Did we think victory great?

So it is

- but now it seems to me, when it cannot be help'd, that defeat is great,

And that death and dismay are great.

Such sentences are sown broadcast throughout the "Leaves." Often there is literary distinction in the phrasing, but the manner does not differ from the manner of a prose essay. Whitman's attitude here is intellectual rather than emotional; his method is assertion. We agree with him or disagree, as the case may be. If we do not accept his dictum, he does not persuade us in spite of ourselves by any beauty of image; he does not kindle us with any glow of emotion. The ideas are valued for themselves, without regard to their form. This element is the stalk and tough fibre of his verse. The third element, redeeming the whole and making it glorious, is the radiant flower and perfect fruit: this is his poetry. Whitman himself knows as well as another that "real materials do not become real until touched by

emotions, the mind." In his passages of true poetry, and they compensate for all the rest, ideas are kindled by feeling and lighted by imagination. Here content is not to be disengaged from the form. This poetry has the fusing and transfiguring power that is characteristic of all great art. Some of the sources of this power I have tried to indicate. In the result it makes its way, triumphantly, supremely.

Such are the currents of energy that pulse through the oceanic tides of Whitman's verse. There are cross-currents and contradictory forces. To be caught and swept along by a single current is to be carried out of our course. If we are to fare with Whitman from port to port, from birth through life to death and beyond, we must keep our bearings. So "Leaves of Grass" is to be truly apprehended and appreciated only in its entirety; the part is to be referred to the whole. "I am large; I contain multitudes." Our enjoyment of Whitman is the

measure of our own capacity. Like the sea's horizon, his bounds are traced by the range of our own vision. The ocean's verge advances ever before us with our progress; and there is ever an infinite beyond.

The sky o'erarches here, we feel the undulating deck beneath our feet,

We feel the long pulsation, ebb and flow of endless mo

tion,

The tones of unseen mystery, the vague and vast suggestions of the briny world, the liquid-flowing syllables,

The perfume, the faint creaking of the cordage, the melancholy rhythm,

The boundless vista and the horizon far and dim are all

here,

And this is ocean's poem.

III

THE HUMAN APPEAL

Publish my name and hang up my picture as that of the tenderest lover,

The friend the lover's portrait, of whom his friend his lover was fondest,

Who was not proud of his songs, but of the measureless ocean of love within him, and freely pour'd it forth.

A

TANGLED growth from wide fields, tough-fibred strands, gleaming in the sun, bending to the sweep of winds, tossing and falling in variant rhythm like waves over the sea, — this is the symbol and expression of a vast and elemental personality. The impression is one of expanse and freedom, of infinite complexity enfolded within a dominant unity. There are shifting vistas and far horizons; many crests are salient, flashing light; with the bigness and diversity, there is also a wonderful sense of inti

macy. Somewhere within, at the very centre, quickens a compelling force, exerting an irresistible attraction. The appeal is as sovereign as it is varied. Many phases, one essence. At the heart of it is power.

The secret of Whitman's power does not reside in his craftsmanship. His poetry holds for its readers the delight which art brings, in satisfaction of the æsthetic sense. But his art alone does not exhaust his significance. His verses are musical with subtle rhythms and with melodies cunningly wrought; woven of colored words and luminous images, they fill the eye like landscape, and move in multiform procession like the pageant of the day and night. But however his technique may be characterized, it is enough for Whitman that his art is adequate for his purpose. By means of it he communicates himself. His purpose is to establish between himself and his readers an immediately personal relation, so that they may share with him his experi