We debouch upon a newer, mightier world, varied world;
Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labour and the march,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Here at last was the true Walt Whitman, superabundant in splendid vitality and conscious of mental and physical power through every fibre of his being.
THE PIONEERS
All the past we leave behind!
We debouch upon a newer, mightier world…
Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep…
Pioneers! O Pioneers!
(Pioneers.)
One last longing, loving look he cast upon the creek before returning homewards. The magnificent mid-noon lay full-tide over all, brimming the uttermost shores of beauty: it was the very apotheosis of summer, the tangible realization of Whitman's prophetic vision.
All, all for immortality,
Love like the light silently wrapping all,
Nature's amelioration blessing all,
The blossoms, fruits of ages, orchards divine and certain,
Forms, objects, growths, humanities, to spiritual images ripening.
Give me, O God, to sing that thought,
Give me, give him or her I love this quenchless faith,
In Thy ensemble, whatever else withheld withhold not from us
Belief in plan of Thee enclosed in Time and Space,
Health, peace, salvation universal.
Is it a dream?
Nay but the lack of it the dream,
And failing it life's lore and wealth a dream,
And all the world a dream.
Now he passed back up the lane to the little farmstead, and, entering in, found the midday meal was served. Mr. Stafford was already seated and about to say grace. Whitman stopped as he passed behind the farmer's chair, and clasping Stafford's head in his large, well-formed hands, became an actual part, as it were, in the benediction. Then he took his seat in silence. But that irrepressible joyousness which sometimes, after working on a manuscript, seemed to shine from his face and pervade his whole body, – that "singular brightness and delight, as though he had partaken of some divine elixir" – was visible now upon his noble features. He talked a little, in simple homely phrases, – giving little idea of the voluminous reserve force within him: telling little incidents of the War of Secession and anecdotes of his hospital experiences. He had been a volunteer nurse of exquisite patience and admirable efficiency throughout those terrible years 1862-64. His passionate tenderness and sympathy then found vent: and he gave his best and uttermost: believing that (in his own words) "these libations, extatic life-pourings, as it were, of precious wine or rose-water on vast desert-sands or great polluted rivers, taking chances of no return, – what are they but the theory and practice … of Christ or of all divine personality?" For in the human, however defaced, he still could discern the divine and immortal. The worth of every individual soul was the pivot of all his arts and beliefs:
"Because, having looked at the objects of the Universe, I find there is no one, nor any particle of one, but has reference to the soul."
Usually, to his sensitive mind, able as it was to realise with the keenest sympathy every phase of human suffering, the memories of carnage were repulsive. By day he could shut them off: but by night, he said,
In clouds descending, in midnight sleep, of many a face in battle,
Of the look at first of the mortally wounded, of that indescribable look,
Of the dead on their backs, with arms extended wide —
I dream, I dream, I dream.
(Old War Dreams.)
But he had faith in the future of his country, vast hopes in the purification wrought out by those sorrowful years: and his poem To the Man-of-War Bird was but one of many allegories in which he saw his beloved America rising transfigured from the ashes of the past.
Thou who hast slept all night upon the storm,
Waking renew'd on thy prodigious pinions,
(Burst the wild storm? above it thou ascended'st,
And rested on the sky, thy slave that cradled thee,)…
Thou born to match the gale, (thou art all wings,)
To cope with heaven and earth and sea and hurricane,
Thou ship of air that never furl'st thy sails,
Days, even weeks untired and onward, through spaces, realms gyrating,
At dusk that look'st on Senegal, at morn America,
That sport'st amid the lightning-flash and thunder-cloud,
In them, in thy experiences, had'st thou my soul,
What joys! what joys were thine!
and out of the smoke and din of conflict, he believed, should spring "the most splendid race the sun ever shone upon," knit in sublime unity of brotherhood.
Dinner over, Whitman retired awhile to his own apartment: that fearful chaos of pell-mell untidiness which was the delight of its occupant and the despair of Mrs. Stafford. An indescribable confusion it was of letters, newspapers and books, – an inkbottle on one chair, a glass of lemonade on another, a pile of MSS. on a third, a hat on the floor… Imperturbably composed, the poet surveyed his best-loved books, – Scott, Carlyle, Tennyson, Emerson, – translations of Homer, Dante, Hafiz, Saadi: renderings of Virgil, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, – versions of Spanish and German poets: most well-worn of all, Shakespeare and the Bible. Finally, out of the heterogeneous collection he selected George Sand's Consuelo and seated himself at the window with it. On another afternoon he would have returned to the creek, but to-day he was expecting a friend.
And friends, with him, did not mean mere acquaintances: still less those visitors who were brought by vulgar curiosity. Although the best of comrades and one who found companionship most exhilarating, he had a bed-rock of deep reserve, and "to such as he did not like, he became as a precipice." But to those with whom he was truly en rapport, – whether by letter or in the flesh, – he was spendthrift of his personality. His English literary friends, – Tennyson, Rossetti, Buchanan, Browning and others, had supplied the financial aid which enabled him to recuperate at Timber Creek: compatriots such as Emerson, John Burroughs, and a host of old-time friends were welcome visitors. But nothing in his life or in his literary fortunes, he declared, had brought him more comfort and support – nothing had more spiritually soothed him – than the "warm appreciation and friendship of that true full-grown woman," Anne Gilchrist, the sweet English widow who was now staying with her children in Philadelphia, to be within easy reach of Whitman. "Among the perfect women I have known (and it has been very unspeakable good fortune to have had the very best for mother, sisters and friends), I have known none more perfect," wrote the poet, "than my dear, dear friend, Anne Gilchrist." It was this warm-hearted, courageous Englishwoman, "alive with humour and vivacity," whose musical voice was shortly heard outside, enquiring for Walt. He hastened down to receive her.