Whitman's curious warble: Out of the cradle

"Our readers may, if they choose, consider as our Christmas or New Year's present to them, the curious warble by Walt Whitman." So said the Saturday Press issue for December 24, 1859, an issue which included Whitman's poem "A Child's Remembrance," later renamed "A Word Out of the Sea." Perhaps better known by its opening lines, "Out of the Cradle, Endlessly Rocking," the poem went through several versions in Whitman's lifetime. Here is how its most frequently republished version begins:

Out of the cradle endlessly rocking,
Out of the mocking-bird's throat, the musical shuttle,
Out of the Ninth-month midnight,
Over the sterile sands and the fields beyond, where the child leaving his bed wander'd alone, bareheaded, barefoot,
Down from the shower'd halo,
Up from the mystic play of shadows twining and twisting as if they were alive,
Out from the patches of briers and blackberries,
From the memories of the bird that chanted to me,
From your memories sad brother, from the fitful risings and fallings I heard,
From under that yellow half-moon late-risen and swollen as if with tears,
From those beginning notes of yearning and love there in the mist,
From the thousand responses of my heart never to cease,
From the myriad thence-arous'd words,
From the word stronger and more delicious than any,
From such as now they start the scene revisiting,
As a flock, twittering, rising, or overhead passing,
Borne hither, ere all eludes me, hurriedly,
A man, yet by these tears a little boy again,
Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves,
I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter,
Taking all hints to use them, but swiftly leaping beyond them,
A reminiscence sing...

Whitman had read an early version of the poem at the famous Pfaff's and one of those in attendance, Henry Clapp, secured its publication. Though one reviewer called it "hopeless drivel," many scholars today consider the poem one of Whitman's best. The poem offers somewhat of a narrative: the speaker remembers a time on the beach in his boyhood when he sees two birds which soon fly away; one never returns. Many have seen the poem as describing the birth of a poet, particularly as it opens with a cradle, before culminating in a profound grasp of nature and death. The poem, then, explores both a beginning and an ending. "Pains and joys," Whitman says he has since explored, "here and hereafter."

My American literature professor as an undergraduate, Dr. Joseph Zaitchik, once told me that the opening lines of this poem represented the best-sounding line in American poetry. "Out of the cradle, endlessly rocking" has a certain cadence, a rising and falling, a harshness with "k" and "g" sounds, along with more sonorous "o" and "s" sounds. Those sounds, perhaps, represent the same ups and downs, opposing ideas of beginning and ending, in the poem itself.

With this post, I have officially posted 1,000 articles of new content, all exploring various aspects of American literary history (mostly in the 19th century). I have had the great opportunity of rediscovering forgotten writers, of enthusiastically promoting some of the greatest, and sharing it all with you, the readers of the American Literary Blog, since my first post in December 2009. I dedicate the entirety of this project to Dr. Zaitchik, who first inspired me to love American literature.

As I retire from adding new posts to the American Literary Blog, I want to offer some of Whitman's own words from this poem: "The rest might not, but I have treasur'd every note." After the narrator calls out to the sea, the poem ends with an understanding that, although there was a finality in what he learned from the bird, the moment was in fact just the starting point for him:

Whereto answering, the sea,
Delaying not, hurrying not,
Whisper'd me through the night, and very plainly before daybreak,
Lisp'd to me the low and delicious word death,
And again death, death, death, death
Hissing melodious, neither like the bird nor like my arous'd child's heart,
But edging near as privately for me rustling at my feet,
Creeping thence steadily up to my ears and laving me softly all over,
Death, death, death, death, death.
Which I do not forget.
But fuse the song of my dusky demon and brother,
That he sang to me in the moonlight on Paumanok's gray beach,
With the thousand responsive songs at random,
My own songs awaked from that hour,
And with them the key, the word up from the waves,
The word of the sweetest song and all songs,
That strong and delicious word which, creeping to my feet,
(Or like some old crone rocking the cradle, swathed in sweet garments, bending aside,)
The sea whisper'd me.

Death of George Arnold: a wasted life

Though scarcely remembered today, the poet George Arnold was mourned by many when he died on November 3, 1865. A contributor to magazines like Vanity Fair, Arnold often wrote under the pseudonym "McArone," with works that crossed a variety of styles and genres but, mostly, he was a humorist.

When he died at age 31, those who remembered him included the group that frequented Pfaff's, a bar in Manhattan known for its Bohemian clientele of artists and writers. For that group, he allegedly first presented one of his most anthologized poems, an ode to beer. One of those who frequented the establishment was Walt Whitman, who once scuffled with Arnold over the question of the Confederacy. One account says their debate grew so heated, Arnold (who supported the secession of the Southern states) assaulted Whitman by grabbing him by the hair. In Whitman's own account, it was merely a loud argument, which resulted in the elder poet's leaving the building.

Another of those who met him at Pfaff's was artist/poet Elihu Vedder. Many years after Arnold's death, Vedder recalled, "He died young; I do not know of what he died, but he seemed to be worn out even when I first met him... He thought his life a wasted life; it was with him a gorgeous romance of youthful despair; but into that grave went a tender charm, great talent, and great weakness."

Also among the Pfaff's crowd was William Winter, who elsewhere recalled Arnold's time in the established: "[He was] one of the sweetest poets in our country who have sung the beauties of Nature and the tenderness of true love; and he never came without bringing sunshine." Winter collected Arnold's poems and published them with a biography. Editor/critic/author Edmund Clarence Stedman memorialized Arnold in verse not long after his burial at Greenwood Cemetery in Trenton, New Jersey. More appropriate than Stedman's poem, however, is Arnold's own, "The Lees of Life":

   I have had my will,
Tasted every pleasure;
   I have drank my fill
Of the purple measure;
   It has lost its zest,
   Sorrow is my guest,
O, the lees are bitter, — bitter, —
   Give me rest!

   Love once filled the bowl
Running o'er with blisses,
   Made my very soul
Drunk with crimson kisses;
   But I drank it dry,
   Love has passed me by,
O, the lees are bitter, — bitter, —
   Let me die!

*Note: At least one source gives the date of Arnold's death as November 9.

James reviews Whitman: a melancholy task

"It has been a melancholy task to read this book; and it is a still more melancholy one to write about it." Thus opens the review of Walt Whitman's book Drum-Taps written by critic Henry James. The review, published in the November 16, 1865 issue of the Nation, lamented how difficult it was to read Whitman's poetry and James blames it on the poet being too much of "a prosaic mind." In fact, he writes, if not for the capital letters at the beginning of each line, one might not know it was poetry. "But if Mr. Whitman does not write verse," James says, "he does not write ordinary prose" as even prosaically the book is not impressive.

Worse, says the critically-minded James, Whitman, like too many others, assumes that the patriotic sympathy with the recent Civil War is enough to justify poetic inspiration in anyone. No, says James, though we as Americans feel the need to express our strong feelings ("Of course the tumult of a battle is grand, the results of a battle tragic, and the untimely deaths of young men a theme for elegies"), but such a sweeping overview as Whitman offers can only be made after the dust has settled. James also can't help but note that the book seems equally about Whitman's own pretentious grandstanding ("Mr. Whitman is very fond of blowing his own trumpet").

The form of the poetry is a particular concern to the then 22-year old James as it does not rhyme or follow any conceivable pattern. Various simplistic verses on the war have become popular and memorable, even when artless. In the case of Whitman, James concludes his writing is "an offense against art," lacking common sense, and insult to intelligence. Nevertheless, James notes, there are positive aspects to Drum-Taps. The sentiment expressed, even if expressed oddly, is sincere:

Mr. Whitman prides himself especially on the substance—the life—of his poetry. It may be rough, it may be grim, it may be clumsy—such we take to be the author's argument—but it is sincere, it is sublime, it appeals to the soul of man, it is the voice of a people.

But, James warns, this is not enough. "To become adopted as a national poet, it is not enough... to discharge the undigested contents of your blotting-book into the lap of the public," he writes. "You must respect the public which you address; for it has taste, if you have not." Whitman had made note in the book, however, that the life of the poem was more important than the form. As James himself quoted, Whitman had written:

Shut not your doors to me, proud libraries,
For that which was lacking among you all, yet needed most, I bring;
A book I have made for your dear sake, O soldiers,
And for you, O soul of man, and you, love of comrades;
The words of my book nothing, the life of it everything;
A book separate, not link'd with the rest, nor felt by the intellect;
But you will feel every word, O Libertad! arm'd Libertad!
It shall pass by the intellect to swim the sea, the air,
With joy with you, O soul of man.

Garland and Whitman: endlessly rocking

Hamlin Garland had disobeyed doctor's orders — not his doctor, but that of Walt Whitman. When Garland visited the aging poet at his home in New Jersey, his health was so poor that Garland was asked to stay no more than two minutes. But the Wisconsin-born author and educator, who was then living in Massachusetts, stayed for a half an hour.

Garland was enamored with Whitman and his work. Back in Waltham, Massachusetts, he started a series of classes on Whitman attended by 40 ladies. On November 9, 1888, he wrote of that class to the poet:

I talked last night to my Waltham class (of forty ladies) about your work and read to them. I wish you could have seen how deeply attentive they were and how moved by "Out of the Cradle" "To Think of Time" "Sparkles from the Wheel" and others. Many of them will now read your works carefully and understandingly.

Garland, a poet himself, particularly recommended that readers start with Specimen Days because reading his prose, he said, would prepare them to "sympathize" with his poetic views. Garland also noted he intended to write a review of November Boughs. True to his word, Garland's review was published in the Boston Evening Transcript only a week after his letter. Of course, Garland remembered Whitman's poor health and, as such, he concluded his letter with concern:  "It rejoices me to hear you are gaining [e.g. recovering]. I hope the winter will not be too severe for you — though I believe you stand the cold better than the heat." From the first poem Garland mentioned his students loved:

Out of the cradle endlessly rocking,
Out of the mocking-bird's throat, the musical shuttle,
Out of the Ninth-month midnight,
Over the sterile sands and the fields beyond, where the child leaving his bed wander'd alone, bareheaded, barefoot,
Down from the shower'd halo,
Up from the mystic play of shadows twining and twisting as if they were alive,
Out from the patches of briers and blackberries,
From the memories of the bird that chanted to me,
From your memories sad brother, from the fitful risings and fallings I heard,
From under that yellow half-moon late-risen and swollen as if with tears,
From those beginning notes of yearning and love there in the mist,
From the thousand responses of my heart never to cease,
From the myriad thence-arous'd words,
From the word stronger and more delicious than any,
From such as now they start the scene revisiting,
As a flock, twittering, rising, or overhead passing,
Borne hither, ere all eludes me, hurriedly,
A man, yet by these tears a little boy again,
Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves,
I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter,
Taking all hints to use them, but swiftly leaping beyond them,
A reminiscence sing.

Lo! the immortal idea!

Walt Whitman's fame waxed and waned throughout his life and career, and his writing remained controversial in many circles. However, one of the highest points came when Dartmouth College in New Hampshire invited Whitman to deliver a poem at their commencement on June 26, 1872. In fact, the invitation came from the graduating students, without the explicit approval of faculty or administration.

Whitman was certainly a strange choice for Dartmouth, such that scholar Bliss Perry later speculated that the invitation had been a prank. Nevertheless, for his reading on that rainy day, Whitman was paid $35. Accounts differ on the level of success: one report said the poet spoke in monotone and could not be heard well, while another referred to his "clearness of enunciation." The poem he read was "As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free," which begins:

As a strong bird, on pinions free,
Joyous, the amplest spaces heavenward cleaving,
Such be the thought I'd think to-day of thee, America;
Such be the recitative I'd bring to-day for thee.

The conceits of the poets of other lands I bring thee not,
Nor the compliments that have served their turn so long,
Nor rhyme — nor the classics — nor perfume of foreign court or indoor library;
But an odor I'd bring to-day as from forests of pine in the north, in Maine—or breath of an Illinois prairie,
With open airs of Virginia, or Georgia or Tennessee — or from Texas uplands or Florida's glades;
With presentment of Yellowstone's scenes or Yosemite;
And murmuring under, pervading all, I'd bring the restling sea sound,
That endlessly sounds from the two great seas of the world.

And for thy subtler sense, subtler refrains, O Union!
Preludes of intellect tallying these and thee — mind-formulas fitted for thee — real and sane and large as these and thee;
Thou, mounting higher, diving deeper than we knew — thou transcendental Union!
By thee Fact to be justified—blended with Thought;
Thought of Man justified — blended with God:
Through thy Idea — lo! the immortal Reality!
Through thy Reality — lo! the immortal idea!

*My introduction to this event came from Jerome Loving's biography Walt Whitman: The Song of Himself.

Whitman and Garland: only two minutes

Walt Whitman was in ill health when the Wisconsin-born novelist Hamlin Garland visited him on September 26, 1888. As such, Whitman's doctor warned the visitor to stay only two minutes. Instead, he stayed for a half an hour. Whitman laughed while telling the story: "He came in — the doctor said for two minutes (only two minutes) but he stayed half an hour at least — seemed to be so interested he would have stayed longer."

Garland, who had just turned 28 and hadn't published his first book yet, traveled to Whitman's home in Camden, New Jersey, from his own home outside of Boston, where he had moved about five years earlier. Hearing of Whitman's poor health, Garland hoped the reports made it sound worse than he actually was and took the opportunity to introduce himself as "an enthusiastic reader of your books." What Garland most appreciated, he wrote, was how Whitman had "no veil, no impediment, between your mind and your audience, when your writings are voiced." Whitman apparently liked the line enough he asked his friend, "Read it again: I want to get it clear in my noddle for keeps!" Further, Garland wrote, "your poems thrilled me, reversed many of my ideas, confirmed me in others, helped to make me what I am."

Garland was working on a book The Evolution of American Thought, which included a chapter titled "Walt Whitman: The Prophet of the New Age" (it was never completed). About a year later, Garland wrote an account of the aging poet, "Whitman at Seventy," later published in the New York Herald and even offered a series of courses on Whitman in Waltham, Massachusetts. Perhaps his more touching tribute to the Good Gray Poet was his own poem, "A Tribute of Grasses," dedicated "To W.W.":

Serene, vast head, with silver cloud of hair
Lined on the purple dusk of death,
A stern medallion, velvet set—
Old Norseman, throned, not chained upon thy chair,
Thy grasp of hand, thy hearty breath
     Of welcome thrills me yet
     As when I faced thee there!

Loving my plain as thou thy sea,
Facing the East as thou the West,
I bring a handful of grass to thee,—
The prairie grasses I know the best;
Type of the wealth and width of the plain,
Strong of the strength of the wind and sleet,
Fragrant with sunlight and cool with rain,
     I bring it and lay it low at thy feet,
     Here by the eastern sea.

*Some of the information in this post comes from Selected Letters of Hamlin Garland (1998), edited by Keith Newlin and Joseph B. McCullough. I am also indebted to Keith Newlin's Hamlin Garland: A Life (2008).

Thomas Eakins and Walt Whitman

Thomas Eakins was born in Philadelphia on July 25, 1844. He later became a painter and photographer. In the spring of 1887, he met the aging poet Walt Whitman in Camden, New Jersey. The two were kindred spirits, though the painter was a quarter century younger than the poet. Both threw aside conventions in their specific art form and attempted truly to represent reality. As Whitman said, "I never... knew [but] one artist, and that's Tom Eakins, who could resist the temptation to see what they think ought to be, rather than what is."

Eakins created several images of Whitman, both in paint and in photography (the subject of one of Eakins's nude photographs may or may not be Whitman as well — and that's not a euphemism, so clicker of links beware). Of his most famous image of Whitman, Eakins later noted: "I began in the usual ways but soon found that the ordinary methods wouldn't do — that technique, rules and traditions would have to be thrown aside; that before all else, he was to be treated as a man."

*I am indebted to the book Portrait: Life of Thomas Eakins (2006) by William S. McFeely.

Fern and Whitman: You are delicious!

About a year after the publication of the first edition of Leaves of Grass, America's most popular columnist wrote to the book's author. Fanny Fern was enthusiastic in her short letter to Walt Whitman, dated April 21, 1856:

You are delicious! May my right hand wither if I don't tell the world before another week, what one woman thinks of you. "Walt"? "what I assume, you shall assume!"

Fern then invited Whitman to spend an evening with her and her husband James Parton. Some scholars have suggested Fern had a romantic interest in Whitman, though there is no evidence for it.

The next month, Fern dedicated her weekly column to Leaves of Grass — a book which would soon become one of the most controversial in American literature for its frank depiction of sexuality and the human body. She called it, "Well baptized: fresh, hardy and grown for the masses." Both Fern and Whitman made light of more serious subject matters by using a pun in their book titles, specifically the term "leaves" for "pages." Fern's book, Fern Leaves from Fanny's Portfolio, predated Leaves of Grass by only a couple years.

When they met in 1856, they were at markedly different points in their career. Fern was the highest paid newspaper writer of the day and had published four books successfully, including Ruth Hall. Whitman was unemployed after serving as a struggling journalist. His first book, Franklin Evans (a temperance novel), made no impact and he had to self-publish Leaves of Grass at his own expense. Of Whitman's book, Fern emphasized she could "extract no poison from these 'Leaves'."

Ah, not this granite, dead and cold!

On the birthday of George Washington, the aging Walt Whitman commemorated the completion of the famous obelisk monument to the first president in Washington, D.C. The poem that he wrote was published in the Philadelphia Free Press on February 22, 1885:

Ah, not this granite, dead and cold!
Far from its base and shaft expanding—the round zones circling, comprehending;
Thou, WASHINGTON, art all the worlds, the continent's entire—not yours alone, America;
Europe's as well, in every part, castle of lord or laborer's cot,
On frozen North, or sultry South—the Arab's in his tent—the African's;
Old Asia's there with venerable smile, seated amid her ruins;
(Greets the antique the hero new? 'tis but the same—the heir legitimate, continued ever,
The indomitable heart and arm—proofs of the never-broken line,
Courage, alertness, patience, faith, the same—e'en in defeat defeated not, the same:)
Wherever sails a ship, or house is built on land, or day or night,
Through teeming cities' streets, indoors or out, factories or farms,
Now, or to come, or past—where patriot wills existed or exist,
Wherever Freedom, poised by Toleration, swayed by Law,
Stands or is rising thy true monument.

Incidentally, Whitman's brother was named George Washington Whitman after the first president.

*Further reading: See the original pages where the poem was printed in the Free Press and the original manuscripts with Whitman's edits, both courtesy of the The Walt Whitman Archive. See also Jerome Loving's biography Walt Whitman: The Song of Himself.

Whitman: rot of the worst sort

Franklin Evans; or The Inebriate was published in a special issue of the New World on November 23, 1842, earning its author $125. That author, Walt Whitman, later dissociated himself from his own book, despite it being his highest-selling work. An advertisement for Franklin Evans announced:

This novel... will create a sensation, both for the ability with which it is written, as well as the interest of the subject, and will be universally read and admired. It was written expressly for the New World, by one of the best novelists in this country... The incidents of the plot are wrought out with great effect, and the excellence of its moral, and the beneficial influence it will have, should [give] this Tale the widest possible circulation.

The ad was certainly misleading; Whitman was hardly "one of the best novelists in the country." Further, the most unusual aspect of Franklin Evans is that it is a temperance novel, part of a long tradition of popular literature that discouraged the use of alcohol. In fact, it was not Whitman's first temperance writing (an earlier example was his story "Reuben's Last Wish"). The title character falls in with the "wrong sort" and starts visiting bars and whorehouses. Even so, he marries a good woman, though he drives her to an early grave because of his overuse of alcohol. Evans moves south, where he marries a former slave. He falls in love, however, with another woman — and she is killed by his wife.

Whitman's temperance novel is different from others, including the famous Ten Nights in a Bar-Room by Timothy Shay Arthur, in that bad things happen even when the alcoholic character is sober. This effectively implies that inebriation is so destructive that there is no hope for reform once it becomes a habit. Franklin Evans had a circulation of at least 20,000 copies (compare to 800 copies of the first edition of Leaves of Grass in 1855).

Some four decades after the publication of Franklin Evans, Whitman laughed it off as something he never believed. He called the book a "damned rot — rot of the worst sort." Though he once claimed he never drank alcohol until he was 30, he joked that Franklin Evans was written in three days — while he had been drinking.

*A particularly good section on Franklin Evans, the cultural context of the temperance movement and Whitman's later denial of it, is found in Jerome Loving's Walt Whitman: The Song of Himself (1999).

George Whitman's capture

In Poplar Grove, Virginia on September 30, 1864, a regiment of Union soldiers was surrounded and captured. A soldier named George (named in honor of the first President of the United States) was soon imprisoned at Libby Prison. He wrote to his brother Walt Whitman, "Here I am perfectly well and unhurt, but a prisoner." By December, however, George was sick with "lung fever" at a Confederate military hospital.

Walt Whitman, already moved enough by the Civil War to volunteer as a nurse, wrote a handful of public letters trying to enlist sympathy in the plight of soldiers like his brother. "The public mind," he wrote, "is deeply excited, and most righteously so, at the starvation of the United States prisoners of war in the hands of the Secessionists." He demanded that Union soldiers be exchanged for Confederate soldiers but little effort was made specifically for his brother. The only exchange, he worried, would be "those helpless and most wretched men" with "deaths of starvation." George was finally exchanged in February 1865.

Later in 1865, Whitman published Drum-Taps, a collection of poems dedicated to the war. Among the collection was the poem "Year that Trembled and Reel'd Beneath Me":

Year that trembled and reel'd beneath me!
Your summer wind was warm enough, yet the air I breathed froze me,
A thick gloom fell through the sunshine and darken'd me,
Must I change my triumphant songs? said I to myself,
Must I indeed learn to chant the cold dirges of the baffled,
And sullen hymns of defeat?

 *Some information for this post comes from Jerome Loving's Walt Whitman: The Song of Himself and Roy Morris's The Better Angel: Walt Whitman in the Civil War.

Whitman: Delayed among the printers

"My book is delayed among the printers," wrote Walt Whitman in a letter to his friend John Burroughs dated September 10, 1866. "It is a little over half done, & they promise it shall be done, or mainly so, this week." Whitman's optimism was unfounded; The book in question, the fourth edition of Leaves of Grass, would not see print until 1867. He hoped it would be the final edition — he was wrong on that front too.

"The book is going to suit me pretty well," Whitman explained. It would be 500 pages, similar in style to his book Drum-Taps, only recently published. "I shall feel glad enough when it is completed," he wrote, noting the difficulty he was having:

I have a constant struggle with the printers — They are good fellows & willing enough — but it seems impossible to prevent them from making lots of ridiculous errors — it is my constant dread that the book will be disfigured in that way.

Whitman's publishing woes were substantial enough that he took a month-long leave of absence from his Washington D.C. job and returned to Brooklyn. Finally published by Hotten in 1867, it was the first edition of Leaves of Grass after the Civil War. The book was substantially different: Whitman had left only 34 pages unaltered. Poems were reshaped, clarified, rearranged; some were shortened, about 40 were cut entirely. It was not toned down for its sexuality, however. One poem previously untitled now carried the title "City of Orgies."

Five months after publication, the bindery which published this edition of Leaves of Grass went bankrupt. "I received a portion of the books remaining," Whitman reported. "The most of them were lost."

"If it wasn't for the worriment of the book," he concluded in his letter to Burroughs, "I should be happy as a clam at high water, as they say down on Long Island."

The Good Gray Poet is fired

Secretary of the Interior James Harlan, a former professor of mental and moral science from Iowa, supposedly found a copy of Leaves of Grass (the 1860 edition) on the desk of one of his employees in the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Horrified by what he deemed obscene, the employee was fired on June 30, 1865. The employee was, in fact, the author of the book of poetry — Walt Whitman.

29 years later, Harlan denied there was a connection. His dismissal of Whitman was, he said, "on the ground that his services were not needed. And no other reason was ever assigned by my authority." He was new to the job at the time and, he noted, he had inherited "a considerable number of useless incumbents who were seldom at their respective desks."

Whitman, like many other American authors, took a government post as a sure-bet for financial security. His job paid an impressive $1,200 a year and, as he described it, was fairly simple: "All I have hitherto employed myself about has been making copies of reports & Bids, &c for the office to send up to the Congressional Committee on Indian Affairs." At the time, Whitman was also volunteering as a nurse in the Washington, D.C. area amidst the Civil War.

Ultimately, Harlan may have been right about Whitman's work ethic. The work was "easy enough," he wrote, "I take things very easy." He admitted that, though he was supposed to work from 9 to 4, "I don't come at 9, and only stay till 4 when I want." 

William Douglas O'Connor, a daguerreotypist and poet who helped Whitman secure his government job, was especially infuriated by Whitman's dismissal. He complained enough that Whitman was soon granted a job with the Attorney General. Partly to spite Harlan, O'Connor (now known as one of Whitman's strongest boosters) published a highly-exaggerated and flowering biography of Whitman — one which earned him a permanent nickname as The Good Gray Poet.

*Much of the information for this post comes from Jerome Loving's very readable biography Walt Whitman: The Song of Himself.

Whitman's funeral and burial

After the death of Walt Whitman, his friend Thomas Eakins and an assistant created his death mask as well as a plaster cast of the poet's hand. An autopsy was performed, despite objections from brother George Whitman, but following the request of the poet himself. The funeral for Walt Whitman was held March 30, 1892.

Whitman's polished-oak casket was displayed in the parlor of his Mickle Street home in Camden, NJ. The public viewing was from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. and drew at least a thousand visitors, including neighborhood friends and curious laborers on their lunch break. A police officer was stationed at the door to direct traffic.

A carriage then took Whitman's body to his final resting-place at Harleigh Cemetery. Thousands upon thousands lined the streets to watch the procession. A ceremony featured speakers from Whitman's cadre of disciples (none particularly famous by today's standards). Readings came from Confucious, Buddha, Plato, the Koran, and the Bible. The only blood relative in attendance was George, whose injury during the Civil War inspired the poet's writing and his life. George did not speak and was likely confused by the ceremony and the extravagant praise bestowed on his dead brother. George, when he received his copy of Leaves of Grass, "didn't think it worth reading."

Whitman's $4,000 tomb was built to his specifications on a 20' x 30' plot of land gifted by the Harleigh Cemetery Association. Whitman ordered the construction of the "plain massive stone temple" with an iron gate and large bronze lock, inspired by an etching called "Death's Door" by William Blake. The roof was a foot and a half thick and some of the blocks weighed 8 to 10 tons. Whitman watched its construction, sent photos to friends, and proudly reported it as a celebration of his personality. Friends thought it a bit outrageous and accused the contractors, Reinhalter and Company of Philadelphia, of swindling the elder poet. Whitman himself only paid $1,500 of the cost; a friend settled the rest of the bill. The result was, he wrote, "the rudest most undress'd structure... since Egypt, perhaps the cave dwellers." Later, Whitman's parents and other relatives were moved there as well. Even so, the only name on the tomb's exterior remains "Walt Whitman."

*Photo of the death mask is courtesy of Princeton Libraries.

Death of Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman died slowly. In 1873, he had suffered a paralytic stroke then suffered several more as the years went on. Knowing he was approaching death, Whitman commissioned a house-shaped tomb for his burial for a whopping $4,000 — twice what he paid for his house in Camden, New Jersey. He often visited his tomb while it was being built — for as long as he was mobile anyway.

Towards the end, Whitman could barely move and was in constant pain. His followers, nicknamed the Whitmaniacs, devotedly attended to him. One wrote: "Walt very frankly expresses his anxiety to die, to shake off this burden, which increases and is heavier every day." To alleviate the pain a little, his friends improvised a sort of water bed on the floor. "O I feel so good!" Whitman said, comparing the splashing water to being on a ship.

Sustained on milk punch, Whitman's body was wasted by tuberculosis. He was partly atrophied, suffered from tumors, abscesses, congestion, and other ailments. Yet, he still lived. Knowing how strange this was, Whitman granted permission for an autopsy, in the name of medical science. This whole time, Whitman was completing his final revisions on the last edition of his book Leaves of Grass, today referred to as the "Deathbed Edition."

Walt Whitman died at 6:43 p.m. on March 26, 1892 at the age of 72. Doctors discovered, in a 3-hour autopsy, that Whitman died of pulmonary emphysema or bronchial pneumonia, that the left lung had entirely collapsed, and the right was only barely functioning. The heart was surrounded by abscesses and "about two and a half quarts of water," according to the New York Times. Whitman's brain was removed and sent to the American Anthropometric Society, where it was accidentally destroyed, allegedly when it fell on the floor and was crushed. His funeral was held four days later.

Whitman and Davis on Mickle Street

Mrs. Mary Oakes Davis moved in with the aging poet Walt Whitman on February 24, 1885. Whitman and Davis met while both were living in Camden, New Jersey. She was the widow of a sea captain and Whitman often visited her and had breakfast at her house on West Street. Whitman, who suffered a stroke in 1873 (he would have a few more before his death), lived for a time with his brother George Washington Whitman, paying room and board. In 1884, he purchased his own house on Mickle Street (now preserved and open to the public as the Walt Whitman House), and Mrs. Davis moved in a month later.

The home was a two-story row house with six rooms and no furnace. It cost Whitman $1,750. Friends and family did not approve; one called it "the worst house and the worst situated." Another noted it "was the last place one would expect a poet to select for a home."

Davis became Whitman's housekeeper in exchange for a room. When she moved in, she brought her cat, a dog, two turtledoves, and a canary (and probably more). Whitman biographer Justin Kaplan speculates that she hoped they would get married. Whitman hoped she would help him enough that he could rest and write at will. "I am very lame & find it difficult to get about here, even small distances," he confided to a friend after Davis moved in. She was, however, "in every respect (handiwork & atmosphere) the very best and most acceptable that could have befallen me."

After Whitman's death, he left Davis $1,000 in his will. Whitman was never well-off but he was comfortable financially. Davis believed she was owed much more, and sued the estate, claiming she spent much of her own money out of pocket on his behalf.

Prohibition, temperance, and T. S. Arthur

On this day, January 16, in 1919, the 18th Amendment took effect in the United States — establishing 13 years of prohibition of the sale, manufacture, and consumption of alcohol. In honor of this "Noble Experiment," it's worth looking into some of the literary figures who believed in the sober lifestyle back in the 19th century.

Early in his career, editor/anthologist Rufus Wilmot Griswold advocated for a temperate lifestyle in the 1830s. Years later, he would come to enjoy vintage wines. Poet/abolitionist James Russell Lowell was a teetotaler for a (short) time after his marriage, likely due to the influence of his wife Maria White. His anti-alcohol stance was so strong for a time that his neighbor Henry Wadsworth Longfellow worried that Lowell would force him to destroy his wine cellar. Lowell, however, was infamous for his drinking while an undergraduate at Harvard and, perhaps, sneaking a few drinks when his wife wasn't looking.

Edgar A. Poe struggled to control what would now be called alcoholism throughout his short life. Aware of his problem, he went as long as 18 months without drinking at one point before finally looking for help. In 1849, he took a vow of sobriety and became a card-carrying member of the Sons of Temperance. Thirteen years before Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman published a book called Franklin Evans; or, The Inebriate (1842) — a temperance novel. The poet later called the book "a damned rot" and said he was actually drunk when he wrote it.

Perhaps the most important anti-alcohol writer was Timothy Shay Arthur, the New York author of Ten Nights in a Bar-Room and What I Saw There (1854). The story is told by an infrequent visitor to a new tavern in Cedarville named Sickle and Sheaf, founded by Simon Slade. Over his ten visits, the narrator witnesses the downfall of the tavern owner, his guests, and the town in general — all because of alcohol.

According to the publisher's preface:

"Ten Nights in a Bar-Room" gives a series of sharply drawn sketches of scenes, some of them touching in the extreme, and some dark and terrible. Step by step the author traces the downward course of the tempting vender and his infatuated victims, until both are involved in hopeless ruin. The book is marred by no exaggerations, but exhibits the actualities of bar-room life, and the consequences flowing therefrom, with a severe simplicity, and adherence to truth.

Halfway through the novel, Slade the tavern-keeper is described by a character: "He does not add to the general wealth. He produces nothing. He takes money from his customers, but gives them no article of value in return —nothing that can be called property, personal or real." The book's chapter titles include "Some of the Consequences of Tavern-Keeping," "More Consequences," "Sowing the Wind" and (wait for it) "Reaping the Whirlwind." Alcohol leads to neglect, domestic abuse, gambling, and even murder. According to the book, not only is the tavern-keeper ruined, but also the entire town. "Does the reader need a word of comment on this fearful consummation?" the author asks at the end of one chapter. "No: and we will offer none."

During Prohibition (which lasted from 1920 to 1933), a feature film of Arthur's book was released, directed by William O'Connor (his other films were mostly Westerns), based on a 19th-century stage version adapted by William H. Pratt. Cheers!

*The image above is the bar room in question, from an early edition of Arthur's book.