Part 12 (1/2)

”Of these States the poet is the equable rotesque, eccentric, fail of their full returns, Nothing out of its place is good, nothing in its place is bad, He bestows on every object or quality its fit proportion, neither more nor less, He is the arbiter of the diverse, he is the key, He is the equalizer of his age and land, He supplies ants supplying, he checks ants checking, In peace out of hi populous towns, encouraging agriculture, arts, co the study of overnment, In war he is the best backer of the war, he fetches artillery as good as the engineer's, he cantoward infidelity he withholds by his steady faith, He is no arguer, he is judges not as the judge judges, but as the sun falling round a helpless thing, As he sees the farthest he has the s, In the dispute on God and eternity he is silent, He sees eternity less like a play with a prologue and denouement, He sees eternity in men and women, he does not see men and omen as dreams or dots

”Rhymes and rhymers pass away, poems distill'd from other poems pass away, The swarms of reflectors and the polite pass, and leave ashes, Admirers, impostors, obedient persons, make but the soil of literature”

Folded up in these sentences, often etter, the reconciler; not the priest of the beautiful, but the master of the All, who does not appear once in centuries

We hear nothing of the popular conception of the poet, well reflected in these lines of Tennyson:--

”The poet in a golden cliolden stars above”

”Golden stars” and ”golden clies; the spirit of romance is sternly excluded

Whitman's ideal poet is the most composite man, rich in te races and eras in himself All men see themselves in him:--

”The mechanic takes him for a mechanic, And the soldier supposes him to be a soldier, and the sailor that he has followed the sea, And the authors take him for an author, and the artists for an artist, And the laborers perceive he could labor with them and love them, No matter what the work is, that he is the one to follow it, or has followed it, No ht find his brothers and sisters there

”The gentlees his perfect blood, The insulter, the prostitute, the angry person, the beggar, see theely transmutes them, They are not vile any rown”

Let us hold the poet to his own ideals, and not conden to himself

The questions which Whitman puts to him ould be an American poet s? Do you teach what the land and sea, the bodies of ers, teach?

Have you sped through fleeting custoainst all seductions, follies, whirls, fierce contentions? are you very strong? are you really of the whole people?

Are you not of soion?

Are you done with reviews and criticis now to life itself?

Have you vivified yourself from the maternity of these States?

Have you, too, the old, ever-fresh forbearance and i my America?

Is it unifor that has been better done or told before?

Have you not imported this or the spirit of it in some shi+p?

Is it not a ood old cause in it?

Has it not dangled long at the heels of the poets, politicians, literats of enemies' lands?

Does it not assuone is still here?

Does it answer universal needs? will it improve manners?

Can your performance face the open fields and the seaside?