WOMAN AND FREEDOM IN WHITMAN 1 



FROM the many rich utterances of Whitman on Woman and 

 Freedom, the reader naturally feels himself at a loss when 

 called upon to repeat selections to others. At best, within the 

 limits of a paper, the merest sketch or outline of Whitman's 

 conception of these subjects can be drawn. 



During his early childhood and youth Whitman spent many 

 of his days in roaming along Paumanok's shores, where his 

 vision and soul were enthralled by the vistas of sands and sea 

 stretching outward. And, if the sea winds blowing along the 

 coast-line and the shining stars or the sunlit-crested waves 

 had not as yet taught him fully to know their voices, still he 

 had begun to think "a thought of the clef of the universe and 

 of the future." And he was not unmoved by the tirelessly 

 tossing white arms when from the sea they beckoned him 

 to launch his craft upon "the wild unrest," the limitless 

 waters of "eternal progress" and freedom. 



His early impression of woman was gathered from his own 

 family circle, whose women-folk were strong in character and 

 purpose. The halo of motherhood illumined his homely abode 

 And the fact, too, that he was the outcome of a vigorous 

 woman ancestry had not failed to leave an indelible mark 

 upon the poet. 



He begins his songs in recognition of self and personality 

 as first, "One's self I sing, a simple separate person;" then, 

 placing his voice where the resonance is most clear and beau- 

 tiful, he sings, removing all obstructions, that his tones may 

 be distinct and pure : 



1 Read before the Walt Whitman Fellowship, Boston, November 19, 1896. 

 Printed in Poet-Lore, April-June, 1897; also in pamphlet form, Boston Poet- 

 Lore Company, 1897. 



