VIII.-Youth, Maturity, Age Youth, large, lusty, loving-youth full of grace, force, fascination! Do you know that Old Age may come after you with equal grace, force, fascination? Day full-blown and splendid-day of the immense sun, action, ambition, laughter; The Night follows close with millions of suns, and sleep, and restoring darkness. In the discussion of the larger man it was impossible to go into many phases, too full of helpful suggestion to be omitted. Continuing the same subject, it may be well to give it the age color Whitman so often beautifully lends to his human references. Youth is rarely pictured in itself. Usually it is seen as a prophecy, or as typical of the future with its promise:) O tan-faced prairie boy, Before you came to camp, came many a welcome gift; Praises and presents came and nourishing food, till at last among the recruits You came, taciturn, with nothing to give — we looked on each other, When lo! more than all the gifts of the world you gave me. Naturally, the robust, physical life which Whitman values pre-eminently in maturity is a part of his ideal of youth. The same genuine spontaneity is requisite for the boy-a spontaneity from which springs a morality finer than obedience to arbitrary dictation from any source could secure: The boy I love - the same becomes a man not through derived power, but in his own right; Wicked, rather than virtuous, out of conformity and fear; Fond of his sweetheart — relishing well his steak Unrequited love, or a slight, cutting him worse than a wound cuts; First rate to ride, to fight, to hit the bull's eye, to sail a skiff, to sing a song, or play on the banjo, Preferring scars, and faces pitted with small-pox, over all latherers, and those who keep out of the sun. Whitman's charity and hearty good-will for the morally unfortunate is only equaled by his yearning solicitude for youth that it should not lose its way. In one of his poems he addresses "You just maturing youth," and urges him to remember many things which will tend to make him keep his manhood unsullied. There is no direct moralizing—only a series of suggestions of inspiration and caution. He reminds him of the wonderful heritage each youth possesses in this country with its history; of its high destiny and the copious humanity streaming from every direction toward America; of the national hospitality he must promote; of the freedom and absolute equality he must guard; of the great multitude of the future for whom he must keep all institutions noble. Anticipate your own life—retract with merciless power, Shrink nothing-retract in time-do you see those errors, weaknesses, lies, thefts? Think of the Soul; I swear to you that body of yours gives proportions to your Soul somehow to live in other spheres; I do not know how, but I know it is so. Think of loving and being loved; Think of spiritual results, Sure as the earth swims through the heavens, does every one of its objects pass into spiritual results. Interwoven thus are all sorts of incentives for the high life of cleanliness and large motive. National pride, race responsibility, physical safety, reverence for woman and for love, the stimulus of heroes, responsibility for the soul's eternal perfecting, are all marshaled to aid the youth in his conquest over the unworthy. He speaks of the mission of poetry as being "to fill man with a vigorous and clean manliness, religiousness, and give him good heart as |