, and the concrete and material, and the worldly affairs of life and sense. That is the purport and meaning behind all the other meanings of LEAVES OF GRASS."
As a matter of fact, the questions of origin and destiny are beyond the grasp of the human mind. We can see a certain distance; beyond that, everything is indistinct; and beyond the indistinct is the unseen. In the presence of these mysteries—and everything is a mystery so far as origin, destiny, and nature are concerned—the intelligent, honest man is compelled to say, "I do not know."
In the great midnight a few truths like stars shine on forever—and from the brain of man come a few struggling gleams of light—a few momentary sparks.
Some have contended that everything is spirit; others that everything is matter; and again, others have maintained that a part is matter and a part is spirit; some that spirit was first and matter after; others that matter was first and spirit after; and others that matter and spirit have existed together.
But none of these people can by any possibility tell what matter is, or what spirit is, or what the difference is between spirit and matter.
The materialists look upon the spiritualists as substantially crazy; and the spiritualists regard the materialists as low and groveling. These spiritualistic people hold matter in contempt; but, after all, matter is quite a mystery. You take in your hand a little earth—a little dust. Do you know what it is? In this dust you put a seed; the rain falls upon it; the light strikes it; the seed grows; it bursts into blossom; it produces fruit.
What is this dust—this womb? Do you understand it? Is there anything in the wide universe more wonderful than this?
Take a grain of sand, reduce it to powder, take the smallest possible particle, look at it with a microscope, contemplate its every part for days, and it remains the citadel of a secret—an impregnable fortress. Bring all the theologians, philosophers, and scientists in serried ranks against it; let them attack on every side with all the arts and arms of thought and force. The citadel does not fall. Over the battlements floats the flag, and the victorious secret smiles at the baffled hosts.
Walt Whitman did not and does not imagine that he has reached the limit—the end of the road traveled by the human race. He knows that every victory over nature is but the preparation for another battle. This truth was in his mind when he said: "Understand me well; it is provided in the essence of things, that from any fruition of success, no matter what, shall come forth something to make a greater struggle necessary."
This is the generalization of all history.
XI.
THE TWO POEMS.
There are two of these poems to which I have time to call special attention. The first is entitled, "A Word Out of the Sea."
The boy, coming out of the rocked cradle, wandering over the sands and fields, up from the mystic play of shadows, out of the patches of briers and blackberries—from the memories of birds—from the thousand responses of his heart—goes back to the sea and his childhood, and sings a reminiscence.
Two guests from Alabama—two birds—build their nest, and there were four light green eggs, spotted with brown, and the two birds sang for joy:
Shine! shine! shine!Pour down your warmth, great sun!While we bask, we two together.Two together!Winds blow south, or winds blow north,Day come white, or night come black,Home, or rivers and mountains from home,Singing all time, minding no time,While we two keep together.
In a little while one of the birds is missed and never appeared again, and all through the summer the mate, the solitary guest, was singing of the lost:
Blow! blow! blow!Blow up sea-winds along Paumanok's shore;I wait and I wait till you blow my mate to me.
And the boy that night, blending himself with the shadows, with bare feet, went down to the sea, where the white arms out in the breakers were tirelessly tossing; listening to the songs and translating the notes.
And the singing bird called loud and high for the mate, wondering what the dusky spot was in the brown and yellow, seeing the mate whichever way he looked, piercing the woods and the earth with his song, hoping that the mate might hear his cry; stopping that he might not lose her answer; waiting and then crying again: "Here I am! And this gentle call is for you. Do not be deceived by the whistle of the wind; those are the shadows;" and at last crying:
O past! O happy life! O songs of joy!In the air, in the woods, over fields,Loved! loved! loved! loved! loved!But my mate no more, no more with me!We two together no more.
And then the boy, understanding the song that had awakened in his breast a thousand songs clearer and louder and more sorrowful than the bird's, knowing that the cry of unsatisfied love would never again be absent from him; thinking then of the destiny of all, and asking of the sea the final word, and the sea answering, delaying not and hurrying not, spoke the low delicious word "Death!" "ever Death!"
The next poem, one that will live as long as our language, entitled: "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd," is on the death of Lincoln,
The sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands.
One who reads this will never forget the odor of the lilac, "the lustrous western star" and "the grey-brown bird singing in the pines and cedars."
In this poem the dramatic unities are perfectly preserved, the atmosphere and climate in harmony with every event.
Never will he forget the solemn journey of the coffin through day and night, with the great cloud darkening the land, nor the pomp of inlooped flags, the processions long and winding, the flambeaus of night, the torches' flames, the silent sea of faces, the unbared heads, the thousand voices rising strong and solemn, the dirges, the shuddering organs, the tolling bells—and the sprig of lilac.
And then for a moment they will hear the grey-brown bird singing in the cedars, bashful and tender, while the lustrous star lingers in the West, and they will remember the pictures hung on the chamber walls to adorn the burial house—pictures of spring and farms and homes, and the grey smoke lucid and bright, and the floods of yellow gold—of the gorgeous indolent sinking sun—the sweet herbage under foot—the green leaves of the trees prolific—the breast of the river with the wind-dapple here and there, and the varied and ample land—and the most excellent sun so calm and haughty—the violet and purple morn with just-felt breezes—the gentle soft born measureless light—the miracle spreading, bathing all—the fulfill'd noon—the coming eve delicious and the welcome night and the stars.
And then again they will hear the song of the grey-brown bird in the limitless dusk amid the cedars and pines. Again they will remember the star, and again the odor of the lilac.
But most of all, the song of the bird translated and becoming the chant for death:
A CHANT FOR DEATH.
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.
Prais'd be the fathomless universe,For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious,And for love, sweet love—but praise! praise! praise!For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding 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,I bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, come unfalteringly.
Approach strong deliveress,When it is so, when thou hast taken them I joyously sing the dead,Lost in the loving floating ocean of thee,Laved in the flood of thy bliss O death.
From me to thee glad serenades,Dances for thee I propose saluting thee, adornments and feastings for thee,And the sights of the open landscape and the high spread sky are fitting,And life and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful night.
The night in silence under many a star,The ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice I know,And the soul turning to thee O vast and well-veil'd death,And the body gratefully nestling close to thee.
Over the tree-tops I float thee a song,Over the rising and sinking waves, over the myriad fields and the prairies wide,Over the dense-pack'd cities all and the teeming wharves and ways,I float this carol with joy, with joy to thee O death.
This poem, in memory of "the sweetest, wisest soul of all our days and lands," and for whose sake lilac and star and bird entwined, will last as long as the memory of Lincoln.
XII.
OLD AGE.
Walt Whitman is not only the poet of childhood, of youth, of manhood, but, above all, of old age. He has not been soured by slander or petrified by prejudice; neither calumny nor flattery has made him revengeful or arrogant. Now sitting by the fireside, in the winter of life,
His jocund heart still beating in his breast,
he is just as brave and calm and kind as in his manhood's proudest days, when roses blossomed in his cheeks. He has taken life's seven steps. Now, as the gamester might say, "on velvet." He is enjoying "old age expanded, broad, with the haughty breadth of the universe; old age, flowing free, with the delicious near-by freedom of death; old age, superbly rising, welcoming the ineffable aggregation of dying days."
He is taking the "loftiest look at last," and before he goes he utters thanks:
For health, the midday sun, the impalpable air—for life, mere life,For precious ever-lingering memories, (of you my motherdear you, father—you, brothers, sisters, friends.)For all my days—not those of peace alone the days of war the same,For gentle words, caresses, gifts from foreign lands,For shelter, wine and meat—for sweet appreciation,(You distant, dim unknown—or young or old—countless, unspecified, readers belov'd,We never met, and ne'er shall meet—and yet our souls embrace, long, close and long.)For beings, groups, love, deeds, words, books—for colors, forms,For all the brave strong men—devoted, hardy men—who'veforward sprung in freedom's help, all years, all lands,For braver, stronger, more devoted men (a special laurel ereI go, to life's war's chosen ones,The cannoneers of song and thought—the great artillerists—theforemost leaders, captains of the soul).
It is a great thing to preach philosophy—far greater to live it. The highest philosophy accepts the inevitable with a smile, and greets it as though it were desired.
To be satisfied: This is wealth—success.
The real philosopher knows that everything has happened that could have happened—consequently he accepts. He is glad that he has lived—glad that he has had his moment on the stage. In this spirit Whitman has accepted life.
I shall go forth,I shall traverse the States awhile, but I cannot tell whither or how long,Perhaps soon some day or night while I am singing my voice will suddenly cease.
O book, O chants! must all then amount to but this?Must we barely arrive at this beginning of us?—and yet it is enough, O soul;O soul, we have positively appear'd—that is enough.
Yes, Walt Whitman has appeared. He has his place upon the stage. The drama is not ended. His voice is still heard. He is the Poet of Democracy—of all people. He is the poet of the body and soul. He has sounded the note of Individuality. He has given the pass-word primeval. He is the Poet of Humanity—of Intellectual Hospitality. He has voiced the aspirations of America—and, above all, he is the poet of Love and Death.
How grandly, how bravely he has given his thought, and how superb is his farewell—his leave-taking:
After the supper and talk—after the day is done,As a friend from friends his final withdrawal prolonging,Good-bye and Good-bye with emotional lips repeating,(So hard for his hand to release those hands—no more will they meet,No more for communion of sorrow and joy, of old and young,A far-stretching journey awaits him, to return no more,)Shunning, postponing severance seeking to ward off the last word ever so little,E'en at the exit-door turning—charges superfluous callingback—e'en as he descends the steps,Something to eke out a minute additional—shadows of nightfall deepening,Farewells, messages lessening—dimmer the forthgoer's visage and form,Soon to be lost for aye in the darkness loth, O so loth to depart!
And is this all? Will the forthgoer be lost, and forever? Is death the end? Over the grave bends Love sobbing, and by her side stands Hope and whispers:
We shall meet again. Before all life is death, and after all death is life. The falling leaf, touched with the hectic flush, that testifies of autumn's death, is, in a subtler sense, a prophecy of spring.
Walt Whitman has dreamed great dreams, told great truths and uttered sublime thoughts. He has held aloft the torch and bravely led the way.
As you read the marvelous book, or the person, called "Leaves of Grass," you feel the freedom of the antique world; you hear the voices of the morning, of the first great singers—voices elemental as those of sea and storm. The horizon enlarges, the heavens grow ample, limitations are forgotten—the realization of the will, the accomplishment of the ideal, seem to be within your power. Obstructions become petty and disappear. The chains and bars are broken, and the distinctions of caste are lost. The soul is in the open air, under the blue and stars—the flag of Nature. Creeds, theories and philosophies ask to be examined, contradicted, reconstructed. Prejudices disappear, superstitions vanish and custom abdicates. The sacred places become highways, duties and desires clasp hands and become comrades and friends. Authority drops the scepter, the priest the miter, and the purple falls from kings. The inanimate becomes articulate, the meanest and humblest things utter speech and the dumb and voiceless burst into song. A feeling of independence takes possession of the soul, the body expands, the blood flows full and free, superiors vanish, flattery is a lost art, and life becomes rich, royal, and superb. The world becomes a personal possession, and the oceans, the continents, and constellations belong to you. You are in the center, everything radiates from you, and in your veins beats and throbs the pulse of all life. You become a rover, careless and free. You wander by the shores of all seas and hear the eternal psalm. You feel the silence of the wide forest, and stand beneath the intertwined and over arching boughs, entranced with symphonies of winds and woods. You are borne on the tides of eager and swift rivers, hear the rush and roar of cataracts as they fall beneath the seven-hued arch, and watch the eagles as they circling soar. You traverse gorges dark and dim, and climb the scarred and threatening cliffs. You stand in orchards where the blossoms fall like snow, where the birds nest and sing, and painted moths make aimless journeys through the happy air. You live the lives of those who till the earth, and walk amid the perfumed fields, hear the reapers' song, and feel the breadth and scope of earth and sky. You are in the great cities, in the midst of multitudes, of the endless processions. You are on the wide plains—the prairies—with hunter and trapper, with savage and pioneer, and you feel the soft grass yielding under your feet. You sail in many ships, and breathe the free air of the sea. You travel many roads, and countless paths. You visit palaces and prisons, hospitals and courts; you pity kings and convicts, and your sympathy goes out to all the suffering and insane, the oppressed and enslaved, and even to the infamous. You hear the din of labor, all sounds of factory, field, and forest, of all tools, instruments and machines. You become familiar with men and women of all employments, trades and professions—with birth and burial, with wedding feast and funeral chant. You see the cloud and flame of war, and you enjoy the ineffable perfect days of peace. In this one book, in these wondrous "Leaves of Grass," you find hints and suggestions, touches and fragments, of all there is of life, that lies between the babe, whose rounded cheeks dimple beneath his mother's laughing, loving eyes, and the old man, snow-crowned, who, with a smile, extends his hand to death.
We have met to-night to honor ourselves by honoring the author of "Leaves of Grass."
Chapter XII tailpiece
Chapter XII tailpiece
ADDRESS AT THE
Funeral of Walt Whitman
BY ROBERT O. INGERSOLL,
At Harleigh, Camden, New Jersey, March 30, 1892.
Again, we, in the mystery of Life, are brought face to face with the mystery of Death. A great man, a great American, the most eminent citizen of this Republic, lies dead before us, and we have met to pay tribute to his greatness and his worth.
I know he needs no words of mine. His fame is secure. He laid the foundations of it deep in the human heart and brain. He was, above all I have known, the poet of humanity, of sympathy. He was so great that he rose above the greatest that he met without arrogance, and so great that he stooped to the lowest without conscious condescension. He never claimed to be lower or greater than any of the sons of men.
He came into our generation a free, untrammeled spirit, with sympathy for all. His arm was beneath the form of the sick. He sympathized with the imprisoned and despised, and even on the brow of crime he was great enough to place the kiss of human sympathy.
One of the greatest lines in our literature is his, and the line is great enough to do honor to the greatest genius that has ever lived. He said, speaking of an outcast: "Not until the sun excludes you will I exclude you."
His charity was as wide as the sky, and wherever there was human suffering, human misfortune, the sympathy of Whitman bent above it as the firmament bends above the earth.
He was built on a broad and splendid plan—ample, without appearing to have limitations—passing easily for a brother of mountains and seas and constellations; caring nothing for the little maps and charts with which timid pilots hug the shore, but giving himself freely with the recklessness of genius to winds and waves and tides; caring for nothing so long as the stars were above him. He walked among men, among writers, among verbal varnishers and veneerers, among literary milliners and tailors, with the unconscious majesty of an antique god.
He was the poet of that divine democracy which gives equal rights to all the sons and daughters of men. He uttered the great American voice; uttered a song worthy of the great Republic. No man has ever said more for the rights of humanity, more in favor of real democracy, of real justice. He neither scorned nor cringed; was neither tyrant nor slave. He asked only to stand the equal of his fellows beneath the great flag of nature, the blue and stars.
He was the poet of life. It was a joy simply to breathe. He loved the clouds; he enjoyed the breath of morning, the twilight, the wind, the winding streams. He loved to look at the sea when the waves burst into the whitecaps of joy. He loved the fields, the hills; he was acquainted with the trees, with birds, with all the beautiful objects of the earth. He not only saw these objects, but understood their meaning, and he used them that he might exhibit his heart to his fellow-men.
He was the poet of Love. He was not ashamed of that divine passion that has built every home; that divine passion that has painted every picture and given us every real work of art; that divine passion that has made the world worth living in and has given some value to human life.
He was the poet of the natural, and taught men not to be ashamed of that which is natural. He was not only the poet of democracy, not only the poet of the great Republic, but he was the poet of the human race. He was not confined to the limits of this country, but his sympathy went out over the seas to all the nations of the earth.
He stretched out his hands and felt himself the equal of all kings and of all princes, and the brother of all men, no matter how high, no matter how low.
He has uttered more supreme words than any writer of our century, possibly of almost any other. He was, above all things, a man, and above genius, above all the snow-capped peaks of intelligence, above all art, rises the true man.
He was the poet of Death. He accepted all life and all death, and he justified all. He had the courage to meet all, and was great enough and splendid enough to harmonize all and to accept all there is as a divine melody.
You know better than I what his life has been, but let me say one thing: Knowing as he did, what others can know and what they can not, he accepted and absorbed all theories, all creeds, all religions, and believed in none. His philosophy was a sky that embraced all clouds and accounted for all clouds. He had a philosophy and a religion of his own, broader, as he believed—and as I believe—than others. He accepted all, he understood all, and he was above all.
He was absolutely true to himself. He had frankness and courage, and he was as candid as light. He was willing that all the sons of men should be absolutely acquainted with his heart and brain. He had nothing to conceal. Frank, candid, pure, serene, noble, and yet for years he was maligned and slandered, simply because he had the candor of nature. He will be understood yet, and that for which he was condemned—his frankness, his candor—will add to the glory and greatness of his fame.
He wrote a liturgy for mankind; he wrote a great and splendid psalm of life, and he gave to us the gospel of humanity—the greatest gospel that can be preached.
He was not afraid to live; not afraid to die. For many years he and Death lived near neighbors. He was always willing and ready to meet and greet this king called Death, and for many months he sat in the deepening twilight waiting for the night; waiting for the light.
He never lost his hope. When the mists filled the valleys, he looked upon the mountain tops, and when the mountains in darkness disappeared, fixed his gaze upon the stars.
In his brain were the blessed memories of the day and in his heart were mingled the dawn and dusk of life.
He was not afraid; he was cheerful every moment. The laughing nymphs of day did not desert him. They remained that they might clasp the hands and greet with smiles the veiled and silent sisters of the night. And when they did come, Walt Whitman stretched his hand to them. On one side were the nymphs of day, and on the other the silent sisters of the night, and so, hand in hand, between smiles and tears, he reached his journey's end.
From the frontier of life, from the western wave-kissed shore, he sent us messages of content and hope, and these messages seem now like strains of music blown by the "Mystic Trumpeter" from Death's pale realm.
To-day we give back to Mother Nature, to her clasp and kiss, one of the bravest, sweetest souls that ever lived in human clay.
Charitable as the air and generous as Nature, he was negligent of all except to do and say what he believed he should do and should say.
And I to-day thank him, not only for you but for myself, for all the brave words he has uttered. I thank him for all the great and splendid words he has said in favor of liberty, in favor of man and woman, in favor of motherhood, in favor of fathers, in favor of children, and I thank him for the brave words that he has said of death.
He has lived, he has died, and death is less terrible than it was before. Thousands and millions will walk down into the "dark valley of the shadow" holding Walt Whitman by the hand. Long after we are dead the brave words he has spoken will sound like trumpets to the dying.
And so I lay this little wreath upon this great man's tomb. I loved him living, and I love him still.
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