Introducing 4 poems of Walt Whitman

Introducing 4 poems of Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman is a self-taught, self-educated poet. Precisely because he was not taught how to write poetry in a "proper way," his style is unique. His poetry resembles half verse, half essay, and portrait raw emotion, powerful imagery and strong resonance. He just writes any way he wants, regardless of what their contemporaries think how it should have been written. He served as a nurse in Washington, DC looking after the wounded soldiers of the Civil War. His famous "Drum-Taps" poems on the Civil War is world famous. Here, I would like to introduce two poems on Lincoln, and two on Grant.

After Pres. Lincoln was assassinated, he wrote the well-known "O Captain! My Captain!" and the famous long elegy, with 16 sections, "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd." I would to introduce 2 lesser known poems, but just as good, for Lincoln.

Hush'd be the camps to-day (May 4, 1865)

Hush'd be the camps to-day,
And soldiers let us drape our war-worn weapons,
And each with musing soul retire to celebrate,
Our dear commander's death.

No more for him life's stormy conflicts,
Nor victory, nor defeat --- no more time's dark events,
Charging like ceaseless clouds across the sky.

But sing poet in our name,
Sing of the love we bore him --- because you ---
dweller in camps, know it truly.

As they invault the coffin there,
Sing --- as they close the doors of earth upon him ---
one verse,
For the heavy hearts of soldiers.

This dust was once the man (1871)

This dust was once the man,
Gentle, plain, just and resolute, under whose cautious hand,
Against the foulest crime in history known in any land or age,
Was saved the Union of these States.

The first poem on Grant was about his world tour. I have written an article on Grant's World Tour in our Newsletter.

What best I see in thee

(To U.S. Grant return'd from his World's Tour)

What best I see in thee,
Is not that where thou mov'st down history's great highways,
Ever undimm'd by time shoots warlike victory's dazzle,
Or that thou sat'st where Washington sat, ruling the land in peace,
Or thou the man whom feudal Europe feted, venerable Asia swarm'd upon,
Who walk'd with kings with even pace the round world's promenade;
But that in foreign lands, in all thy walks with kings,
Those prairie sovereigns of the West, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois,
Ohio's, Indiana's millions, comrades, farmers, soldiers, all to the front,
Invisibly with thee walking with kings with even pace the round world's promenade,
Were all so justified.

The second poem on Grant was about his death. I also have written an article on the event celebrating the 100 years of his Tomb in New York City in 1997.

Death of General Grant (1885)

As one by one withdraw the lofty actors,
From that great play on history's stage eterne,
That lurid, partial act of war and peace --- of old and new contending,
Fought out through wrath, fears, dark dismays, and many a long suspense;
All past --- and since, in countless graves receding, mellowing,
Victor's and vanquish'd --- Lincoln's and Lee's --- now thou with them,
Man of the mighty days --- and equal to the days!
Thou from the prairies! --- tangled and many-vein'd and hard has been thy part,
To admiration has it been enacted!

(2001)

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Author and Webmaster, Gordon Kwok (gordonkwok@aol.com)

March 15, 2001