The mountains, the rivers, the stormy seas, the pageant of fallen empires and ancient religions, of cities and plains, all sweep past in this survey of the world. And to all, salutation:-- My spirit has pass’d in compassion and determination around the whole earth, I have look’d for equals and lovers and found them ready for me in all lands, I think some divine rapport has equalized me with them. The ‘Song of the Open Road,’ which may very well be read next, is a challenge to a larger life than that which conventions, and modes, and common social habits will permit:-- From this hour I ordain myself loos’d of limits and imaginary lines, Going where I list, my own master total and absolute, Listening to others, considering well what they say, Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating, Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me. It is no journey of ease to which the poet invites his followers; he offers none of the ‘old smooth prizes:’-- My call is the call of battle, I nourish active rebellion, He going with me must go well arm’d, He going with me goes often with spare diet, poverty, angry enemies, desertion. Notable among Whitman’s best poems, and most important to an understanding of him, is the ‘Song of the Answerer,’ that is to say, of the Poet. He it is who puts things in their right relations:-- Every existence has its idiom, every thing has an idiom and a tongue, He resolves all tongues into his own and bestows it upon men. The Answerer is quite other than the Singer--he is more powerful, his existence is more significant, his words are of weight and insight:-- The words of the singers are the hours or minutes of the light or dark, but the words of the maker of poems are the general light and dark, The maker of poems settles justice, reality, immortality, His insight and power encircle things and the human race, He is the glory and extract thus far of things and of the human race. In that fine rhapsody ‘By Blue Ontario’s Shore’ Whitman restates his doctrine while applying it to the need of his own America:-- Rhymes and rhymers pass away, poems distill’d from poems pass away, The swarms of reflectors and the polite pass, and leave ashes, Admirers, importers, obedient persons, make but the soil of literature, America justifies itself, give it time, no disguise can deceive it or conceal from it, it is impassive enough, Only toward the likes of itself will it advance to meet them, If its poets appear it will in due time advance to meet them, there is no fear of mistake, (The proof of a poet shall be sternly deferr’d till his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorb’d it.)