‘By Blue Ontario’s Shore,’ from which these lines are taken, is a chant for America. Patriotism is Whitman’s darling theme. Love of native land, confidence in democracy, the self-sufficiency of the Republic and the certainty of its future--with these ideas and with this spirit his verse is charged to the full:-- A breed whose proof is in time and deeds, What we are we are, nativity is answer enough to objections, We wield ourselves as a weapon is wielded, We are powerful and tremendous in ourselves, We are executive in ourselves, we are sufficient in the variety of ourselves, We are the most beautiful to ourselves and in ourselves, We stand self-pois’d in the middle, branching thence over the world, From Missouri, Nebraska, or Kansas, laughing attacks to scorn. America is safe, thought Whitman, so long as she does her own work in her own way and cultivates a wholesome fear of civilization. America, curious toward foreign characters, stands by its own at all hazards, Stands removed, spacious, composite, sound, initiates the true use of precedents, Does not repel them or the past or what they have produced under their forms, * * * * * These States are the amplest poem, Here is not merely a nation but a teeming Nation of nations, Here the doings of men correspond with the broadcast doings of the day and night, Here is what moves in magnificent masses careless of particulars, Here are the roughs, beards, friendliness, combativeness, the soul loves, Here the flowing trains, here the crowds, equality, diversity, the soul loves. One of the most magnificent of Whitman’s patriotic chants is that known by its opening line, ‘As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free.’ He would be a hardened sceptic who, after reading these superb and uplifting verses, found himself still unconverted to some portion of the gospel of poetry as preached by Walt Whitman. There is no resisting the man here, or when he shows his power in pieces like ‘Proud Music of the Storm,’ ‘Passage to India,’ ‘The Mystic Trumpeter,’ ‘With Husky-Haughty Lips, O Sea!’ ‘To the Man-of-War-Bird,’ ‘Song of the Universal,’ and ‘Chanting the Square Deific.’