n of a purely sensuous experience,

"The earth expending right hand and left hand,
The picture alive, every part in its best light,
The music falling in where it is wanted, and stopping where
it is not wanted."

In many passages Whitman manifests a marvellous ability to discover and
communicate a fresh gladness about the commonest experiences. We cannot
but rejoice with him in all sights and sounds. But though we cannot deny
him truth, his truth is honesty and not understanding. The experiences
in which he discovers so much worth, are random and capricious, and do
not constitute a universe. To the solution of ultimate questions he
contributes a sense of mystery, and the conviction

"That you are here--that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse."

His world is justly described by the writer just quoted as "a
phantasmagoria of continuous visions, vivid, impressive, but monotonous
and hard to distinguish in memory, like the waves of the sea or the
decorations of some barbarous temple, sublime only by the infinite
aggregation of parts."[30:2]

As is Walt Whitman, so are many poets greater and less. Some who have
seen the world-view, exhibit the same particularism in their lyric
moods; although, generally speaking, a poet who once has comprehended
the world, will see the parts of it in the light of that wisdom. But
Walt Whitman is peculiarly representative of the poetry that can be
true, without being wise in the manner that we shall come shortly to
understand as the manner of philosophy. He is as desultory in his poet
raptures as is the common man when he lives in his immediate
experiences. The truth won by each is the clear vision of one thing, or
of a limited collection of things, and not the broad inclusive vision of
all things.

[Sidenote: Constructive Knowledge in Poetry. Shakespeare.]

Sect. 10. The transition from Whitman to Shakespeare may seem somewhat
abrupt, but the very differences between these poets serve to mark out
an interesting affinity. Neither has put any unitary construction upon
human life and its environment. Neither, as poet, is the witness of any
world-view; which will mean for us that neither is a philosopher-poet.
As respects Shakespeare, this is a hard saying. We are accustomed to the
critical judgment that finds in the Shakespearian dramas an apprehension
of the universal in human life. But though th