drifted
until at last he made his way to Italy, where he studied and painted for
several years. Later he made Rome his permanent residence, and died
there. He was known as a clever artist and sculptor, but his best work
is the two poem; here quoted.

The poems by Read are used by special permission of J. B. Lippincott
Company, the authorized publishers of the poems.

STORM ON ST. BERNARD

Storm on St. Bernard may be compared with Excelsior in general subject
matter. Do they affect you in the same way? Are they alike in purpose?
Which seems most real to you? Why is "Excelsior" the more familiar?

DRIFTING

Read was essentially an artist, and in this poem he expressed his
artistic soul more truly than in anything else he ever did.

19. Ischia: an island in the bay of Naples.

22. Capri: an island in the Mediterranean, best known for the Blue
Grotto.

WALT WHITMAN (1819-1891)

"Walt Whitman...the chanter of adhesiveness, of the love of man for man,
may not be attractive to some of us... But Walt Whitman the tender nurse,
the cheerer of hospitals, the saver of soldier lives, is much more than
attractive he is inspiring."
--W. P. TRENT.

Born on Long Island, he entered a printer's office when he was thirteen.
By the time he was twenty, he was editing his own paper, but he soon gave
it up for work on a New York newspaper. When he was thirty, he traveled
through the west; in "Pioneers" we have a part of the result. During

the Civil War he gave himself up to nursing as long as his strength
lasted. From 1873 to the time of his death he was a great invalid and
poor, but every trial was nobly borne.

The selections from Walt Whitman are included by special permission of
Mitchell Kennerley, the publisher of the complete authorized editions of
Walt Whitman's Works.

PIONEERS! O PIONEERS

18. debouch: go out into.

O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!

Written to express the grief of the nation over the death of Abraham
Lincoln at the time when the joy over the saving of the union was most
intense.

End of Project Gutenberg's Selections From American Poetry, by Various

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