1871 was the culminating year of Whitman's literary life. He was at the fullness of his powers. His final attack of paralysis was as yet a year away. For the exhibition of the American Institute he put the message of _Democratic Vistas_ into poetic form--"After All, not to Create Only"--a glorious invitation to the muses to migrate to America: Placard "Remov'd" and "To Let" on the rocks of your snowy Parnassus, a perfect hexameter line it will be noted, as also this: Ended, deceas'd through time, her voice by Castaly's fountain. And the same year he put forth an enlarged and enriched _Leaves of Grass_, including in it the splendid "Passage to India," celebrating the opening of the Suez Canal, a poem that is larger than the mere geographic bounds of its subject, world-wide as they were, for it is a poem universe-wide, celebrating the triumphs of the human soul. We too take ship, O soul, Joyous we too launch out on trackless seas, Fearless for unknown shores on waves of ecstasy to sail, Amid the wafting winds (thou pressing me to thee, I thee to me, O soul), Caroling free, singing our song of God. Passage to more than India! Are thy wings plumed indeed for such far flights? O soul, voyagest thou indeed on voyages like those? Disportest thou on waters such as those? Soundest below the Sanscrit and the Vedas? Then have thy bent unleash'd. The poems grouped around this splendid outburst, as indeed all the rest of his poems until illness and age began to dim his powers, are pitched in this major key. No poet in any time ever maintained himself longer at such high levels. His poems which he entitled "Whispers of Heavenly Death," are all of the upper air and the glory of the released soul of man. Not even Shelley has more of lyric abandon and pure joy than Whitman in such songs as "Darest Thou Now, O Soul": Then we burst forth, we float, In Time and Space, O soul, prepared for them, Equal, equipt at last (O joy! O fruit of all!) them to fulfil, O soul. And what deeps and abysses in a lyric like this: A noiseless patient spider, I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated, Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding, It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself, Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them. And you, O my soul, where you stand, Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space, Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them, Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile anchor hold, Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul!