and mockingbirds of
the groves and orchards, or of the gilded cage in my lady's chamber.
It is by some such analogy that I would indicate the character of the
poetry I am about to discuss, compared with that of the more popular and
melodious singer,--the poetry of the strong wing and the daring flight.

Well and profoundly has a Danish critic said, in "For Ide og
Virkelighed" ("For the Idea and the Reality"), a Copenhagen magazine:--

"It may be candidly admitted that the American poet has not the
elegance, special melody, nor _recherche_ aroma of the accepted poets
of Europe or his own country; but his compass and general harmony are
infinitely greater. The sweetness and spice, the poetic _ennui,_ the
tender longings, the exquisite art-finish of those choice poets are
mainly unseen and unmet in him,--perhaps because he cannot achieve them,
more likely because he disdains them. But there is an electric _living
soul_ in his poetry, far more fermenting and bracing. His wings do not
glitter in their movement from rich and varicolored plumage, nor are his
notes those of the accustomed song-birds; but his flight is the flight
of the eagle."

Yes, there is not only the delighting of the ear with the outpouring of
sweetest melody and its lessons, but there is the delighting of the eye
and soul through that soaring and circling in the vast empyrean of "a
strong bird on pinions free,"--lessons of freedom, power, grace, and
spiritual suggestion,--vast, unparalleled, _formless_ lessons.

It is now upwards of twenty years since Walt Whitman printed (in 1855)
his first thin beginning volume of "Leaves of Grass;" and, holding him
to the test which he himself early proclaimed, namely, "that the proof
of the poet shall be sternly deferred till his country has absorb'd him
as affectionately as he has absorb'd it," he is yet on trial, yet
makes his appeal to an indifferent or to a scornful audience. That his
complete absorption, however, by his own country and by the world, is
ultimately to take place, is one of the beliefs that grows stronger and
stronger within me as time passes, and I suppose it is with a hope to
help forward this absorption that I write of him now. Only here and
there has he yet effected a lodgment, usually in the younger and
more virile minds. But considering the unparalleled audacity of his
undertaking, and the absence in most critics and readers of anything
like full-grown and robust aesthetic perception, the w