No More Learning

MY CAPTAIN! (FOR THE DEATH OF LINCOLN)
PIONEERS! O PIONEERS
TO THE SAYERS OF WORDS
VOICES
WHOSOEVER
BEGINNERS
TO A PUPIL
LINKS
THE WATERS
TO THE STATES
TEARS
A SHIP
GREATNESSES
THE POET
BURIAL
THIS COMPOST
DESPAIRING CRIES
THE CITY DEAD-HOUSE
TO ONE SHORTLY TO DIE
UNNAMED LANDS
SIMILITUDE
THE SQUARE DEIFIC


SONGS OF PARTING:
SINGERS AND POETS
TO A HISTORIAN
FIT AUDIENCE
SINGING IN SPRING
LOVE OF COMRADES
PULSE OF MY LIFE
AUXILIARIES
REALITIES
NEARING DEPARTURE
POETS TO COME
CENTURIES HENCE
SO LONG!


POSTSCRIPT




PREFATORY NOTICE.


During the summer of 1867 I had the opportunity (which I had often wished
for) of expressing in print my estimate and admiration of the works of the
American poet Walt Whitman. [1] Like a stone dropped into a pond, an article
of that sort may spread out its concentric circles of consequences. One of
these is the invitation which I have received to edit a selection from
Whitman's writings; virtually the first sample of his work ever published
in England, and offering the first tolerably fair chance he has had of
making his way with English readers on his own showing. Hitherto, such
readers--except the small percentage of them to whom it has happened to
come across the poems in some one of their American editions--have picked
acquaintance with them only through the medium of newspaper extracts and
criticisms, mostly short-sighted, sneering, and depreciatory, and rather
intercepting than forwarding the candid construction which people might be
willing to put upon the poems, alike in their beauties and their
aberrations. Some English critics, no doubt, have been more discerning--as
W. J. Fox, of old, in the _Dispatch_, the writer of the notice in the
_Leader_, and of late two in the _Pall Mall Gazette_ and the _London
Review_;[2] but these have been the exceptions among us, the great majority
of the reviewers presenting that happy and familiar critical combination--
scurrility and superciliousness.

[Footnote 1: See _The Chronicle_ for 6th July 1867, article _Walt Whitman's
Poems_. ]

[Footnote 2: Since this Prefatory Notice was written [in 1868], another
eulogistic review of Whitman has appeared--that by Mr. Robert Buchanan, in
the _Broadway_. ]

As it was my lot to set down so recently several of the considerations
which seem to me most essential and most obvious in regard to Whitman's
writings, I can scarcely now recur to the subject without either repeating
something of what I then said, or else leaving unstated some points of
principal importance.
I shall therefore adopt the simplest course--that of
summarising the critical remarks in my former article; after which, I shall
leave without further development (ample as is the amount of development
most of them would claim) the particular topics there glanced at, and shall
proceed to some other phases of the subject.

Whitman republished in 1867 his complete poetical works in one moderate-
sized volume, consisting of the whole _Leaves of Grass_, with a sort of
supplement thereto named _Songs before Parting_,[3] and of the _Drum Taps_,
with its _Sequel_. It has been intimated that he does not expect to write
any more poems, unless it might be in expression of the religious side of
man's nature. However, one poem on the last American harvest sown and
reaped by those who had been soldiers in the great war, has already
appeared since the volume in question, and has been republished in England.

[Footnote 3: In a copy of the book revised by Whitman himself, which we
have seen, this title is modified into _Songs of Parting_. ]

Whitman's poems present no trace of rhyme, save in a couple or so of chance
instances. Parts of them, indeed, may be regarded as a warp of prose amid
the weft of poetry, such as Shakespeare furnishes the precedent for in
drama. Still there is a very powerful and majestic rhythmical sense
throughout.

Lavish and persistent has been the abuse poured forth upon Whitman by his
own countrymen; the tricklings of the British press give but a moderate
idea of it. The poet is known to repay scorn with scorn. Emerson can,
however, from the first be claimed as on Whitman's side; nor, it is
understood after some inquiry, has that great thinker since then retreated
from this position in fundamentals, although his admiration may have
entailed some worry upon him, and reports of his recantation have been
rife. Of other writers on Whitman's side, expressing themselves with no
measured enthusiasm, one may cite Mr. M. D. Conway; Mr. W.