To get at the full bearing of his life upon his
poems, however, let us return to the very begin-
ning, and trace, briefly at least, his boyhood and
youth. In his Specimen Days and Collect, an
autobiographical volume of incomparable prose-
notes, as well as in many of the poems, Walt
Whitman refers constantly to the great influence
of his early childish days in their free open-air
environment upon his mental and spiritual growth.
He was, indeed, wonderfully happy in his early
surroundings,—in his vigorous healthy parentage

The next twelve years, spent variously in street
and field, in New York, Brooklyn, New Orleans,
and other cities, with long intervals always
of country life in the wide sweep of valley
and plain and seashore, during which he
sounded the teeming life of the fast-growing
United States, may be deemed, say Dr. Bucke,
the special preparation-time for the writing
of the Leaves of Grass. Although, accordingly,
one would like to comment at length upon these
years of young manhood, it is unnecessary. The
reader will find its true history and illustrations in the
poems themselves. In some respects, however,
the more detailed accounts possible in prose,
given in Specimen Days, casts valuable added light
upon this probation-time, and his great zest for
certain sides of life. His "passion for ferries," for
instance, that finds final outcome in the well-known
poem, "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," has a character-
istic note. Referring to the Fulton Ferry, curiously
identified with his life in Brooklyn and New York,
he writes:—"Almost daily I crossed in the boats,
often up in the pilot-houses, where I could get a full
sweep, absorbing shows, accompaniments, surround-
ings. What oceanic currents, eddies, underneath;
the great tides of humanity also, with ever shifting
movements. Indeed, I have always had a passion
for ferries; to me they afford inimitable, streaming,
never-failing, living poems. The river and bay
scenery, all about New York island, any time of a
fine day—the hurrying, splashing seat-tides—the
changing panorama of steamers . . . the myriads
of white-sail'd schooners, sloops, skiffs, and the

To this tumultuous wealth of experience succeeds
naturally the preparation, and then at last the
publication, of the Leaves of Grass volume, which
marks memorably the year 1855. A great deal of
the matter found in the present volume has been
added since the issue of this first edition—a thin
royal octavo, generally described as a quarto,
of ninety-four pages; but the significance of Whit-
man's departure from the old routine of poetry
was marked in it in a way that no further addition
could make more striking. It is not strange,
therefore, that the book gained scant recogni-
tion. It was not until Emerson sent to Walt
Whitman what was really his first recognition
from the literary world, the now famous letter
of greeting, that the book became at all known.
A characteristic passage or two from this letter
may be given:—"I am not blind to the worth
of the wonderful gift of Leaves of Grass. I
find it the most extraordinary piece of wit and
wisdom that America has yet contributed. . . . I
give you joy of your free and brave thought. I
have great joy in it. I find incomparable things,

Further leaves were added to Leaves of Grass

But at the war's end it was not the same robust,
virile man who came out of that hospital tent.
"Three unflinching years of work in that terrible
suspense and excitement changed him," says Dr.
Bucke, "from a young to an old man. Under the
constant and intense moral strain to which he
was subjected . . . he eventually broke down.
The doctors called his complaint "hospital malaria,'
and perhaps it was; but that splendid physique
was sapped by labour, watching, and still more by
the emotions, dreads, deaths, uncertainties of three

There is no need perhaps to dwell here upon the
story of his stupid dismissal from one office by a
certain benighted official because of the alleged
immorality of Leaves of Grass, though it was this
that provoked W. D. O'Connor to his remarkable,
if rather combative, manifesto on the poet's behalf,
entitled "The Good Grey Poet." This was in 1868.
It must be kept in mind, however, that this was
only an extreme instance of the social and literary
persecution which was levelled at him from the
first. "To the pure all things are pure";—it was
from this standpoint that Walt Whitman wrote.
But there were critics who, instead of meeting with
courtesy this poetic attempt to raise noble functions,
long ignobly tainted with obscenity, to their
true dignity and natural relation in the great
scheme of earth and heaven, attacked him
with incredible viciousness and rancour. As,
however, considerations of Mrs. Grundy have
caused the omission of the poems objected to in
the present volume, there is no need to dwell
further upon the matter here.

There are many delightful glimpses to be got in
John Burroughs's Notes, and in his capital little

In spite of light heart and cheery temper his
ill-health increased upon him, and culminated at
last in a parylitic seizure, in February 1873, from
which he had almost recovered when in May the
same year his mother died somewhat suddenly in
Camden, New Jersey, in his presence. "That
event," says his chronicler, "was a terrible blow to
him, and after the occurrence he became much
worse. He left Washington for good, and took up

Along with Specimen Days were written from