A Life of Walt Whitman

Name: A Life of Walt Whitman
Author: Binns, Henry Bryan

Binns, Henry Bryan

Poets, American -- 19th century -- Biography; Whitman, Walt, 1819-1892

Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
    Healthy, free, the world before me,
    The long brown path before me, leading wherever I choose.

    Henceforth I ask not good-fortune--I am good-fortune,
    Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
    Strong and content, I travel the open road.

                                        (1860.)

Among the best known and most popular of the _Leaves of Grass_, it
is also among those which are most filled with recondite and mystic
meanings. Over these we must not linger, save to note the indication
of the mystic sense by phrases like "the float of the sight of things"
and "the efflux of the Soul". The poem as a whole is marked by musical
cadences, and is vivid from end to end with courage and the open air.

After the "Song of Myself," Thoreau preferred the "Sun-down Poem,"
which describes the crossing of Brooklyn Ferry.[217] It is filled with
the thought that, even after half a century and in our own day, when
others than he will be crossing, still he will be with them there
unseen. The thoughts that come to him show him the Soul wrapt around
in unconsciousness, and the things which, by contact with the clean
senses, are presently realised as meanings by the Soul. The poem is a
fine example of Whitman's delight in movement, in masses of people, and
in the surroundings of his city.

In the "Clef-poem,"[218] intended to strike the key-note, not only for
his poems, but as it were for the universe itself with its innumerable
meanings, he tells how, standing on the beach at night alone, he
realised that all things--soul and body, past and future, here and
there--are interlocked and spanned by a vast homogeneity of essence.
The knowledge sweeps away all possibilities of anxiety about the future
after death; experience can never fail to feed the soul. It contents
him also with the present: no experience can ever be more wonderful to
him than this of to-night, when he lies upon the breast of the Mother
of his being. The future can be nothing but an eternal unfolding of
this that he beholds already present in his body and Soul.

       *       *       *       *       *

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

A Life of Walt WhitmanBinns, Henry Bryan

General

A Life of Walt Whitman

Binns, Henry Bryan

Poets, American -- 19th century -- Biography; Whitman, Walt, 1819-1892

Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
    Healthy, free, the world before me,
    The long brown path before me, leading wherever I choose.

    Henceforth I ask not good-fortune--I am good-fortune,
    Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
    Strong and content, I travel the open road.

                                        (1860.)

Among the best known and most popular of the _Leaves of Grass_, it
is also among those which are most filled with recondite and mystic
meanings. Over these we must not linger, save to note the indication
of the mystic sense by phrases like "the float of the sight of things"
and "the efflux of the Soul". The poem as a whole is marked by musical
cadences, and is vivid from end to end with courage and the open air.

After the "Song of Myself," Thoreau preferred the "Sun-down Poem,"
which describes the crossing of Brooklyn Ferry.[217] It is filled with
the thought that, even after half a century and in our own day, when
others than he will be crossing, still he will be with them there
unseen. The thoughts that come to him show him the Soul wrapt around
in unconsciousness, and the things which, by contact with the clean
senses, are presently realised as meanings by the Soul. The poem is a
fine example of Whitman's delight in movement, in masses of people, and
in the surroundings of his city.

In the "Clef-poem,"[218] intended to strike the key-note, not only for
his poems, but as it were for the universe itself with its innumerable
meanings, he tells how, standing on the beach at night alone, he
realised that all things--soul and body, past and future, here and
there--are interlocked and spanned by a vast homogeneity of essence.
The knowledge sweeps away all possibilities of anxiety about the future
after death; experience can never fail to feed the soul. It contents
him also with the present: no experience can ever be more wonderful to
him than this of to-night, when he lies upon the breast of the Mother
of his being. The future can be nothing but an eternal unfolding of
this that he beholds already present in his body and Soul.

       *       *       *       *       *

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

A Life of Walt Whitman

A Life of Walt Whitman

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