The Cecil Whig., 1886-01-30
HS John BURROUGHS.
An Original WING Feature

condor, the sea-gulls, the proud hawl S,
etc., has perhaps felt that the poetic sug-
gestion of the leathered tribes is not all
confined to the sweet and tiny songstcis
the thrushes, canaries and hooking
birds of the groves aud orchards, or of
the giided cage in my lady's chamber.
1t is by some such analogy that l would
indicate the character of the poetry am
about to discuss-compared with that Of
the more popular and melodous singer;
the poetry of the strong wing and tie
daring flight.
Well and profoundly has a Danish
critic said, in ''For Ide og Virhelighed"
| Cor the Idea aud the Reality, a Copen-
hagen magazine:
''lt may be candidly admitted that the
American poet has not the elegance, spe-
cal melody, nor rechcrcAe aroma of the
| accepted poets of Europe or his own
country; but his compass and general
harmony are infinitely greater. The
sweetness and spice, the poetic cRhUi
the tender longings, the exquisite art
finish of those choice poets are mainly
unseen and unmet in him-perhaps be-
cause he cannot achieve them-more
likely because he disdains them. But
there is an electric living soul in his
poetry, far more fermenting and embrac-
ing. His wings do not glitter in their
movement from rich and vari-colored
plumage, nor are his notes those of the
accustomed song-birds: but his flight is
the flight Of the eagle"
Yes, there is not only the delighting
of the ear with the outpouring of sweet
est melody, and its lessons-but there is
the delightirg of the eye and the soul
through that soaring and circling iu the
vast empyrean of "a strong bird on pin
ions free''-lessons of freedom, power,
grace and spiritual ggestion-vast, uI-
paralleled, torm!ess lessons.
1t is now upwards Of thirty years since
Walt Whitman printed Gin 1850 his first
thin beginning volume of Leaves of
Grass" and holding him to the test
which he himself early proclaimed, name
ly, 'that the proof of the poet should be
sternly deferred till his country has alb
sorbed him as atfectionately as he has
absorbed it, he is yet on trial, yet makes
his appeal to an Indifferent or to a scorn-
full audience. That his complete absorp-
ton, however, by his own country, and
by the world, is ultimately to take place,
is one of the beliefs that grows stronger
and stronger within me as time passes,
a-d | suppose it is with hope to help
forward this absorption that | write OF
him now. Only here and there has he
yet effected lodgment, usually in the
younger aud more virile minds. But
considering the unparalleled audacity
Of his undertaking, and the absence
in most critics and readers of anything
| like full grown and robust Pthetic per-
ception, the wonder really is not that he
| should have made such slow progress,
but that he should have gained any foot
hold at all. The whole literary techHtque
| of the race for the last two hundred years
has been squarely against him, laying as
it does the emphasis upon form and
scholarly endowments instead of upon
| aboriginal power and manhood.
My own mastery of the poet, incom-
plete as it is, has doubtless been much
facilitated by contact-talks, meals,
iaunts, ect-with him, stretching
through a decade of years, and by seeing
| how everything in his personnel was re-
sumed and carried forward in his literary
expression; in fact, how the one was a
living commentary upon the other. After
the test of time nothing goes home like
the test of actual intimacy, and to tell
me that Whitman is not large, fine,
fresh, magnetic personality, making you
love him, and want always to be with
him, were to tell me that my whole past
is deception, and all the impression OF
my perceptives fraud. | have studied
found that the nearer l got to him the
more saw. Nothing about first class
man can be overlooked; he is to be studied
in every feature, in his physiology and
phrenology, in the shape of his head,
in his brow, his eye, his glance, his nose,
his ear (the ear is as indicative in a man
as in hcrse), his voice. In Whitman
all these things are remarkably striking
and suggestive. His face exhibits rare
combination of harmony and sweetness
with strength, strength like the vaults
and piers Of the Roman architecture.
Sculptor never carved a finer car or &
more imaginative brow. Then his heavy
lidded, absorbing eye, his sympathetic
voice, and the impression which he makes
of starting from the broad bases of the
universal human traits. 0f Whitman
was grand in his physical and perfect
GS1,) cheeffully mastering paralysis
peaury, and old age) Iou know OF
seeing the man and becoming familiar
with his presence. that if he achieve the
height at all it will be from where every
man stands, and not from some specia
genius, or exceptional and adventitiou:
point. He does not make the impression
of the scholar or artist or WCrdtcar, but
such as you would imagine the antique
heroes to make, that Of a sweet blooded
receptive, perfectly normal, catholic man
with, further than that, a look about hin
that is best suggested by the word ele
mental or cosmical, 1t was this, donbt
SIS, that led Thoreau to write, after al
hours interview, that he suggested
something "A little more than human
In fact, the main clue to Walt Whitman.
life and personality, and the expression
of them in his poems, is to be found il
about the largest emotional element tha
has appeared anywhere. This, if no
controlled by potent rational balance
would either have tossed him helplessl,
forever or wrecked him as disastrousl,
as ever storm and gale drove ship ruin
These volcanic emotional fires appea
everywhere in his books, and it is reall,
these, aroused to intense activity ant
unnatural strain during the four years o
, the war, and persistent laborS in the hos
pitfalls, that have resulted in his lines