When the rose’s flash to the sunset Reels to the rack and the twist, And the rose is a red bygone, When the face I love is going And the gate to the end shall clang, And it’s no use to beckon or say, “So long”— Maybe I’ll tell you then— some other time. The Case of Masters In one of Whitman’s songs he speaks to those “who would assume a place to teach, or be a poet here in the States”; or, rather, he questions them, something like this: What is it you bring my America? Is it uniform with my country? Is it not something that has been better told or done before? Have you not imported this, or the spirit of it, in some ship? Is it not a mere tale? a rhyme? a prettiness?—is the good old cause in it? Has it not dangled long at the heels of the poets, politicians, literats, of enemies’ lands? Does it not assume that what is notoriously gone is still here? Does it answer universal needs? Will it improve manners? Can your performance face the open fields and the seaside? Will it absorb into me as I absorb food, air, to appear again in my strength, gait, face? Have real employments contributed to it? original makers, not mere amanuenses? And so on. I think the questions quoted and the rest of the poem are valuable; especially in thinking of Masters’ new book.[2] Because here are put to the lawyer, who is known as a poet, all the questions of our time. They are put to him because his first book gave us to believe that he was the first poet whom we need scrutinize closely since Whitman spoke his simplicities to the present and the next ten futures.