NATURE AND THE POETS 



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 hummingbird 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 in 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 him- 

 self at home everywhere, and puts in characteristic 

 scenes and incidents, generally compressed into a 

 single line, from all trades and doings and occu- 

 pations, North, East, South, West, and identifies 

 himself with man in all straits and conditions on 

 the continent. Like the old poets, he does not dwell 

 upon nature, except occasionally through the vistas 

 opened up by the great sciences, as astronomy and 

 geology, but upon life and movement and person- 

 ality, and puts in a shred of natural history here 

 and there, the " twittering redstart," the spotted 

 hawk swooping by, the oscillating sea-gulls, the 

 yellow-crowned heron, the razor-billed auk, the 

 lone wood duck, the migrating geese, the sharp- 

 hoofed moose, the mockingbird "the thrush, the 

 hermit," etc., to help locate and define his posi- 

 tion. Everywhere in nature Whitman finds human 

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