XV 



THE POET OF THE COSMOS 



THE world has had but one poet of the cosmos, 

 and that was Whitman. His mind, his sym- 

 pathies, sweep through a wider orbit than those of 

 any other. I am bold enough to say frankly that I 

 look upon him as the greatest personality — not 

 the greatest intellect, but the most symbolical man, 

 the greatest incarnation of mind, heart, and soul, 

 fused and fired by the poetic spirit — that has ap- 

 peared in the world during the Christian era. 



In his lines called "Kosrnos " he describes himself: 



"Who includes diversity, and is Nature, 



Who is the amplitude of the earth, and the coarseness and sexual- 

 ity of the earth, and the great charity of the earth, and the 

 equilibrium also, 



Who has not look'd forth from the windows, the eyes, for noth- 

 ing, or whose brain held audience with messengers for 

 nothing, 



Who contains believers and disbelievers, who is the most 

 majestic lover, 



Who holds duly his or her triune proportion of realism, spiritual- 

 ism, and of the esthetic, or intellectual, 



Who, having consider 'd the body, finds all its organs and parts 

 good, 



Who, out of the theory of the earth, and of his or her body, under- 

 stands by subtle analogies all other theories. 



The theory of a city, a poem, and of the large politics of these 

 States; 



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