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Morton Marcus: He said: A child said, ‘’What is the grass?" fetching it to me with full hands. How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he. I guess it must be the flag of my

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disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven. Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord, a scented gift in remembrancer designedly dropt, bearing the owner's name some way in the corners that we may see and remark and say ‘’Whose?‘’ Or I

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guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation. Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic, and it means Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones, growing among black folks as among white, Kanuck, Tuckahoe,

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Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I received them the same. And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves. Tenderly will I use you curling grass, it may be you transpire from the breasts of young men, it may be if I had known them I

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would have loved them, it may be you are from old people or from the offspring taken, soon out of their mothers' laps, and here you are the mothers' laps. This grass is very dark to be from white heads of old mothers, darker than the colorless beards

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of old men, dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths. His name was Walt Whitman and he was born a few days from now on May 31, in the year 1819, and he died in 1892. But since he is

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the voice of America, and since this is Memorial Day, in a very, very critical year in this country's history, I thought it would be good once more to make our acquaintance for the person more than any other who has spoken the eternal American

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values. Walt Whitman was born in the province of New York called Long Island on May 31. Actually, it was in West Hills near Huntington and he grew up on the Whitman farm for four years

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anyway, in 1823, the Whitman family moved to Brooklyn. Whenever you hear the word Paumanok and you look for it in the maps of New York, you will not find it. It is Whitman himself, making the aboriginal name of Long Island, the name

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the Indians gave it actually signifying Long Island itself, and it's sort of become mythic. He loved his mother, his father was a bit remote, but he loved his mother. And he would write to her, write her letters throughout his whole life. She

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lived to be a very old lady. And he loved Brooklyn and he loved New York City, and between the country that was Long Island, and the urban area that was New York City or Manhattan [inaudible] as he called it. He knew everything that went on in

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the world. He was educated till he was 13 years old, then he had to find a trade, and he learned printing, probably up to around 1933 or 34, and then became a kr- a printer, and a typesetter, and finally, a newspaper editor for the Long Island Democrat,

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The old Victorian- The Real Brooklyn Eagle, and many, many different newspapers finally arriving at the Brooklyn Freeman. But after he went to- in 1848, to New Orleans for a trip now, whatever happened in New Orleans, and it has been

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great speculation ever since, no one knows. But at the point he left for- into the three-month trip to New Orleans and he was going down there to seek his fortune, he had not been a great success. We have some of his editorials and they are very

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good editorials. But he had not been a success as a businessman- as a reporter, he had not been a success as an editor in the newspaper game, and he certainly did not have a very strong opinion of himself. We know nothing about his poetry at this

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point, but he does come back from Louisiana, and within three months time, and between 1849 and 1854 works for the Brooklyn Freeman, he operates a printing office in a stationery store, and suddenly in early July, the first of nine additions of

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‘’Leaves of Grass‘’ printed by the Rome brothers in Brooklyn comes out. Also, his father dies within a week of the book coming out. The second edition is published within a year and the whole first edition contains only 12 poems. And there were

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more hundred- more than 387 poems saved for the book by the time it would reach its final edition in 1892. So, this is a book that becomes his life's work and he adds to it, he really adds volume after volume to it. And I read you really the

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poem that defines what ‘’Leaves of Grass‘’ means, it is the growing of the grass, the growing of the generations that he is talking about. But at the same time, this book it doesn't actually hit like a bombshell. Well, the first two editions,

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very poorly received, no one knows it's there. Ralph Waldo Edison- Emerson is sent a copy, the great giant of American literature in the first half of the 19th century, and he is astonished by it, he immediately recognized that ‘’Leaves of

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Grass ‘’ is something new, something that has never been done before. And I guess one of the reasons that I always keep doing Whitman shows is that we say Whitman is our poet and that Whitman is so great, but most of us have never read a Whitman

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poem. Most of us are not aware of what it means to have written a Whitman poem, and the difference that poetry will be after him. Well, first of all, he does not write in metered verse, he writes in free verse. Secondly, he organizes a lot of

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his thoughts, not by logic, not by attempting to trim down and condense as poetry does, but to do the opposite, to expand. And most of his poems are lists or catalogs that prove his point, he is sort of trying to overwhelm you with numbers, he

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wants to tell you how wonderful full and rich this world is, and he just does that by enumerating, cataloging, listing one event after another. And what the theme always is- what the theme always is, is the wondrousness of the evolution of

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life and his images are continually images of eggs, of things growing, and of things going on in an endless round of life. And to him, the latest evolution in life was the United States and from all the great old civilizations finally had

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emerged, this civilization. We were not the end, we were just part of this ever-growing evolution, but right now, we were the perfected head of this evolution. And it all had to do with the word democracy and it had to do with the fact that

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Whitman believed that every man was an individual, every man no matter what his station, or his calling, whether he was a president, or a congressman, or a lawyer, or an electrician, or a plumber, or a ditch digger, every one of them was a unique

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individual, and he should partake in the great power of this country, which was to extend to every single individual, no matter what his background, and his-, I will read you a very little known letter, no matter what his race.

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It is best to remember that at this time, this is the person who we supposedly exemplify and to him, everyone was to get a piece of the pie. It was not just supposedly to be to the rich, or the fortunate, and everyone- no one was supposed to

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suffer, no one was supposed to want for food. And it is this idea that he celebrates, this becoming, which he sees with the birth of every flower, which he sees in every insect, and he sees that he himself, he is- his exuberance is just overflowing

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because he seems to contain the whole universe inside him, coming through him as it goes onward, and one poem after another says this. The most popular, of course, is the first one, ‘’Song to Myself‘’ and before I read from that, I do

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just want to say that if Whitman is our greatest poet, writing in free verse in these long lines that go anywhere from seven to 11 beats, and they are in free verse, do they in any way resemble any other lines? Yes, they do. They resemble the lines

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in which the Old Testament- Testament of the Bible was originally written and the people- many of the writers of that old testament were prophets such as Isaiah, such as Jeremiah, and Whitman felt himself to be the prophet who is

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bringing the word of this new world of America to Americans actually, so that they would know what they have to do. And to him, this largeness, this greatness of soul also had to do with the fact that you got rid of your inhibitions and you did

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not live a closed-in, frustrated life. And so, he sings this enormous, rapturous sense of the self and he starts off with what was the very, very first poem in the book, SONG TO MYSELF by talking about this way,

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I celebrate myself, and what I assume you shall assume, for every metal- atom belonging to me, as good belongs to you. I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass. Houses and rooms are full of perfumes,

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the shelves are crowded with perfumes, I breathe the fragments myself and know it and like it, the distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it. The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the distillation, it is

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odorless, it is from my mouth for forever, I am in love with it, I will go to the bank by the woods and become undisguised naked, I am mad for it to be in contact with me. And he goes on to talk in such ways as this- if I can find it

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here... and it looks like I'm not going to. But ‘’Song to Myself‘’ contains some of his most famous poems, short poems that- we should best really say why it contains some of his best poems. If you asked me was Walt Whitman, a good poet? I would

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say no, he was not a good poet. If you asked me if he was a great poet, I would say he was a great poet. Now, what do I mean by that? Walt Whitman said too much, Walt Whitman went over and over the same thing again and again in his poems, and seemed,

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after a while, and especially if you try to read this enormous book called ‘’Song to Myself‘’ he just ruined the power of the images and the phrases that he would make by surrounding one of them with 25 to 30 other lines that really just repeated what

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he just said and I repeated it in language which was not as sharp as well. But before I go into that, I have found what I wanted to read to you about, how he looks at himself, and this is NUMBER 24 OF SONG TO MYSELF and it goes like this:

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Walt Whitman, a kosmos, of Manhattan the son, turbulent, fleshy, sensual, eating, drinking and breeding, no sentimentalist, no stander above men and women or apart from them, no more modest than immodest. Unscrew the locks from

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the doors! Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs! Whoever degrades another degrades me, and whatever is done or said returns at last to me. And he goes on and on.

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If I worship one thing more than another it shall be the spread of my own body, or any part of it, a translucent mold of me it shall be you! Shaded ledges and rests it shall be you! Firm masculine colter it shall be you! Whatever goes to the tilth

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of me it shall be you! You my rich blood! Your milky stream pale strippings of my life! Breast that presses against other breasts it shall be you! My brain it shall be your occult convolutions! Root of washed sweet-flag! timorous pond-snipe!

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Nest of guarded duplicate eggs! It shall be you! Mix'd tussled hay of head, beard, brawn, it shall be you! -and on and on. I dote on myself, there is that lot of me and all so luscious,

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each moment and whatever happens thrills me with joy, I cannot tell how my ankles bend, nor whence the cause of my faintest wish, nor the cause of the friendship I emit, nor the cause of the friendship I take again.

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That's all from Number 24 in ‘’Song to Myself‘’and then the beliefs and listen to this, here- here is where he is most brilliant, and let me define this even more. The problem with Whitman is not only the repetition, it is the fact that

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he chooses to go off into abstraction, very vague phrases, and things. When he is concrete, when he shows you things almost like a photograph, then he is the great poet, and then usually his music is even more soaring than it is before. Here's

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number- the beginning of Number 31 of ‘’Song to Myself‘’. Now, Number 31 goes on for two-thirds more than I'm going to read you, but it- again, just begins to descend into repetition and descend into abstraction.

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So here is NUMBER 31 of THE SONG TO MYSELF and just listen to the perfection of this phrasing, and the imagery here, and the vision that is evoked through it. I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of

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the stars, and the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren, and the tree-toad is a chef-d'oeuvre for the highest, and the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven, and the narrowest hinge in my hand

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puts to scorn all machinery, and the cow crunching with depressed head surpasses any statue, And a mouse is a miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels. That happens alas all too often. What kind of imagery? Well,

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there is poetic imagery, said they before the turn of the century, and non-poetic imagery. And another thing that Whitman does is, he makes more things accessible to poetry, he puts more words and kinds of things a poet is allowed to see into

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poetry before it was very, ‘’proper things‘’, but not to Mr. Whitman, who very, very clearly can talk about things that are not to be talked of by- a third- by not- not to be talked of as proper. And notice he uses natural imagery and

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nature imagery, but he also takes you into the city and he not only shows you the teaming energy of the city, but he also shows the ugliness and tragedy of the city. And let me just see if I can find you some lines here, I'll get a hold of

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different ones. And this starts off very, very tenderly, this is all from the same part, this is Part Eight, again, of ‘’Song to Myself‘’ and just listen to what happens shown here. The little one sleeps in its cradle, I lift the gauze and

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look a long time, and silently brush away flies with my hand. The youngster and the red-faced girl turn aside up the bushy hill, I peeringly view them from the top. The suicide sprawls on the bloody- bloody floor of the bedroom, I witness the corpse

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with its dabbled hair, I note where the pistol has fallen. The blab of the pave, tires of carts, sluff of boot-soles, talk of the promenaders, The heavy omnibus, the driver with his interrogating thumb, the clank of the shod horses on the

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granite floor, the snow-sleighs, clinking, shouted jokes, pelts of snow-balls, the hurrahs for popular favorites, the fury of roused mobs, The flap of the curtained litter, a sick man inside borne to the hospital, the meeting of enemies, the

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sudden oath, the blows and fall, the excited crowd, the policeman with his star quickly working his passage to the center of the crowd, the impassive stones that receive and return so many echoes, what groans of over-fed or half-starved who fall

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sunstruck or in fits, And he goes on and on and he hears others- okay. The butcher-boy puts off his killing clothes, or sharpens his knife at the stall in the market, I loiter enjoying his

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repartee and his shuffle and break-down. Blacksmiths with grind and hairy chests environ the anvil, each has his main-ledge, they are all out, there is a great heat in the fire.

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Unknown: The Negro holds firm the reins of his four horses, the block swags underneath on its tied-over chain; the Negro that drives the long dray stone-yard, steady and totally stands, poised on one leg on the string piece. His blue shirt

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exposes his ample neck and breast and loosens over his hip-band. His glances calm and commanding, he tosses the slouch of his head away from his forehead. The sun falls on his crispy hair and mustache, falls on the black of his polished and

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perfect limbs. Morton Marcus: And this wonderful little SECTION 15 The pure contralto sings in the organ loft, the carpenter dresses his plank, the tongue of his foreplane whistles its wild

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ascending lisp, the married and unmarried children ride home to their Thanksgiving dinner, the pilot seizes the king-pin, he heaves down with a strong arm, that mate stands braced in the whale-boat, lance and harpoon are ready, the duck-shooter

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walks by silent and cautious stretches, the deacons are ordained with crossed hands at the altar. And we go on with the two lines later The lunatic is carried at last to the asylum, a confirmed case.

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The bride unrumples her white dress, the minute-hand of the clock moves slowly. The peddler sweats with his pack on his back. He's just choosing these things and there was another one, ‘’the

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prostitute with her pimply neck under its bonnet‘’ just realizing these wonderful pictures of what life was like in the 19th century and the teeming energy of this new world we call America. Well, I would certainly suggest that you read

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these poems, read certainly ‘’Song to Myself‘’ all the way through. There are many others, poems that are not normally read when he uses the old world, for example, he has his- he has his- he has a wonderful poem, which is called- well, I have to find

00:24:18.880 - 00:24:39.190

that one, I'll take just one a look, anyways, wonderful poems on the Civil War in a volume within this volume called [unidentified] called Drum-Taps. And what I would like to do when we come back is to read some things from Walt Whitman that

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usually are never read and that is his prose, and I will read you some very astonishing things that sound very, very different from the poems that you have heard and are used to hearing, if you know your Walt Whitman. However, let us take a small

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musical break. Is-is a very interesting little book, it runs several hundred pages, and it was a book- it really is a journal in which Walt Whitman would put down random jottings thoughts and

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memorandums, so he said, and it starts off- it's really in three sections. The first section is an answer to someone who asked him where he came from and what his early life was like, and that comprises the first 10 pages or so. But after that, it

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suddenly leaps into the Civil War, and it is probably the finest reportage of the Civil War that has ever been done. Well Whitman had nothing really to do with a Civil War, he was very concerned with it and very concerned about it until 1863,

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when he went down to Washington and Virginia, to visit his brother who had been wounded, and he then received the shock of the horror of what this war was doing to young men. And I think it is very appropriate that we read some of this at

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this time when we are honoring those men, whether you approved of the wars they were in or not, who have given their all or could have given their all for defending this country. And here, maybe the bloodiest war, the most brutal war that we ever

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had. The war oh- and it always is that way, not only in Bosnia but right here in America. The war we have with ourselves when we get all those deep-seated resentments, and petty ones at that, out, and what it can do to us. Well, Whitman stayed around

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Washington until the end of the war and he first started to go to the hospitals and he would bring them in candy, and he would bring them writing paper and even give them money. Finally, he would just stay around, he became virtually a

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male nurse, he would assist in dressing the wounds, and he would even assist the times in operations, he was very, very dedicated to in some way putting to the war effort. Remember he was a man maybe around 50 years old at this point. He was

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dedicated to giving- giving aid and comfort to these poor kids and it was not only Northern soldiers, it was also wounded Southern soldiers who had been kept- who'd been taken captive. And he says this- this is an army hospital ward:

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Let me specialize a visit I made to the collection of barracks-like one-story edifices, Campbell hospital out on the flats, at the end of the then horse rally route, one Seventh Street, Washington- this is in Washington DC. There is a

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long building appropriated to each ward. Let us go into Ward Six. It contains today, I should judge 80 or 100 patients half sick and half wounded. The edifices- the edifice is nothing but boards, well- whitewashed inside, and the usual slender

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framed iron bedsteads narrow and plain. You walk down the central passage with a row on either side, their feet towards you, and their heads to the wall. There are fires and large stoves in the prevailing white of the walls is relieved by some

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ornaments, stars, circles, etc. made of evergreens. The view of the whole edifice and occupants can be taken at once, for there is no partition. You may hear groans or other sounds of unendurable suffering from two or three of the cot but in the

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main, there is quiet, almost a painful absence of demonstration. But the pallid face, the dull-eye, and the moisture on the lip, but demonstration enough. Most of these sick or hurt, are evidently young fellows from a

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country, farmer's sons and such like. Look at the fine large frames, the bright and broad conferences, and the many yet lingering proofs of strong constitution and physique. Look at the patient and mute manner of our American wounded, as they

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lie in such a sad collection. Representatives from all New England and from New York and New Jersey and Pennsylvania, indeed, from all the states and all the cities, largely from the West. Most of them are entirely without friends or acquaintances

00:31:21.230 - 00:31:37.460

here, no familiar face, and hardly a word of judicious sympathy or cheer through there sometimes a long and tedious sickness, or the pangs of aggravated wounds. [Coughs] Pardon me. This is- the next one is called:

00:31:37.490 - 00:31:52.100

A CONNECTICUT CASE. This young man in bed 25 is HTB of the 27th Connecticut Company B, his folks live in North or near New Haven. Though not more than 21 or thereabouts, he has knocked much around the world on

00:31:52.100 - 00:32:06.680

sea and land, has seen I'm some fighting on both. When I first saw him he was very sick with no appetite. He declined offers of money, said he did not need anything. I was quite anxious to do something. He confessed that he had a hankering for a good

00:32:06.680 - 00:32:21.710

homemade rice pudding, thought he could relish it better than anything. At this time his stomach was very weak. The doctor whom I consulted said nourishment will do him good, better than anything. But things in the hospital, though better

00:32:21.710 - 00:32:36.860

than usual, revolted him. I soon procured B his rice pudding. A Washington lady, Mrs. O'Connor, hearing his wish, made the pudding herself and I took it up to him the next day. He subsequently told me he lived upon it for three or four days.

00:32:37.520 - 00:32:52.220

This B is a good sample of the American Eastern young man, the typical Yankee. I took a fancy to him and gave him a pin, a nice pipe for a keepsake. He received afterward a box of things from home and nothing would do, but I must take dinner

00:32:52.220 - 00:33:10.360

with him, which I did and a very good one it was. Here's the [inidentified]: The grand soldiers are not comprised of those of one side any more than the other. Here's a sample of an unknown

00:33:10.360 - 00:33:23.560

Southerner, a lad of seventeen at the War Department a few days ago, I witnessed the presentation of captured flags to the Secretary. Among others, a soldier named Gant of the hundred and fourth Ohio volunteers presented a rebel

00:33:23.560 - 00:33:37.180

battle flag, which one of the officers stated to me was borne to the mouth of our cannon and planted there by a boy about seventeen years of age, who actually endeavored to stop the muzzle of the gun with fence rails. He was killed in the

00:33:37.180 - 00:33:51.850

effort and the flagstaff was severed by a shot from one of our men. And then he goes on. Some of these are much longer than others. Some are much shorter.

00:33:54.640 - 00:34:08.960

Here's BAD WOUNDS, THE YOUNG Soldiers are nearly all youn men and far more American than is generally supposed - I shou d say nine-tenths, are native-b rn here. Among the arrivals f om Chancellorsville, I find a

00:34:08.960 - 00:34:23.030

arge proportion of Ohio, ndiana, and Illinois men. As usual, there are all sorts of wounds. Some of the men fearfully burned from the explosions of artillery caisson. One ward is a long row of officers, some with ugly hurts.

00:34:23.450 - 00:34:38.480

Yesterday was perhaps worse than usual. Amputations are going on - the attendance of dressing wounds. As you pass by, you must be on your guard where you look. I saw the other day and gentlemen, a visitor apparently from curiosity, in one of the

00:34:36.110 - 00:34:47.750

A NEW YORK SOLDIER wards stop and turn a moment to look at an awful wound they were probing. He turned pale, and in a moment morning, and fainte away and fallen to the floor

00:34:55.630 - 00:35:11.860

This afternoon, July 22, I have spent a long time with Oscar F. Wilber, Company G 154th, New York, low with chronic diarrhea and a bad wound also. He asked me to read him a chapter in the New Testament, I complied and asked him what I should read. He

00:35:11.860 - 00:35:25.930

said, ‘’make your own choice‘’. I opened at the close of one of the first books of the Evangelists and read the chapters describing the latter hours of Christ and the scenes through crucifixion. The poor wasted the young man asked me to

00:35:25.930 - 00:35:43.540

read the following chapter also, how Christ rose again. I read very slowly, for Oscar was feeble. I pleased him very much, yet the tears were in his eyes. He asked me if I enjoyed religion, I said ‘’well, perhaps not my dear son, in the way you

00:35:43.540 - 00:36:01.480

mean, and yet?‘’ ‘’Maybe it is the same thing‘’, he said, "religion is my chief reliance." He talked of death and said he did not fear it. I said ‘’why Oscar, don't you think you will get well?‘’ and he said ‘’I may. But it's not probable, Sir‘’. He

00:36:01.480 - 00:36:16.930

spoke calmly of his condition. The wound was very bad, it discharged much. Then the diarrhea had prostrated him, and I felt that he was even then the same as dying. He behaved very manlily and affectionate. The kiss I gave him as I was about

00:36:16.930 - 00:36:31.510

to leave, he returned fourfold. He gave me his mother's address, a Mrs. Sally D Wilber, Alleghany Post Office, Cattaraugus County, New York. I had several such interviews with him. He died a few days after the one I just described.

00:36:37.210 - 00:37:05.290

Sorry, I seem to be getting a sore throat. The- the pieces go on, and the war ends, Lincoln is killed, he has very interesting thing to say about Lincoln. Maybe I can just find it here and we can close this section. Well, it was right here, but now

00:37:05.290 - 00:37:22.480

it's not no more. That‘s the President Lincoln- he only he- he really respected Lincoln but he even says he knows he had faults. He doesn't want to sentimentalize anybody and he, he loved Lincoln, his greatest poem on ‘’When Lilacs Last in

00:37:22.480 - 00:37:39.910

the Dooryard Bloomed‘’ is all about the death of Lincoln. And of course, the very bad poem that we always have in our books in high school, ‘’Oh Captain, My Captain‘’, which is not really Whitman at his best by any means. But here's what he says

00:37:39.910 - 00:37:53.770

here, and it is really best to remember this, especially as things seem to be changing so much around us: The tragic splendor of his death, purging, illuminating all, throws around his form, his head, an aureole that will

00:37:53.770 - 00:38:11.470

remain and will grow brighter through time, while history lives and the love of country lasts. By many has this Union been helped; but if one name, one man must be picked out, Lincoln, most of all, is the conservator of it, to the

00:38:11.470 - 00:38:30.700

future. He was assassinated - but the union is not assassinated - ça ira! One falls, and another falls. The soldier drops, sinks like a wave - but the ranks of the ocean eternally press on. Death does its work, obliterates a hundred,

00:38:30.700 - 00:38:52.890

a thousand - president, general, captain, private - but the nation is immortal. And that was his belief. In ‘67, suddenly he was hit by paralysis, which sounds very much like a stroke, and for th

00:38:52.890 - 00:39:19.560

next three years, he is in very very bad condition. He wil never recover from thi tremendous physical stroke tha he had. He was, of course, I guess you'd say 48 years of a e at this time and it is tha - this is when the third part

00:39:19.560 - 00:39:45.210

f ‘’Specimen Day‘’ starts to g t written. And he is- let‘s s e where he is. Well, okay- well, I guess I don't know. I thought e was in O'Connor place in Camde . Yeah, he comes to live with h s brother George for a while n Camden and he's also visitin

00:39:48.660 - 00:40:09.510

- [coughs] pardon me, one o his chief critics, who's friendly critic, and he begins to find a new fife and this is t e life in which in many of us w say that we- well here's- here s what he says about this

00:40:09.530 - 00:40:20.890

SPECIMEN DAYS Without apology for the abrupt change of field and atmosphere after what I have put in the preceding 50 or 60 pages about the Civil War, temporary episodes they were, thank

00:40:20.890 - 00:40:39.730

heaven. I restore my book to the bracing and buoyant equilibrium of concrete outdoor nature, the only permanent reliance for sanity of book or human life. Who knows? I have it in my fancy, my ambition, but the page is now ensuing me, carry ray of

00:40:39.730 - 00:40:57.970

sun, or smell of grass or corn, or call bird, or gleam of stars by night, or snowflakes falling fresh and mystic, to denizen of eated city house, retired workma or work-woman, or maybe in sic room or prison to serve as c oling breeze, or nature's

00:40:57.970 - 00:41:16.040

roma to some fevered mouth or atent pulse. And I think we really see in this section of ‘’Specimen Days‘’, which runs really for just about the rest of the book in one way or another because he leaves this aura, and when he

00:41:16.040 - 00:41:34.100

takes a trip, some five, six years later, he keeps this note out on the prairies and every place he visits. So I will read some of these to you. What I love about them is they really try to capture a sense of nature, without the flamboyance

00:41:34.100 - 00:41:51.740

and the rhetoric that he had developed in the poems, and though the language here is certainly not as strong in the best cases in the poems, there is a freshness and spontaneity about it. Which even though he says he tries to capture that

00:41:51.770 - 00:42:06.410

‘’In Leaves of Grass‘’ he doesn't quite get as it sounds here. Let me give you what I mean, here is: TO THE SPRING AND BROOK and it's very, very much- Well, here it is, notice how he tries

00:42:06.410 - 00:42:20.540

to get the sounds and the movement of the spring and the brook. Very, very modern. So, sauntering on to the spring under the willows, musical a soft clinking glasses, (isn‘t that greats, the sense the

00:42:20.540 - 00:42:35.930

babbling brook as we always call it, he calls it musical is soft clinking glasses) pouring a sizable stream, thick is my neck, pure and clear, out from its event with bank arches over like a great brown shaggy eyebrow or mouth roof -

00:42:36.590 - 00:42:53.900

gurgling, gurgling, ceaselessly, meaning saying something of course (if one could only translate it) - always gurgling there the whole year through - never giving out that brook - oceans of mint, blackberries and summer - of light and shade -

00:42:54.050 - 00:43:12.890

just the place for my July sun-baths and water-baths too - but mainly the inimitable soft gurgles of it, as I sit there hot afternoons. How they and all grow into me, day after day - everything in keeping - the wild, just-palpable perfume, and

00:43:12.890 - 00:43:29.510

the dapple of leaf-shadows, and all the natural-medicinal, elemental-moral influences of the spot. Babble on, O brook, with that utterance of thine! I too will express what I have gathered in my days and progress, native, subterranean

00:43:29.510 - 00:43:48.470

past - and now thee. Spin and wind thy way - I with thee, a little while, at any rate. As I haunt thee so often, season by season, thou knowest, reckest not me, (yet why be so certain? who can tell?) - but I will learn from thee, and dwell on

00:43:48.470 - 00:44:06.550

thee- receive, copy, and print my poem from thee. Here's BIRDS MIGRATING AT MIDNIGHT. Did you evere chance to hear the midnight flight of birds passing through the air in the darkness overhead, and countless armies,

00:44:07.000 - 00:44:22.840

changing their early or late summer habitat? It is something not to be forgotten. A friend called me up just after 12 last night to mark the peculiar noise of unusually immense flocks migrating north (rather late this year.) In the silence,

00:44:22.840 - 00:44:40.720

shadow, and delicious odor of the hour, (the natural perfume belonging to the night alone) I thought it rare music. You could hear the characteristic motion - once or twice “the rush of mighty wings,“ but oftener a velvety rustle long drawn out -

00:44:41.110 - 00:45:00.340

sometimes quite near - with continual calls and chirps, and some song notes. It all lasted from 12 till after three. Once in a while, the species was plainly distinguishable; I could make out the bobolink, tanager, Wilson's thrush, white-crowned

00:45:00.340 - 00:45:19.180

sparrow, and occasionally from high on the air came the notes of the plover. Here's ‘’Bumble-Bees‘’, and this is rather long, but again, beautiful sense of nature. I'll read as much of it as I think

00:45:19.180 - 00:45:31.400

you will enjoy: BUMBLE-BEES May- Month - month of swarming, singing, mating birds - the bumble bee month -month of the flowering lilac - (and then my

00:45:31.400 - 00:45:48.470

own birth month.) As I jot this paragraph, I am out just after sunrise, and down towards the creek. The lights, perfumes, melodies, the blue birds, grass birds, and robins, in every direction -the noisy, vocal, natural concert. For undertones,

00:45:48.470 - 00:46:04.010

a neighboring woodpecker tapping his tree, and the distant clarion of chanticleer. Then the fresh earth smells - the colors, the delicate drabs and thin blues, of the perspective, the bright green of the grass has received an added tinge from the

00:46:04.010 - 00:46:22.520

last two days mildness and moisture. How the sun silently mounts in the broad clear sky on his day's journey! How the warm beams bathe all, and come streaming kissingly and almost hot on my face. A while since the croaking of the pond-frogs

00:46:22.730 - 00:46:37.850

and the first white of the dog-wood blossoms. Now the golden dandelions in endless profusion, spotting the ground everywhere. The white cherry and pear-blows - the wild violets, with their blue eyes looking up and saluting my feet, as I

00:46:37.850 - 00:46:54.650

saunter to the wood-edge - the rosy blush of budding apple-trees - the light-clear emerald hue of the wheat-fields, a darker green of the rye - a warm elasticity pervading the air - the cedar bushes profusely decked with their little brown

00:46:54.650 - 00:47:13.890

apples, the summer fully awakening - the convocation of black birds, garrulous flocks of them, gathering on some tree, and making the hour and place noisy as I sit near. That's all an introduction to the ‘’Bumble-Bee‘’. And then

00:47:13.920 - 00:47:29.790

with a word that says later, we enter into what this piece is all about. But I want you to notice that "as I jot this paragraph. I am out just after sunrise‘’, he would write these things on the spot. If he was outdoors, he was writing them in

00:47:29.790 - 00:47:46.920

a notebook as they happened to- complete spontaneous action, and he‘s traveling or recollecting, it is just going on right there. One of them is on- in a sleeper in a railroad car and he reflects on- I can imagine him all cramped up, sort of lying on

00:47:46.920 - 00:47:58.650

his left elbow, propped up, and just writing the words in the- in the sleeper and in the railroad train. Anyway, here is the next part of BUMBLE-BEES which is directly about the bumble bees.

00:48:00.570 - 00:48:16.770

Nature marches in procession, in sections, like the corps of an army. All have done much for me and still do. But for the last two days, it has been the great wild bee, the humble-bee, or “bumble,” as the children call him. As I walk or hobble, from

00:48:16.770 - 00:48:32.490

the farm-house down to the creek, I travoy- traverse the before-mentioned lane, fenced by old rails, with many splits, splinters, breaks, holes, and the choice habitat of those crooning, hairy insects. Up and down and by and between these

00:48:32.490 - 00:48:49.320

rails, they swarm and dart and fly in countless myriads. As I went slowly along, I am often accompanied with a moving cloud of them. They play a leading part in my morning, midday, or sunset rambles, and often dominate the landscape in a way

00:48:49.320 - 00:49:07.290

I never before thought of - fill the long lane, not by scores or hundreds only, but by thousands. Large and vivacious and swift, with wonderful momentum and a loud swelling perpetual hum, varied now and then by something almost like a shriek, they dart

00:49:07.290 - 00:49:25.140

to and fro, in rapid flashes, chasing each other, and (little things as they are,) conveying to me a new and pronounced sense of strength, beauty, vitality, and movement. Are they in their mating season? or what is the meaning of this plenitude,

00:49:25.140 - 00:49:38.460

swiftness, eagerness, display? As I walked, I thought I was followed by a particular swarm, but upon observation, I saw that it was a rapid succession of changing swarms, one after another.

00:49:39.900 - 00:49:51.940

And then he goes on. As I write, I am seated under a big wild cherry tree - the warm day tempered by partial clouds, and a fresh breeze, neither too heavy nor light - and here I sit long and long, enveloped in the

00:49:51.940 - 00:50:07.690

deep musical drone of these bees, flitting, balancing, darting to and fro about- about me by hundreds - big fellows with light jackets, great, glistening, swelling bodies, stumpy heads, and gauzy wings - humming their perpetual rich

00:50:07.690 - 00:50:25.930

mellow boom (Is there not a hint in it for our musical composition, of which it should be the background?Some bumble-bee symphony?) How it all nourishes, has learned- lulls me, in the way most needed; the open air, the rye-fields, the

00:50:25.930 - 00:50:40.330

apple orchards. The last two days have been faultless in sun breeze, temperature, and everything; never two more perfect days, and I have enjoyed them wonderfully. My health is somewhat better, and my spirit of peace. (Yet the anniversary

00:50:40.330 - 00:51:06.830

of the saddest loss and sorrow of my life is close at hand.) -and that's- that's something else. Um, let's see. Here is The lesson of the tree September 1. I should not take either the biggest or the most picturesque

00:51:06.860 - 00:51:25.040

tree to illustrate it. Here is one of my favorites now before me, a fine yellow poplar, quite straight, perhaps 90 feet high, and four thick at the butt. How strong, vital, enduring! How dumbly eloquent! What suggestions of imperturbability

00:51:25.040 - 00:51:46.700

and being, as against the human trait of merely seeming. Then the qualities, almost emotional, palpably artistic, heroic, of a tree; so innocent and harmless, yet so savage. It is, yet says nothing. How it rebukes by its tough and equable serenity all

00:51:46.700 - 00:52:03.020

weathers, this gusty-tempered little whiffet, man, that runs indoors at the mite of rain or snow. I should say this - gusty-tempered little whiffet, man, who runs indoors at a mite

00:52:03.020 - 00:52:19.490

of rain or snow. Science (or rather half-way science) scoffs at the reminiscence of dryad and hamadryad, and of trees speaking. But if they don't, they do as well as most speaking, writing, poetry, sermons, or rather, they do a

00:52:19.490 - 00:52:38.420

great deal better. I should say indeed, that those old dryad-reminiscences are quite as true as any, and profounder than most reminiscences we get. (‘’Cut this out,‘’ as the quack mediciners say, and keep by you.) Go and sit in a grove of

00:52:38.420 - 00:52:59.920

woods, with one or two more of those voiceless companions, and read the foregoing, and think about it. And as we prepare to bring this program to an end, I think it‘s only fitting to read one of my favorite parts of ‘’Song to

00:53:00.520 - 00:53:21.700

Myself‘’. And let's see if I can actually find it because there is so much to get through. And here it is, and if you tuned in a little while ago, we are talking about Walt Whitman, we've read some of his war poetry in honor of Memorial Day,

00:53:22.420 - 00:53:38.410

and try to bring back the sense of life and wonder that he saw in America. The sense of energy, the sense of everyone sharing and not things being divided anymore, as they seem to be so much lately between the rich and the poor, between all the

00:53:38.410 - 00:53:55.480

different races. And one of the things that I did want to read you actually, was a letter, which I would suggest you get from Walt Whitman because I won't have time for it now. But it's called ‘’The Spanish Element in Our Nationality‘’,

00:53:55.480 - 00:54:14.200

and this is especially in light of Proposition 187. And it seems as though a gentleman by the name of Griffin Martinez Prince and other people from San Jose, Santa Fe, I'm sorry, New Mexico had asked Whitman to come out and read a poem, write a poem,

00:54:14.200 - 00:54:33.970

especially for the 333rd anniversary of the founding of Santa Fe by the Spanish. And it- he couldn't make it, it was impossible, literally got to him way too late. But he did write this letter, and he writes it about American ethnology. And

00:54:33.970 - 00:54:52.720

you know what? Maybe I will read this, and we'll let the rest of it go. Here is your poet, here is the American poet par excellence, talking about the United States and his vision of it and we'll end with this letter, which you can hardly

00:54:52.720 - 00:55:04.580

find anywhere, you'll have to go and get the complete prose and poetry of Walt Whitman. And the letter is called THE SPANISH ELEMENT IN OUR NATIONALITY Dear Sir, your kind invitation to visit you and deliver a poem

00:55:04.580 - 00:55:20.690

for the 333rd anniversary of the founding of Santa Fe has reached me so late that I have to decline with sincere regret. But I will say a few words offhand. We Americans have yet to really learn our own antecedents and sort them to unify them. We will

00:55:20.690 - 00:55:34.370

be found ampler than has been supposed than in widely different sources. Thus far impressed by New England writers and schoolmasters, we tacitly abandon ourselves to the notion that our United States have been fashioned from the British

00:55:34.370 - 00:55:49.730

Islands only, and essentially from- form a second England only, which is a very great mistake. Many leading traits for our future national personality and some of the best ones will certainly prove to have originated from other than

00:55:49.730 - 00:56:06.410

British stock. As it is the British and German valuable as they are in the concrete, already threatened excess or rather, I should say they have certainly reached that excess. Today, something outside of them, and to counterbalance them

00:56:06.590 - 00:56:23.870

is seriously needed. The sething materialistic, and business vortices of the United States in their present devouring relations, controlling, and belittling everything else, are in my opinion, but a vast and indispensable stage in the New

00:56:23.870 - 00:56:41.450

Worlds development, and are certain to be followed by something entirely different, at least by immense modifications. Character, literature, a society worthy of the name are yet to be established here to nationality of novelists, spiritual, heroic,

00:56:41.630 - 00:56:59.240

and democratic attributes. Not one of which, at present definitely exists, entirely different from the past, though unerringly founded on it, and to justify it. To that composite American identity of the future, Spanish character will supply

00:56:59.240 - 00:57:15.830

some of the most needed parts. No stock shows a grander historic retrospect, grander in religiousness and loyalty, or for patriotism, courage, decorum, gravity, and honor. It is time to dismiss utterly the illusion-compound, half

00:57:15.860 - 00:57:33.710

raw-head-and-bloody-bones, and half Mysteries-of-Udolfo, inherited from the English writers of the past 200 years. It is time to realize, for it is certainly true, that there will not be found any more cruelty, tyranny, superstition, etc, in

00:57:33.710 - 00:57:50.660

the resume of past Spanish history than in the corresponding resume of Anglo-Norman history. Nay, I think they will not be found so much. Then another point, relating to American ethnology, past and to come. I will here

00:57:50.660 - 00:58:01.940

touch upon at a venture. As to our aboriginal or Indian population, the Aztec in the South, and many tribes in the North and West. I know it seems to be agreed that time was gradually- [cut off]