THE POET OF THE COSMOS 



at the creation of worlds. I am in touch with primal 

 energies. I am borne along by a tide of life and power 

 that has no parallel elsewhere in literature. It is not 

 so much mind as it is personality, not so much art 

 as it is Nature, not so much poetry as it is the earth, 

 the sky. Oh, the large, free handling, the naked 

 grandeur, the elemental sympathy, the forthright- 

 ness, and the power! Not beauty alone, but mean- 

 ings, unities, profundities; not merely the bow in 

 the clouds, but the clouds also, and the sky, and the 

 orbs beyond the clouds. A personal, sympathetic, 

 interpretive attitude toward the whole of Nature, 

 claiming it all for body and mind, drawing out its 

 spiritual and aesthetic values, forging his laws for 

 creation from it, trying his own work by its stand- 

 ards, and seeking to emulate its sanity, its impartial- 

 ity, and its charity. 



Whitman wrote large the law of artistic produc- 

 tions which he sought to follow: 



"All must have reference to the ensemble of the world, and the 

 compact truth of the world; 



There shall be no subject too pronounced — all works shall illus- 

 trate the divine law of indirections. 



What do you suppose creation is? 



What do you suppose will satisfy the Soul, except to walk free, 

 and own no superior? 



What do you suppose I would intimate to you in a hundred ways, 

 but that man or woman is as good as God? 



And that there is no God any more divine than Yourself? 



And that that is what the oldest and newest myths finally mean? 



And that you or any one must approach creations through such 

 laws? " 



325 



