It is not the purpose of this book to interpret Whitman either as a prophet or a poet, except inferentially as the words of his critics may carry distinct impressions. After all, the justest estimate of Whitman and his book is his own. Whitman's puzzling characteristics are best understood if we realize that Leaves of Grass is an autobiography--and an extraordinarily candid one--of a man whose peculiar temperament found expression in prose-verse. His gentleness, his brusqueness, his egotism, his humility, his grossness, his finer nature, his crudeness, his eloquence, are all here. To him they were the attributes of all mankind. "I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise; Regardless of others, ever regardful of others, Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man, Stuff'd with the stuff that is coarse, and stuff'd with the stuff that is fine." In his virile young manhood he announced with gusto: "I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world." In his serene old age he said: "Over the tree-tops I float thee a song." And this was his conclusion: "I call to the world to distrust the accounts of my friends, but listen to my enemies as I myself do. I charge you forever reject those who would expound me, for I cannot expound myself." Whoso challenges Whitman's gift of song may not at any rate deny to him the note of melody. This quality is strong in his titles particularly: Rise O days from your fathomless deeps. In cabin'd ships at sea. Out of the cradle endlessly rocking. Sands at seventy. The sobbing of the bells. Soon shall the winter's foil be here. Thou mother with thy equal brood. To the leaven'd soil they trod. Yon tides with ceaseless swell. When lilacs last in the dooryard bloomed. Sparkles from the wheel. Brother of all with generous hand. As a strong bird on pinions free. For a just estimate of Whitman, as for a clear comprehension of the symbolism contained in Leaves of Grass, a few blades of the latter will not suffice. It must be all, or none. The two poems here given should be taken, therefore, not as representative of the whole, but as types of two widely variant moods: Of olden time, when it came to pass That the beautiful god, Jesus, should finish his work on earth, Then went Judas, and sold the divine youth, And took pay for his body. Curst was the deed, even before the sweat of the clutching hand grew dry; And darkness frown'd upon the seller of the like of God, Where, as though earth lifted her breast to throw him from her, and heaven refus'd him, He hung in the air, self-slaughter'd. The cycles, with their long shadows, have stalked silently forward Since those days--many a pouch enwrapping meanwhile Its fee, like that paid for the son of Mary.