throng and press of human agonies, and the long file of the sons of men passes before his vision,—

Wandering, yearning, curious, with restless explora

tions,

With questionings, baffled, formless, feverish, with never-happy hearts,

With that sad incessant refrain, Wherefore unsatisfied soul? and Whither O mocking life?

Insatiably the soul thus questions life. Few men have had so great a measure of happiness as Whitman compassed, but few have finally gone so deep to win it. His happiness is not achieved upon the merely human plane of instant desires and fleeting gratifications: it is fundamental, and of the soul. It comes of the harmony he is able actually to realize with the "mighty, elemental throes, in which and upon which we float, and every one of us is buoy'd." Along the way, he knows what it is to suffer. He knows what it means to be alone. It is granted him to taste the joys of life, the lavishness of Nature's goods,

and the fruitions of love and comradeship. He knows, too, the sustaining power of faith and hope. But lacking yet one thing, these are not enough. There is still the insistent, ever-recurring question, To what end? Not here, not there, is the answer, but within and above. Out of finite human isolation the soul finds completion in the infinite; by surrender it achieves. God is all,—“is immanent in every life and object, may-be at many and many-a-more removes," yet God is there.

Has the estray wander'd far? Is the reason-why strangely hidden?

Would you sound below the restless ocean of the entire world?

Would you know the dissatisfaction? the urge and spur of every life;

The something never still'd

never entirely gone? the

invisible need of every seed?

It is the central urge in every atom,

(Often unconscious, often evil, downfallen,)

To return to its divine source and origin, however distant, Latent the same in subject and in object, without one

exception.

This is the soul's adventure to find God. The voyage is far and perilous across the uncharted spaces, but resolute, the soul fares forth.

O my brave soul !

O farther farther sail !

O daring joy, but safe! are they not all the seas of God?

O farther, farther, farther sail!

As Whitman is billowed through the shows of earth's pageantries, taking his fill of them, he is ever seeking the great source and origin. The quest is truly the central urge of his whole being, transfiguring life, making its sorrows glorious, its human defeats a victory, and sealing its joys with the supreme sanction. Embarked on this high emprise, the soul may not rest. It will take its use of the things it encounters, it will gather the love out of men's hearts, but it must not be held by any earthly or merely personal ties: "Whoso loveth father or mother more than Me is not worthy of

Me." In its journey to "that which is endless as it was beginningless," it must merge all "in the start of superior journeys."

You but arrive at the city to which you were destin'd, you hardly settle yourself to satisfaction before.

you are call'd by an irresistible call to depart, You shall be treated to the ironical smiles and mockings of those who remain behind you,

What beckonings of love you receive you shall only answer with passionate kisses of parting,

You shall not allow the hold of those who spread their reach'd hands toward you.

Onward, forever onward, the soul passes. In the fulfillment of its mission it comes to "know the universe itself as a road, as many roads, as roads for traveling souls."

Whitman does not falter on the quest. He is eager to seek and patient to endure. He follows the open road, through darkness into light, meeting suffering and pain, yet singing always a glad, exulting, culminating song of joy. He does not withhold himself from any experience, however counter or remote, for seeing life under the

aspect of eternity, he transmutes all things into good. One ideal is his guide, one sovereign purpose sustains him. And his faith is not betrayed. His high daring and devoted singleness of effort receive their triumphant reward. As one who has come through great tribulation, he is counted worthy. Whitman is vouchsafed the beatific vision. His is the blessedness of the pure in heart, for it is granted him to see God. In rapture of the vision he cries,

O Thou transcendent,

Nameless, the fibre and the breath,

Light of the light, shedding forth universes, thou centre

of them,

Thou mightier centre of the true, the good, the loving, Thou moral, spiritual fountain affection's source — thou reservoir,

Thou pulse-thou motive of the stars, suns, systems, That, circling, move in order, safe, harmonious, Athwart the shapeless vastnesses of space.

So the radiance of God's presence, "light rare, untellable, lighting the very light,"