108 PEPACTON 



"Behold the daybreak! 



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 lone- 

 some 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 occupa- 

 tions, 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 per- 

 sonality, and puts in a shred of natural history here 

 and there, — the "twittering redstart," the spotted 

 hawk swooping by, the oscillating sea-gulls, the 



