234 BIRDS AND POETS 



higher forms of literature is to escape from the 

 tyranny of the real into the freedom of the ideal; 

 but what is the ideal unless ballasted and weighted 

 with the real 1 All these poems have a lofty ideal 

 background; the great laws and harmonies stretch 

 unerringly above them, and give their vista and per- 

 spective. It is because Whitman's ideal is clothed 

 with rank materiality, as the soul is clothed with 

 the carnal body, that his poems beget such warmth 

 and desire in the mind, and are the reservoirs of so 

 much power. No one can feel more than I how 

 absolutely necessary it is that the facts of nature and 

 experience be born again in the heart of the bard, 

 and receive the baptism of the true fire before they 

 be counted poetical; and I have no trouble on this 

 score with the author of "Leaves of Grass." He 

 never fails to ascend into spiritual meanings. In- 

 deed, the spirituality of Walt Whitman is the chief 

 fact after all, and dominates every page he has 

 written. 



Observe that this singer and artist makes no 

 direct attempt to be poetical, any more than he does 

 to be melodious or rhythmical. He approaches these 

 qualities and results as it were from beneath, and 

 always indirectly; they are drawn to him, not he to 

 them; and if they appear absent from his page at 

 first, it is because we have been looking for them in 

 the customary places on the outside, where he never 

 puts them, and have not yet penetrated the interiors. 

 As many of the fowls hide their eggs by a sort of 

 intuitive prudery and secretiveness, he always half 



