the sun excludes you will I exclude you," he voiced
a sentiment worthy of a god.

He was brother to the elements, the mountains, the seas, the clouds, the
sky. He loved them all and partook of them all in his large, free,
unselfish, untrammeled nature. His heart knew no limits, and feeling his
feet mortised in granite and his footsteps tenoned in infinity he knew
the amplitude of time.

Only the great are generous; only the strong are forgiving. Like Lot's
wife, most poets look back over their shoulders; and those who are not
looking backward insist that we shall look into the future, and the vast
majority of the whole scribbling rabble accept the precept, "Man never
is, but always to be blest."

We grieve for childhood's happy days, and long for sweet rest in Heaven
and sigh for mansions in the skies. And the people about us seem so
indifferent, and our friends so lukewarm; and really no one understands
us, and our environment queers our budding spirituality, and the frost of
jealousy nips our aspirations: "O Paradise, O Paradise, the world is
growing old; who would not be at rest and free where love is never cold."
So sing the fearsome dyspeptics of the stylus. O anemic he, you bloodless
she, nipping at crackers, sipping at tea, why not consider that, although
evolutionists tell us where we came from, and theologians inform us
where we are going to, yet the only thing we are really sure of is that
we are here!

The present is the perpetually moving spot where history ends and
prophecy begins. It is our only possession: the past we reach through
lapsing memory, halting recollection, hearsay and belief; we pierce the
future by wistful faith or anxious hope; but the present is beneath our
feet.

Whitman sings the beauty and the glory of the present. He rebukes our
groans and sighs--bids us look about on every side at the wonders of
creation, and at the miracles within our grasp. He lifts us up, restores
us to our own, introduces us to man and to Nature, and thus infuses into
us courage, manly pride, self-reliance, and the strong faith that comes
when we feel our kinship with God.

He was so mixed with the universe that his voice took on the sway of
elemental integrity and candor. Absolutely honest, this man was unafraid
and unashamed, for Nature has neither apprehension, shame nor vainglory.
In "Leaves of Grass" Whitman speaks as all men have ever spoken who
believe in God and in themselves--oracular, without apol