Walt Whitman seer Author:Henry Wallace Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 0 darkness ! O in vain ! 1 am very sick and sorrowful! I sing uselessly, uselessly all the night. O past! O happy life 1 O songs of joy! In the air, in ... more »the woods, over fields, Loved! Loved ! Loved ! Loved ! Loved ! But my mate no more, no more with me ! We two together no more." The boy then comes to realise that the song is for him, nay is about him, and his human life, and it becomes the song of love unsatisfied, " the unknown want," the "destiny" within for which he eagerly desires the key. It is an instance of the wonderful faith and optimism of our poet that the clue or key should be given in the word "Death." Tennyson has suggested tfsimHar answer, however :— " What hope of answer or redress ? Within the veil! Within the veil!" How graphic is Whitman's description of the way the answer comes !— " Whereto answering, the Sea, Delaying not, hurrying not, Whispered me through the night, and very plainly before daybreak Lisp'd to me the low and delicious word death, And again death, death, death, death, Hissing melodious neither like the bird nor like my arous'd child's heart, But edging near as privately for me, rustling at my feet, Creeping thence steadily up to my ears and laving me softly all over, Death, death, death, death, death." It is the poet's way of sayiagthat.beyond all war lies the level land of fair and silent fruitfulness. C. Views of Nature.—And now let us briefly turn to our poet's view of Nature. This is so deeply intertwined with his general message that it is difficult to quote without overlapping; therefore, hoping that the reader has not missed any note of Nature which has been already struck, let us take a few—and only a few—pictures of Nature from the Leaves of Grass. You have noticed that he regards...« less