Part 6 (2/2)

”Tis the tale of the murder in cold blood of four hundred and twelve young men.

Retreating, they formed in a hollow square, with their baggage for breastworks; Nine hundred lives out of the surrounding enemy's, nine times their number was the price they took in advance; Their colonel was wounded and their ammunition gone; They treated for an honorable capitulation, received writing and seal, gave up their arms, and marched back prisoners of war.

They were the glory of the race of rangers; Matchless with horse, rifle, song, supper, courts.h.i.+p, Large, turbulent, generous, handsome, proud, and affectionate, Bearded, sunburnt, drest in the free costume of hunters, Not a single one over thirty years of age.

The second First-day morning they were brought out in squads and ma.s.sacred--it was beautiful early summer; The work commenced about five o'clock, and was over by eight.

None obeyed the command to kneel; Some made a mad and helpless rush--some stood stark and straight; A few fell at once, shot in the temple or heart--the living and dead lay together; The maimed and mangled dug in the dirt--the newcomers saw them there; Some, half-killed, attempted to crawl away; These were despatched with bayonets, or battered with the blunts of muskets; A youth not seventeen years old seiz'd his a.s.sa.s.sin till two more came to release him; The three were all torn, and covered with the boy's blood.

At eleven o'clock began the burning of the bodies: That is the tale of the murder of the four hundred and twelve young men.”

After reading this picture of the horrible battle or slaughter at Goliad, who wonders that the battle cry at San Jacinto was, ”Remember the Alamo!” or ”Remember Goliad!” And still less do we wonder that the Mexicans, while scattered after the battle could be heard on all sides, ”Me no Alamo!” ”Me no Goliad!” Our poet has given the best picture we shall ever get of the Alamo and Goliad. The burden of his big, warm heart was to portray in vivid colors, the tragedy of the four hundred and twelve young men, and how manly they suffered.

John Burroughs has observed from the notes of Mr. Charles W. Eldridge, that Emerson was not only an admirer of Whitman, but that every year from 1855 to 1860, he sought Whitman in his Brooklyn home. The two men were together much, but Walt never sought Emerson. When he was invited by Emerson to Concord, he refused to go, perhaps because he feared that he would see too much of that ”literary coterie that then cl.u.s.tered there, chiefly around Emerson.”

Burroughs is also responsible for the suggestion that Whitman burst into full glory at one bound, and his work from the first line is Mature. At the age of thirty-five, a great change came over the man and his habits were different thereafter. His first poem, ”Starting from Paumanook,”

outlines his work, observes Burroughs, and he fulfills every promise made.

”I conned old times; I sat studying at the feet of the great Masters, Now, if eligible, O that the great Masters might return and study me!

The Soul: Forever and forever--longer than soil is brown and solid--longer than water ebbs and flows.

I will mate the poems of materials, for I think they are to be the most spiritual poems-- And I will mate the poems of my body and mortality, For I think I shall then supply myself with the poems of my Soul, and of immortality.”

And so he did. As perfect as the last or any part of his work is the first. But the poet is true to himself and to the great undertaking.

In what particular qualities does Whitman differ from the other poets?

Especially the poets who conform to the traditions of the past.

”When Tennyson sends out a poem,” observes Burroughs, ”it is perfect, like an apple or a peach; slowly wrought out and dismissed, it drops from his boughs, holding a conception or an idea that spheres it and makes it whole. It is completed, distinct and separate--might be his, or might be any man's. It carries his quality, but it is a thing of itself, and centers and depends upon itself. Whether or not the world will hereafter consent, as in the past, to call only beautiful creations of this sort, _poems_, remains to be seen. But this is certainly not what Walt Whitman does, or aims to do, except in a few cases. He completes no poems apart from himself. His lines or pulsations, thrills, waves of force, indefinite dynamic, formless, constantly emanating from the living centre, and they carry the quality of the Author's personal presence with them in a way that is unprecedented in literature.”

The more I read Whitman the more I am drawn to him, and feel the greatness of the man. His poems have meant to me recently, what Emerson's Essays meant to me as a younger man. In about the same way they affect me now, only my love for the poems grows with each reading.

It is well to recall that so much was John Burroughs inspired by his early contact with Whitman that his first book was, _Notes on Walt Whitman, as Poet and Person_, which was printed in 1867. A little later, in 1877, he renewed his study of the poet, in his last essay in _Birds and Poets_. The t.i.tle of the essay is ”The Flight of the Eagle,” and is one of Burroughs' best papers. Still later, in about 1895, he wrote his final word on Whitman, in his volume, _Whitman: A Study_. This last volume is a complete interpretation of the poet. The poems of the man are given full treatment, and it is perhaps the best defense of Whitman in print.

The publishers of these books have long expected to get John Burroughs to write a biography of Whitman, but his many other literary activities, have combined to banish their hopes, and in his stead, Mr. Bliss Perry, in 1905, was asked to write the biography, which was published in 1906.

In recent years, Whitman has been gaining pretty general acceptance, and most of the papers in current literature expose his merits. His enemies are growing fewer and fewer, and those who still survive are not so bold. They are on the defensive instead of the offensive. He is such a potent factor in the present day literature of America, that our only conclusion is that he is with us to stay, and the sooner we learn to 'Walk the open road' with him, the better will we be prepared for the future critic of American literature.

Bliss Perry thinks that on account ”of the amplitude of his imagination,” and ”the majesty with which he confronts the eternal realities,” instead of the absolute perfection of his poems, he is bound to a place somewhere among the immortals.

Mr. Perry has made a critical study of Whitman, and his judgment and conclusions are charitable and will stand. No critic can ever give an adequate conception of Whitman's poems. As he, himself said, ”They will elude you.” In order to understand in any degree his eccentricities and his poetic freedom, one must go to the poems and read them as a whole.

One will either turn away from them for a breath of air, or he will be forever won by them.

I happened to be among the latter cla.s.s, and I must agree with his most enthusiastic critics, that he is a real poet, and one of the few that make you think and feel. Most of our other American poets have said some pretty things in verse but are not elemental. They lack the ”high seriousness,” the all-essential quality of a real poet. This quality we cannot fail to recognize in Whitman, from the beginning to the end, if we tolerate him.

Mr. Stedman's paper on Whitman, though less readable than Burroughs', and far more labored than Mr. Perry's, contains many excellent estimates of Whitman's democracy, and a lover of Whitman cannot afford to be ignorant of his fine judgments. He thinks that Whitman is well equipped as a poet--having had such genuine intercourse ”With Nature in her broadest and minutest forms.”

<script>