212 BIRDS AND POETS 



IDrogress, and these are some of the fish, not all 

 beautiful by any means, but all terribly alive, and 

 all native to these waters. 



In the " Carol of Occupations " occur, too, those 

 formidable inventories of the more heavy and coarse- 

 grained trades and tools that few if any readers have 

 been able to stand before, and that have given the 

 scoffers and caricaturists their favorite weapons. If 

 you detach a page of these and ask, " Is it poetry ? 

 have the ' hog-hook, ' the ' killing-hammer, ' ' the 

 cutter's cleaver,' ' the packer's maul, ' etc., met with 

 a change of heart, and been converted into celes- 

 tial cutlery ? " I answer, No, they are as barren of 

 poetry as a desert of grass; but in their place in the 

 poem, and in the collection, they serve as masses of 

 shade or neutral color in pictures, or in nature or 

 character, — a negative service, but still indispensa- 

 ble. The point, the moral of the poem, is really 

 backed up and driven home by this list. The poet 

 is determined there shall be no mistake about it. 

 He will not put in the dainty and pretty things 

 merely, — he will put in the coarse and common 

 things also, and he swells the list till even his robust 

 muse begins to look uneasy. Remember, too, that 

 Whitman declaredly writes the lyrics of America, of 

 the masses, of democracy, and of the practical labor 

 of mechanics, boatmen, and farmers : — 



" The sum of all known reverence I add up in you, whoever you 

 are; 



All doctrines, all politics and civilization, exude from you; 



All sculpture and monuments, and anything inscribed any- 

 where, are tallied in you ; 



