No More Learning

DEAR SCOTT,--Among various gifts which I have received from you, tangible
and intangible, was a copy of the original quarto edition of Whitman's
_Leaves of Grass_, which you presented to me soon after its first
appearance in 1855. At a time when few people on this side of the Atlantic
had looked into the book, and still fewer had found in it anything save
matter for ridicule, you had appraised it, and seen that its value was real
and great. A true poet and a strong thinker like yourself was indeed likely
to see that. I read the book eagerly, and perceived that its substantiality
and power were still ahead of any eulogium with which it might have come
commended to me--and, in fact, ahead of most attempts that could be made at
verbal definition of them.

Some years afterwards, getting to know our friend Swinburne, I found with
much satisfaction that he also was an ardent (not of course a _blind_)
admirer of Whitman. Satisfaction, and a degree almost of surprise; for his
intense sense of poetic refinement of form in his own works and his
exacting acuteness as a critic might have seemed likely to carry him away
from Whitman in sympathy at least, if not in actual latitude of perception.
Those who find the American poet "utterly formless," "intolerably rough and
floundering," "destitute of the A B C of art," and the like, might not
unprofitably ponder this very different estimate of him by the author of
_Atalanta in Calydon_.

May we hope that now, twelve years after the first appearance of _Leaves of
Grass_, the English reading public may be prepared for a selection of
Whitman's poems, and soon hereafter for a complete edition of them? I trust
this may prove to be the case. At any rate, it has been a great
gratification to me to be concerned in the experiment; and this is enhanced
by my being enabled to associate with it your name, as that of an early and
well-qualified appreciator of Whitman, and no less as that of a dear
friend.

Yours affectionately,
W. M. ROSSETTI.

_October_ 1867.





CONTENTS.
PREFATORY NOTICE


PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION OF LEAVES OF GRASS


CHANTS DEMOCRATIC:
STARTING FROM PAUMANOK
AMERICAN FEUILLAGE
THE PAST-PRESENT
YEARS OF THE UNPERFORMED
FLUX
TO WORKING MEN
SONG OF THE BROAD-AXE
ANTECEDENTS
SALUT AU MONDE
A BROADWAY PAGEANT
OLD IRELAND
BOSTON TOWN
FRANCE, THE EIGHTEENTH YEAR OF THESE STATES
EUROPE, THE SEVENTY-SECOND AND SEVENTY-THIRD YEARS OF THESE STATES
TO A FOILED REVOLTER OR REVOLTRESS


DRUM TAPS:
MANHATTAN ARMING
1861
THE UPRISING
BEAT! BEAT! DRUMS!
SONG OF THE BANNER AT DAYBREAK
THE BIVOUAC'S FLAME
BIVOUAC ON A MOUNTAIN SIDE
CITY OF SHIPS
VIGIL ON THE FIELD
THE FLAG
THE WOUNDED
A SIGHT IN CAMP
A GRAVE
THE DRESSER
A LETTER FROM CAMP
WAR DREAMS
THE VETERAN'S VISION
O TAN-FACED PRAIRIE BOY
MANHATTAN FACES
OVER THE CARNAGE
THE MOTHER OF ALL
CAMPS OF GREEN
DIRGE FOR TWO VETERANS
SURVIVORS
HYMN OF DEAD SOLDIERS
SPIRIT WHOSE WORK IS DONE
RECONCILIATION
AFTER THE WAR


WALT WHITMAN:
ASSIMILATIONS
A WORD OUT OF THE SEA
CROSSING BROOKLYN FERRY
NIGHT AND DEATH
ELEMENTAL DRIFTS
WONDERS
MIRACLES
VISAGES
THE DARK SIDE
MUSIC
WHEREFORE?
QUESTIONABLE
SONG AT SUNSET
LONGINGS FOR HOME
APPEARANCES
THE FRIEND
MEETING AGAIN
A DREAM
PARTING FRIENDS
TO A STRANGER
OTHER LANDS
ENVY
THE CITY OF FRIENDS
OUT OF THE CROWD
AMONG THE MULTITUDE


LEAVES OF GRASS:
PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S FUNERAL HYMN
O CAPTAIN! 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.