Walt Whitman Part 3

Let me read you another description--one of a woman:

Behold a woman!

She looks out from her quaker cap, her face is clearer and more beautiful than the sky.

She sits in an armchair under the shaded porch of the farmhouse, The sun just shines on her old white head.

Her ample gown is of cream-hued linen, Her grandsons raised the flax, and her grand-daughters spun it with the distaff and the wheel.

The melodious character of the earth, The finish beyond which philosophy cannot go and does not wish to go, The justified mother of men.

Would you hear of an old-time sea fight?

Would you learn who won by the light of the moon and stars?

List to the yarn, as my grandmother's father the sailor told it to me.

Our foe was no skulk in his ship I tell you, (said he,) His was the surly English pluck, and there is no tougher or truer, and never was, and never will be; Along the lower'd eve he came horribly raking us.

We closed with him, the yards entangled, the cannon touched, My captain lash'd fast with his own hands.

We had receiv'd some eighteen pound shots under the water, On our lower-gun-deck two large pieces had burst at the first fire, killing all around and blowing up overhead.

Fighting at sun-down, fighting at dark, Ten o'clock at night, the full moon well up, our leaks on the gain, and five feet of water reported, The master-at-arms loosing the prisoners confined in the after-hold to give them a chance for themselves.

The transit to and from the magazine is now stopt by the sentinels, They see so many strange faces they do not know whom to trust

Our frigate takes fire, The other asks if we demand quarter?

If our colors are struck and the fighting done?

Now I laugh content, for I hear the voice of my little captain, "We have not struck," he composedly cries, "we have just begun our part of the fighting."

Only three guns are in use, One is directed by the captain himself against the enemy's mainmast, Two well serv'd with grape and canister silence his musketry and clear his decks.

The tops alone second the fire of this little battery, especially the main-top, They hold out bravely during the whole of the action.

Not a moment's cease, The leaks gain fast on the pumps, the fire eats toward the powder-magazine.

One of the pumps has been shot away, it is generally thought we are sinking.

Serene stands the little captain, He is not hurried, his voice is neither high nor low, His eyes give more light to us than our battle-lanterns.

Toward twelve there in the beams of the moon they surrender to us.

Stretch'd and still lies the midnight, Two great hulls motionless on the breast of the darkness, Our vessel riddled and slowly sinking, preparations to pa.s.s to the one we have conquer'd, The captain on the quarter-deck coldly giving his orders through a countenance white as a sheet, Near by the corpse of the child that serv'd in the cabin, The dead face of an old salt with long white hair and carefully curl'd whiskers, The flames spite of all that can be done flickering aloft and below, The husky voices of the two or three officers yet fit for duty, Formless stacks of bodies and bodies by themselves, dabs of flesh upon the masts and spars, Cut of cordage, dangle of rigging, slight shock of the soothe of waves, Black and impa.s.sive guns, litter of powder-parcels, strong scent, A few large stars overhead, silent and mournful shining, Delicate sniffs of sea-breeze, smells of sedgy gra.s.s and fields by the sh.o.r.e, death-messages given in charge to survivors, The hiss of the surgeon's knife, the gnawing teeth of his saw, Wheeze, cluck, swash of falling blood, short wild scream, and long, dull, tapering groan.

Some people say that this is not poetry--that it lacks measure and rhyme.

VIII.

WHAT IS POETRY?

The whole world is engaged in the invisible commerce of thought. That is to say, in the exchange of thoughts by words, symbols, sounds, colors and forms. The motions of the silent, invisible world, where feeling glows and thought flames--that contains all seeds of action--are made known only by sounds and colors, forms, objects, relations, uses and qualities--so that the visible universe is a dictionary, an aggregation of symbols, by which and through which is carried on the invisible commerce of thought. Each object is capable of many meanings, or of being used in many ways to convey ideas or states of feeling or of facts that take place in the world of the brain.

The greatest poet is the one who selects the best, the most appropriate symbols to convey the best, the highest, the sublimest thoughts. Each man occupies a world of his own. He is the only citizen of his world.

He is subject and sovereign, and the best he can do is to give the facts concerning the world in which he lives to the citizens of other worlds. No two of these worlds are alike. They are of all kinds, from the flat, barren, and uninteresting--from the small and shriveled and worthless--to those whose rivers and mountains and seas and constellations belittle and cheapen the visible world. The inhabitants of these marvelous worlds have been the singers of songs, utterers of great speech--the creators of art.

And here lies the difference between creators and imitators: the creator tells what pa.s.ses in his own world--the imitator does not. The imitator abdicates, and by the fact of imitation falls upon his knees.

He is like one who, hearing a traveler talk, pretends to others that he has traveled.

In nearly all lands, the poet has been privileged--for the sake of beauty, they have allowed him to speak, and for that reason he has told the story of the oppressed, and has excited the indignation of honest men and even the pity of tyrants. He, above all others, has added to the intellectual beauty of the world. He has been the true creator of language, and has left his impress on mankind.

What I have said is not only true of poetry--it is true of all speech.

All are compelled to use the visible world as a dictionary. Words have been invented and are being invented--for the reason that new powers are found in the old symbols, new qualities, relations, uses and meanings. The growth of language is necessary on account of the development of the human mind. The savage needs but few symbols--the civilized many--the poet most of all.

The old idea was, however, that the poet must be a rhymer. Before printing was known, it was said: the rhyme a.s.sists the memory. That excuse no longer exists.

Is rhyme a necessary part of poetry? In my judgment, rhyme is a hindrance to expression. The rhymer is compelled to wander from his subject--to say more or less than he means--to introduce irrelevant matter that interferes continually with the dramatic action and is a perpetual obstruction to sincere utterance.

All poems, of necessity, must be short. The highly and purely poetic is the sudden bursting into blossom of a great and tender thought. The planting of the seed, the growth, the bud and flower must be rapid.

The spring must be quick and warm--the soil perfect, the sunshine and rain enough--everything should tend to hasten, nothing to delay. In poetry, as in wit, the crystallization must be sudden.

The greatest poems are rhythmical. While rhyme is a hindrance, rhythm seems to be the comrade of the poetic. Rhythm has a natural foundation. Under emotion, the blood rises and falls, the muscles contract and relax, and this action of the blood is as rhythmical as the rise and fall of the sea. In the highest form of expression, the thought should be in harmony with this natural ebb and flow.

The highest poetic truth is expressed in rhythmical form. I have sometimes thought that an idea selects its own words, chooses its own garments, and that when the thought has possession, absolutely, of the speaker or writer, he unconsciously allows the thought to clothe itself.

The great poetry of the world keeps time with the winds and the waves.

I do not mean by rhythm a recurring accent at accurately measured intervals. Perfect time is the death of music. There should always be room for eager haste and delicious delay, and whatever change there may be in the rhythm or time, the action itself should suggest perfect freedom.

A word more about rhythm. I believe that certain feelings and pa.s.sions--joy, grief, emulation, revenge, produce certain molecular movements in the brain--that every thought is accompanied by certain physical phenomena. Now it may be that certain sounds, colors, and forms produce the same molecular action in the brain that accompanies certain feelings, and that these sounds, colors and forms produce first, the molecular movements and these in their turn reproduce the feelings, emotions and states of mind capable of producing the same or like molecular movements. So that what we call heroic music, produces the same molecular action in the brain--the same physical changes--that are produced by the real feeling of heroism; that the sounds we call plaintive produce the same molecular movement in the brain that grief, or the twilight of grief, actually produces. There may be a rhythmical molecular movement belonging to each state of mind, that accompanies each thought or pa.s.sion, and it may be that music, or painting, or sculpture, produces the same state of mind or feeling that produces the music or painting or sculpture, by producing the same molecular movements.

All arts are born of the same spirit, and express like thoughts in different ways--that is to say, they produce like states of mind and feeling. The sculptor, the painter, the composer, the poet, the orator, work to the same end, with different materials. The painter expresses through form and color and relation; the sculptor through form and relation. The poet also paints and chisels--his words give form, relation and color. His statues and his paintings do not crumble, neither do they fade, nor will they as long as language endures. The composer touches the pa.s.sions, produces the very states of feeling produced by the painter and sculptor, the poet and orator.

In all these there must be rhythm--that is to say, proportion--that is to say, harmony, melody.

So that the greatest poet is the one who idealizes the common, who gives new meanings to old symbols, who transfigures the ordinary things of life. He must deal with the hopes and fears, and with the experiences of the people.

The poetic is not the exceptional. A perfect poem is like a perfect day. It has the undefinable charm of naturalness and ease. It must not appear to be the result of great labor. We feel, in spite of ourselves, that man does best that which he does easiest.

The great poet is the instrumentality, not always of his time, but of the best of his time, and he must be in unison and accord with the ideals of his race. The sublimer he is, the simpler he is. The thoughts of the people must be clad in the garments of feeling--the words must be known, apt, familiar. The bight must be in the thought, in the sympathy.

In the olden time they used to have May day parties, and the prettiest child was crowned Queen of May. Imagine an old blacksmith and his wife looking at their little daughter clad in white and crowned with roses.

They would wonder while they looked at her, how they ever came to have so beautiful a child. It is thus that the poet clothes the intellectual children or ideals of the people. They must not be gemmed and garlanded beyond the recognition of their parents. Out from all the flowers and beauty must look the eyes of the child they know.

We have grown tired of G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses in art. Milton's heavenly militia excites our laughter. Light-houses have driven sirens from the dangerous coasts. We have found that we do not depend on the imagination for wonders--there are millions of miracles under our feet.

Nothing can be more marvelous than the common and everyday facts of life. The phantoms have been cast aside. Men and women are enough for men and women. In their lives is all the tragedy and all the comedy that they can comprehend.