THE POET OF THE COSMOS 



tion, death. Yet how clear it is to me that those are not 

 the born results, influences of Nature at all, but of our 

 own distorted, sick, or silly souls. Here amid this wide, 

 free scene, how healthy, how joyous, how clean and vigor- 

 ous and sweet! 



I do not wonder that Whitman gave such a shock 

 to the reading public sixty years ago. This return, 

 in a sense, to aboriginal Nature, this sudden plunge 

 into the great ocean of primal energies, this discard- 

 ing of all ornamentation and studied external ef- 

 fects of polish and elaboration, gave the readers of 

 poetry a chill from which they are not yet wholly 

 recovered. The fireside, the library corner, the seat 

 in the garden, the nook in the woods: each and all 

 have their charm and their healing power, but do 

 not look for them in Walt Whitman. Rather expect 

 the mountain-tops, the surf-drenched beach, and 

 the open prairies. A poet of the cosmos, fortified and 

 emboldened by the tremendous discoveries and de- 

 ductions of modern science, he takes the whole of 

 Nature for his province and dominates it, is at home 

 with it, affiliates with it through his towering per- 

 sonality and almost superhuman breadth of sym- 

 pathy. 



The egotism of Whitman was like the force of 

 gravity, like the poise of the earth, the centrality of 

 the orbs. Nothing could disturb it, no burden was 

 too great for it to bear. He seemed always to have in 

 mind the self-control and the insouciance of Nature. 



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