: Poems by Walt Whitman by Whitman Walt Rossetti William Michael Editor - American poetry 19th century Poetry

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PREFATORY NOTICE

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION OF LEAVES OF GRASS

CHANTS DEMOCRATIC: STARTING FROM PAUMANOK AMERICAN FEUILLAGE THE PAST-PRESENT YEARS OF THE UNPERFORMED FLUX TO WORKING MEN SONG OF THE BROAD-AXE ANTECEDENTS SALUT AU MONDE A BROADWAY PAGEANT OLD IRELAND BOSTON TOWN FRANCE, THE EIGHTEENTH YEAR OF THESE STATES EUROPE, THE SEVENTY-SECOND AND SEVENTY-THIRD YEARS OF THESE STATES TO A FOILED REVOLTER OR REVOLTRESS

DRUM TAPS: MANHATTAN ARMING 1861 THE UPRISING BEAT! BEAT! DRUMS! SONG OF THE BANNER AT DAYBREAK THE BIVOUAC'S FLAME BIVOUAC ON A MOUNTAIN SIDE CITY OF SHIPS VIGIL ON THE FIELD THE FLAG THE WOUNDED A SIGHT IN CAMP A GRAVE THE DRESSER A LETTER FROM CAMP WAR DREAMS THE VETERAN'S VISION O TAN-FACED PRAIRIE BOY MANHATTAN FACES OVER THE CARNAGE THE MOTHER OF ALL CAMPS OF GREEN DIRGE FOR TWO VETERANS SURVIVORS HYMN OF DEAD SOLDIERS SPIRIT WHOSE WORK IS DONE RECONCILIATION AFTER THE WAR

WALT WHITMAN: ASSIMILATIONS A WORD OUT OF THE SEA CROSSING BROOKLYN FERRY NIGHT AND DEATH ELEMENTAL DRIFTS WONDERS MIRACLES VISAGES THE DARK SIDE MUSIC WHEREFORE? QUESTIONABLE SONG AT SUNSET LONGINGS FOR HOME APPEARANCES THE FRIEND MEETING AGAIN A DREAM PARTING FRIENDS TO A STRANGER OTHER LANDS ENVY THE CITY OF FRIENDS OUT OF THE CROWD AMONG THE MULTITUDE

LEAVES OF GRASS: PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S FUNERAL HYMN O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN! PIONEERS! O PIONEERS TO THE SAYERS OF WORDS VOICES WHOSOEVER BEGINNERS TO A PUPIL LINKS THE WATERS TO THE STATES TEARS A SHIP GREATNESSES THE POET BURIAL THIS COMPOST DESPAIRING CRIES THE CITY DEAD-HOUSE TO ONE SHORTLY TO DIE UNNAMED LANDS SIMILITUDE THE SQUARE DEIFIC

POSTSCRIPT

PREFATORY NOTICE.

As it was my lot to set down so recently several of the considerations which seem to me most essential and most obvious in regard to Whitman's writings, I can scarcely now recur to the subject without either repeating something of what I then said, or else leaving unstated some points of principal importance. I shall therefore adopt the simplest course--that of summarising the critical remarks in my former article; after which, I shall leave without further development the particular topics there glanced at, and shall proceed to some other phases of the subject.

Whitman's poems present no trace of rhyme, save in a couple or so of chance instances. Parts of them, indeed, may be regarded as a warp of prose amid the weft of poetry, such as Shakespeare furnishes the precedent for in drama. Still there is a very powerful and majestic rhythmical sense throughout.

Certain faults are charged against him, and, as far as they are true, shall frankly stand confessed--some of them as very serious faults. Firstly, he speaks on occasion of gross things in gross, crude, and plain terms. Secondly, he uses some words absurd or ill-constructed, others which produce a jarring effect in poetry, or indeed in any lofty literature. Thirdly, he sins from time to time by being obscure, fragmentary, and agglomerative--giving long strings of successive and detached items, not, however, devoid of a certain primitive effectiveness. Fourthly, his self- assertion is boundless; yet not always to be understood as strictly or merely personal to himself, but sometimes as vicarious, the poet speaking on behalf of all men, and every man and woman. These and any other faults appear most harshly on a cursory reading; Whitman is a poet who bears and needs to be read as a whole, and then the volume and torrent of his power carry the disfigurements along with it, and away.

The subject-matter of Whitman's poems, taken individually, is absolutely miscellaneous: he touches upon any and every subject. But he has prefixed to his last edition an "Inscription" in the following terms, showing that the key-words of the whole book are two--"One's-self" and "En Masse:"--

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