THE POET OF THE COSMOS 



The hazards are great, but the stakes are great 

 also. Readers who cannot stand an utterance of this 

 sort should goto Pollock's "Course of Time," or 

 Young's "Night Thoughts," or Dr. Holland's "Bit- 

 ter Sweet." 



Whitman bares his mind and soul to us as he 

 bares his body. There are no masks or disguises. 

 His inmost heart is as nude as his anatomy. Nothing 

 is dressed up. No fashionable tailoring at all. There 

 is nowhere the air of the studied, the elaborated. 

 When other poets stand before the mirror, Whitman 

 looks off at the landscape, or goes and bathes and 

 admires himself. Or, to vary the image, when other 

 poets distill perfumes, Whitman aims to give us the 

 fresh breath of the unhoused air. In this respect he 

 stands alone among modern English-speaking poets. 

 He is the air of the hills and the shore, and not of a 

 flower garden, or of a June meadow, or of parlors. 

 That is what disappoints people. He aims at beauty 

 no more than a wood or a river or a lake or a jungle 

 does. His aim is to tally Nature. 



It was my rare good fortune to know this quiet, 

 sympathetic, tolerant man for more than thirty 

 years, and to walk or saunter with him at all seasons 

 and hours. Often at night he would stop and gaze 

 long and silently at the stars, and then resume his 

 walk. He was an easy-going, lethargic man — noth- 

 ing strenuous about him, never in a hurry, never 

 disturbed or excited, always in good humor, cleanly, 



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