The sun., 1919-05-31
Walt Whftman's Centenary.

! racy, with OTIS ABOUT the tlItn
month flowers" blooming peacefully
for the first time in five years. Per-
haps he Is writing 1t now In some
corner of that Cosmos which at
tracted him so much.
Here on earth the discussion of
what he wrote-call it poetry, proph-
ecy or philosophy, as you will
goes on almost as furiously as it did
half century ago, when ne was not
quite so gray, and in many minds not
nearly SO good, as he came to be later.
If there be communication between
,, this planet and that Cosmos whose
| vast space WHITMAN struggled to
| measure in octllllons his spirit may
| wonder, but not angrily, why there
still should be discussion of his work.
| When the birthdays Of SHAKESPEARE
| and SHELLEY come around men dis
cuss their personalities and take what
they wrote for granted, just as no
modern speaking Of MAGELLAN ar
CUES that the world is round. Still
it is popularity supposed that the good
dead are happy, and therefore 1t must
be assumed that WHITMAN is, as he
was in life, pretty we'll satisfied with
himself and what he did.
One Of WAITS critics, one who
wore the tight literary harness which
WHITMAN refused, said that he would
not disinherit son upon the ques-
ton of approaching WHITMAN; and
STEVEN SON added that he could even
shake hands with one who could see
no more in WHrTMAS's volumes than
~ farrago of incompetent essays in
II wrong direction" This was not the
novelist's complete view of the poet,
for he saw strength In the rugged and
! CO reless poetry, "a surprising COM
pound of plain grandeur, sentimental
affectation and downright nonsense"
The Whitmanites will not agree to
the proportions of this estimate, for
they have a strange habit of insisting
that anything obviously foolish in
WAITS works must be arbitrarily
thrown out. Still, in a way, STEVEN
SONS measure Is still accepted by
majority of persons who read poetry
for it's stimulation of the magination
as fair view.
The attitude Of the Whitmanites
toward the parts of his poems that
were objected to half century ago
is curious. They have habit Of de-
Tending them on the ground that they
contained Great Truths and of de-
| clarlng in the next breath that all of
Whitman should not be condemned
because of the repulsive character of
q few score of lines. IL is rs true
| rian period that some of WHITMAN's
lines are unwelcome, not merely in n
drawing room but in a ginmill. They
may be Great Truths, for we find
much the same subjects treated in
detailed cases Of patients undergoing
/ investigation by Freudian experts;
but the Freud doctors have not yet
| arranged their manuscript in the form
of free verse and offered 1t to the
public as poetry.
Most of us who read WHITMAN stf1l
find the greatest pleasure in his rough
| strength. There Is also a frequent
Joy to be had in stumbling-up lines
| where WALT seems unconsCiOusly TO
have let the harness of meter fall on
his rebellious shoulders. Take the
beginning of his "Old Ireland:
Far hence amid an Isle OF wondrous
beauty"
But in that instance when the
reader goes on he comes to disap-
polntment. The poem in Its entirety
does not satisfy; dozen poets of Ire
land have done better. ARTHUR
| STRINGER, a Canadian, has caught the
Irish spirit far better than this ad-
mired verse of WHITMAN's. There is
more feeling in Ethiopia Saluting the
Colors" and more mysticism. Neither
ilhS tilt Itul pOclN iialuic VI ~ lit
Man Of War Birdp:
AT dusk that looks on Senegal, at
morn America"
"Out Of the Cradle EndlesSly Rock
ing Is looked up to by all Whitman
ties as a good example of his poetic
powers, but II parts of it were to
| appear unidentified to-day they would
be accepted as translatlons from the
work Of fairly good japanese poet.
There are such diverse views OF
I WHITMAN and his admirers seem to
be divided into 50 many groups that
an enterprising publisher might now
find profit IN cutting up his works,
as refinery cracks crude oil, and
making ready for each lot of pur-
chasers just what they wish. There
could be volume for the poems in
praise of America; another for the
poems Of brotherhood and unbounded
,lemocracy-a League of Nations edi-
ton; n third for the back TO nature
folk; fourth for folks who "just