NATURE AND THE POETS. 123 



fag-bird to have turned it into words in " A Word 

 out of the Sea." Indeed, no poet has studied Ameri- 

 can nature more closely than Whitman has or is 

 more cautious in his uses of it. How easy are his 

 descriptions ! 



"Behold the day-break! 



The little light fades the immense and diaphanous shadows ! " 



" The comet that came unannounced 



Out of the north, flaring in heaven." 



"The fan-shaped explosion." 



" The slender and jagged threads of lightning, as sudden and fast 

 amid the din they chased each other across the sky." 



" Where the heifers browse where geese nip their food with 

 short jerks ; 



Where sundown shadows lengthen over the limitless and lonesome 

 prairie ; 



Where herds of buffalo make a crawling spread of the square miles 

 far and near; 



Where the humming-bird shimmers where the neck of the long- 

 lived swan is curving and winding; 



Where the laughing-gull scoots by the shore when she laughs her 

 near human laugh; 



Where band-neck'd partridges roost hi a ring on the ground with 

 their heads out." 



Whitman is less local than the New England poets 

 and faces more to the West. But he makes himself 

 at home everywhere, and puts in characteristic scenes 

 and incidents, generally compressed into a single line, 

 "rom all trades and doings and occupations, North, 

 East, South, West, and identifies himself with man in 

 ill straits and conditions on the continent. Like the 



