206 BIRDS AND POETS 



tion is invaluable. Well has it been said that the 

 man or woman who has " Leaves of Grass " for a 

 daily companion will be under the constant, invisi- 

 ble influence of sanity, cleanliness, strength, and a 

 gradual severance from all that corrupts and makes 

 morbid and mean. 



In regard to the unity and construction of the 

 poems, the reader sooner or later discovers the true 

 solution to be, that the dependence, cohesion,, and 

 final reconciliation of the whole are in the Person- 

 ality of the poet himself. As in Shakespeare every- 

 thing is strung upon the plot, the play, and loses 

 when separated from it, so in this poet every line 

 and sentence refers to and necessitates the Person- 

 ality behind it, and derives its chief significance 

 therefrom. In other words, " Leaves of Grass " is 

 essentially a dramatic poem, a free representation of 

 man in his relation to the outward world, — the 

 play, the interchanges between him and it, apart 

 from social and artificial considerations, — in which 

 we discern the central purpose or thought to be for 

 every man and woman his or her Individuality, and 

 around that Nationality. To show rather than to 

 tell, — to body forth as in a play how these arise 

 and blend; how the man is developed and recruited, 

 his spirit's descent; how he walks through materials 

 absorbing and conquering them; how he confronts 

 the immensities of time and space; where are the 

 true sources of his power, the soul's real riches, — 

 that which "adheres and goes forward and is not 

 dropped by death; " how he is all defined and pub- 



