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Rh Not only does he, before Nietzsche, possess this sense of the virtue of the earth, but he has, as well, the expectation of a superior race of men. To the men of his day he says:

And to the mystic trumpeter he cries:

These moments of Dionysiac frenzy, in which Whitman is seized by the rapture of joy, are not rare in his songs. “I am one who ever laughs,” he says. Not only does he laugh; he goes mad with joy. One of his ecstasies ends thus: O something unprov’d! something in a trance! To escape utterly from others’ anchors and holds! To drive free! to love free! to dash reckless and dangerous! To court destruction with taunts, with invitations! To ascend, to leap to the heavens of the love indicated to me! To rise thither with my inebriate soul! To be lost if it must be so!