“In the dooryard fronting an old farmhouse near the whitewash’d palings, Stands the lilac-bush tall-growing with heart-shaped leaves of rich green, With many a pointed blossom rising delicate, with the perfume strong I love. With every leaf a miracle—and from this bush in the dooryard, With delicate coloured blossoms and heart-shaped leaves of rich green, A sprig with its flower I break. * * * * * “Come lovely and soothing death, Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving, In the day, in the night, to all, to each, Sooner or later delicate death. “Prais’d be the fathomless universe, For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious, And for love, sweet love—but praise! praise! praise! For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death. “Dark mother always gliding near with soft feet, Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome? Then I chant it for thee, I glorify thee above all, I bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, come unfalteringly. * * * * * “The night in silence under many a star, The ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice I know, And the soul-turning to thee, O vast and well-veil’d death, And the body gratefully nestling close to thee. “Over the tree-tops I float thee a song, Over the rising and sinking waves, over the myriad fields and the prairies wide, Over the dense-pack’d cities all and the teeming wharves and ways, I float this carol with joy, with joy to thee, O death.” This is not only Art, but great Art. So fresh in their power, so striking in their beauty, are Whitman’s utterances on Death that they take their place in our memories beside the large utterances of Shakespeare, Milton, and Shelley. It is a mistake to think that where Whitman fails in expression it is through carelessness; that he was a great poet by flashes, and that had he taken more pains he would have been greater still. We have been assured by those who knew him intimately that he took the greatest care over his work, and would wait for days until he could get what he felt to be the right word. To the student who comes fresh to a study of Whitman it is conceivable that the rude, strong, nonchalant utterances may seem like the work of an inspired but careless and impatient artist. It is not so. It is done deliberately. “I furnish no specimens,” he says; “I shower them by exhaustless laws, fresh and modern continually, as Nature does.”