Page:A Woman's Estimate of Walt Whitman - The Radical, May, 1870.djvu/4

 cism at naught), above all things, vital,—that is, a source of ever-generating vitality: such are these poems.

"Roots and leaves themselves alone are these, Scents brought to men and women from the wild woods and from the pond-side, Breast sorrel and pinks of love, fingers that wind around tighter than vines, Gushes from the throats of birds hid in the foliage of trees as the sun is risen, Breezes of land and love, breezes set from living shores out to you on the living sea,—to you, O sailors! Frost-mellowed berries and Third-month twigs, offered fresh to young persons wandering out in the fields when the winter breaks up, Love-buds put before you and within you, whoever you are, Buds to be unfolded on the old terms. If you bring the warmth of the sun to them, they will open, and bring form, color, perfume, to you: If you become the aliment and the wet, they will become flowers, fruits, tall branches and trees."

And the music takes good care of itself too. As if it could be otherwise! As if those "large, melodious thoughts," those emotions, now so stormy and wild, now of unfathomed tenderness and gentleness, could fail to vibrate through the words in strong, sweeping, long-sustained chords, with lovely melodies winding in and out fitfully amongst them! Listen, for instance, to the penetrating sweetness, set in the midst of rugged grandeur, of the passage beginning,—

I am he that walks with the tender and growing night; I call to the earth and sea half held by the night."

I see that no counting of syllables will reveal the mechanism of the music; and that this rushing spontaneity could not stay to bind itself with the fetters of metre. But I know that the music is there, and that I would not for something change ears with those who cannot hear it. And I know that poetry must do one of two things,—either own this man as equal with her highest, completest manifestors, or stand aside, and admit that there is something come into the world nobler, diviner, than herself, one that is free of the universe, and can tell its secrets as none before.