BEYIEWS — LEAVES OF GRASS. 551 



" Great is life, .and real and mystical, ."wherever and whoever, 



Great is d^ath. . . .sure as life holds all parts together, death holds all parts 



together ; 

 Sure as the stars return again after they merge in the light, death is greater 

 than life." 



Such are some of the " Leaves of Grass," of the Brooklyn poet who 

 describes himself on one of them as : 



" "Walt Whitman, an American, one of the roughs, a Kosmos t" 



But if the reader— recognising true poetry in some of these, — should 

 assume such a likeness runniug through the whole as pertains to the 

 blades of .Nature's Grass, we disclaim all responsibility if he find 

 reason to revise his fancy. 



In the two very diverse volumes under review it seems to us 

 that we have in the one the polish of the artist, which can accom- 

 plish so much when applied to the gem or rich ore ; in the other we 

 discern the ore, but overlaid with the valueless matrix and foul rub- 

 bish of the mine, and devoid of all the unveiling beauties of art. 

 Viewed in such aspects these poems are characteristic of the age. 

 From each we have striven to select what appeared most worthy of 

 the space at command, and best calculated to present them to the 

 reader in the most favorable point of view consistent with truth. And 

 so we leave the reader to his own judgment, between the old-world 

 stickler for authority, precedent, and poetical respectability, and the 

 new-world contemner of all authorities, laws, and respectabilities 

 whatsoever. Happily for us, all choice is not necessarily limited to 

 these. The golden mean of poesie does not, we imagine, lie between 

 such extremes. There are not a few left, both in England and in 

 America, for whom old Shakspeare is still respectable enough, and 

 poetical enough, — aye and free enough too, in spite of all the freedom 

 which has budded and bloomed since that year 1616, when his sacred 

 ashes were laid beneath the chancel stone whose curse still guards 

 them from impious hands. Nevertheless we have faith in the future. 

 "We doubt not even the present. When a greater poet than Shaks- 

 peare does arrive we shall not count him an impossibility. 



D. W. 



