Walt Whitman - Leaves of Grass - The Moving Elegies For Abraham Lincoln - a podcast by Christy and Garry Shriver

I’m Christy Shriver and we’re here to discuss books that have changed the world and have changed us. 

And I am Garry Shriver.  This is the How to Love Lit Podcast. This is our second episode discussing the bard of democracy, the great Walt Whitman.  Today we will feature one of his four poems honoring President Abraham Lincoln, but in order to understand why Whitman and many of us admire this great man, we want to revisit the  original 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass and listen to some of Whitman’s observations of African Americans and slavery.  Christy, let’s start this episode by reading and discussing two extracts from “I sing the Body Electric” , the ones where Whitman describes an African man and then an African woman at auction.   

A man’s body at auction, 
(For before the war I often go to the slave-mart and watch the sale,) 
I help the auctioneer, the sloven does not half know his business. 
 
Gentlemen look on this wonder, 
Whatever the bids of the bidders they cannot be high enough for it, 
For it the globe lay preparing quintillions of years without one animal or plant, 
For it the revolving cycles truly and steadily roll’d. 

In this head the all-baffling brain, 
In it and below it the makings of heroes. 

Examine these limbs, red, black, or white, they are cunning in tendon and nerve, 
They shall be stript that you may see them. 
Exquisite senses, life-lit eyes, pluck, volition, 
Flakes of breast-muscle, pliant backbone and neck, flesh not flabby, good-sized arms and legs, 
And wonders within there yet. 

Within there runs blood, 
The same old blood! the same red-running blood! 
There swells and jets a heart, there all passions, desires, reachings, aspirations, 
(Do you think they are not there because they are not express’d in parlors and lecture-rooms?) 

This is not only one man, this the father of those who shall be fathers in their turns, 
In him the start of populous states and rich republics, 
Of him countless immortal lives with countless embodiments and enjoyments. 

How do you know who shall come from the offspring of his offspring through the centuries? 
(Who might you find you have come from yourself, if you could trace back through the centuries?) 

 
8 

 
A woman’s body at auction, 
She too is not only herself, she is the teeming mother of mothers, 
She is the bearer of them that shall grow and be mates to the mothers. 

Have you ever loved the body of a woman? 
Have you ever loved the body of a man? 
Do you not see that these are exactly the same to all in all nations and times all over the earth? 

If any thing is sacred the human body is sacred, 
And the glory and sweet of a man is the token of manhood untainted, 
And in man or woman a clean, strong, firm-fibred body, is more beautiful than the most beautiful face. 
Have you seen the fool that corrupted his own live body? or the fool that corrupted her own live body? 
For they do not conceal themselves, and cannot conceal themselves. 

Whitman was raised a New York democrat, but his sympathies were with the Free Soil party that condemned the extension of slavery as a sin against God and a crime against man.  The Republican party would not exist until 1854, and Lincoln would be their presidential candidate in the election of 1860.  Of course, bear in mind, that the issues of those days are different than the issues of today, so the party names shouldn’t be taken to represent modern day politics.  

 

 For Whitman it was undeniable for anyone with eyeballs that all men are born human and that implies certain things regardless if they are born  free or slave- of any race, creed or gender.  It is obvious to a man so aware of the physical body, that we are of the same atom-  the magnificence of the body proclaims our humanity- and ironically where on earth could this magnificence be most easily seen than at a slave auction like what he witnessed during his New Orleans days. In all of its ruthless degradation it ironically showcased the magnificence of the human body.  It’s why Whitman could say, almost sarcastically- I am a better salesman of slaves than the auctioneer-I know and understand the beauty and value of what you are selling and you don’t- you fool.   Whitman was the poet of the democratic soul- we are after all leaves of grass, but he was also the poet of the body- that physical form we are all chained to.  For Whitman, to be a human was to understand and be okay with one’s physical body- and it is a holy thing. Our souls inhabit a sanctified space on earth- that of the body- be it man or woman- the pigmentation of flesh was just one of many individual and unique features- for Whitman our bodies is the starting point for equality- we are all wedded to one.   

 

It doesn’t seem radical to us now, but at that time in history- even talking about the body like that was revolutionary- almost vulgar- Whitman democratically equates the man with the woman with the black with the white.  In 1855, this was not self-evident anywhere else in the United States of America or really anywhere on planet earth.   

 

By 1855, Walt Whitman knew his country was falling apart.  He understood that the ideals on which the great American experiment were founded were being overwhelmed by all kinds of forces, not least of which was plain ordinary corruption.  In his mind, what the world needed was repentance- a total course correction- a return to the original ideals and this was going to happen through conversion to a different set of moral ideals- he wanted to convince America to revisit and embrace all these original self-evident democratic ideals by reading and absorbing Leaves of Grass.  He really truly believed if people would just read his book, they would stop hating each other. 

 

Well, it’s a nice thought, however slightly unrealistic…especially in light of the single digit sales of that first edition.  But even if he had gotten everyone to read his book, it was a tall order.  By 1860, any kind of peaceful coming together seemed unrealistic.  America was on the brink of war and violence was springing up.  John Brown is one notable example; in an attempt to free slaves through violence he and a small gang stormed Harper’s Ferry.  They were captured, tried and condemned to death, but this event inflamed the country and raised the stakes for the upcoming presidential election.  A few months after Brown was executed, the democratic party, split between pro and- anti- slavery factions, was to confront a new political party- one that had never existed before, the Republican party. It had nominated a Southern born anti-slavery man from Illinois, a lawyer who had never attended school but who was known as honest Abe.  A newspaper in South Carolina put it this way “the irrepressible conflict is about to be vised upon us through the Black Republican nominee and his fanatical diabolical Republican party.” 

 

Walt Whitman did not see Lincoln as an instigator of a conflict.  Whitman saw him almost as an extension of himself- a mediator.  He really believed Lincoln was going to bring healing  and unity through politics something he had tried and failed to do through poetry.   

 

I’m not sure which is the greater challenge= trying to unify  a group of people through poetry or politics!!   

 

Ha! True but Whitman was paying attention to what Lincoln was saying and he identified with him.  He saw himself in Lincoln.  They both came from poor families. Neither had formal education.  One thing that is interesting, Lincoln was from the West, and Whitman believed the hope of America was in the West.  Both men believed in democracy to the core, but also- both believed in unity.  Whitman saw Lincoln as America’s hope. 

 

Although, he was likely the most hated man of his age in some corners, but the only hope of America in others.  Lincoln wanted first and foremost to be a unifier.  He had been elected with only around 40% of the popular vote, although he did get a majority of the electoral college votes.  There was no question America was deeply divided.  He wanted not just to save the physical boundaries of America, but he wanted to heal the wounds that were making people hate each other.  Lincoln’s father was anti-slavery and raised in an anti-slavery Baptist congregation.   Lincoln But his mother was from a Kentucky slaveholding family.  Lincoln later recalled that the reason his father left Kentucky and the South because of his strong feelings about slavery. Lincoln himself saw many cruel things while visiting his grandparents, not the least of these being once when an African-American family was separated on a boat and sold to different owners.  He later recalled that ‘the sight was a continual torment to me…having the power of making me miserable.”  However, Lincoln’s mother’s family were people he knew intimately, and somehow he understood how someone could support slavery and not be an evil person.  This sounds crazy to us and difficult to understand, but Lincoln expressed on more than one occasion to men across the North that if they had been born in those circumstances in that place and in that world, they likely would have had those same views.  This way of seeing one’s fellow man is more radical than most of us can even comprehend.  It’s a strange idea to assert that a person could believe something is morally wrong so strongly that he would be willing to lead a nation to war to end it, but simultaneously judge the perpetrators of this evil redeemable human beings.  95% of humans today can’t think like that-    

 

Well, it’s something Whitman could do as well.  Whitman didn’t fight in the Civil War, but his brother George did.  His brother fought for the Union.  Whitman’s significant other fought for the Confederacy at one point.  

 

The first shots of the Civil War were fired by the South on Fort Sumter in Charleston, SC, in April of 1861.  Lincoln had been president for just a few weeks.   

 

 In December of 1862, Whitman saw his brother’s name on a list of casualities.  He got on a train and headed South to look for him. He ended up in Fredericksburg.  The good news was his brother had only suffered a flesh wound.  But outside the hospital Whitman saw something that struck horror and terror into his being.  Let me read his words after he came to the building being used as a hospital, he saw, “a heap of amputated feet, legs, arms, hands, etc….a full load for a one-horse cart…human fragments, cut bloody, black and blue, swelled and sickening…nearby were several dead bodes each covered with its brown woolen blanket.”  Now you have to remember, think about Leaves of Grass and “I sing the Body Electric”.  This is a man who had been trying to convince America to celebrate our bodies- all of our bodies- we read just the excert about African-Americans, but he celebrated all bodies and wanted us to see ourselves in other people’s bodies- to recognize the sanctity in all bodies- and here he’s staring at these body parts scattered around, cut off and thrown into piles.  I can’t even imagine how things would smell.   

 

Whitman’s reaction to what he saw on the battlefields and field hospitals of Frederickburg, led him to a decision that altered the course of his life.  It would lead him to move to Washington DC and honestly, his war actions to me make him something of a saint.  Just in Frederickburg, he stuck around to visit and help bury the dead of the over 18,000 dead soldiers that were just lying on the ground.  But, then he started visiting hospitals.  These visits deeply affected him.  He had planned on going back to New York after he found his brother, but he couldn’t do that anymore.  Instead he changed courses and went to Washington DC.  He got a job as a clerk where he would work during the day, but then he would spend the rest of his time in the hospitals.  And he would just sit with soldiers.  He didn’t care if they were union of confederate.  He brought  with him bags of candy.  He wrote letters to their parents.  He played twenty questions.  If they wanted him to read the Bible, he read the Bible.  If they wanted a cigarette, he’d scrounge up a cigarette. Many of them were teenagers.  He kissed  and hugged them; he parented them in their final moments of life.  For many, he was the last tender face they would see on this earth.  The numbers range, but documentation reveals he visited and helped anywhere from 80-100,000 soldiers.   

 

Let me interrupt you for a second to highlight how bad it was to be in a hospital during this time period.  No one at this time understood the importance of anticeptics or the need to be clean.  The Union Army lost 300,000 lives in combat.  But, they experienced an estimated 6,400,000 cases of illnesses, wound and injuries.  Hospitals were filthy and dangerous places.   

 

For many of those young men, Whitman was the last touch of kindness they would ever experience on this earth.  He said later that those years of hospital service were and I quote, “the greatest privilege and satisfaction..and, of course, the most profound lesson of my life.”  He usually left the hospital at night and slept in a room he rented but if a soldier needed him or asked him to stay, he would often stay up all night with wounded and dying men and then head from the hospital to the office.  Here are his words "While I was with wounded and sick in thousands of cases from the New England States, and from New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and from Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and all the Western States, I was with more or less from all the States, North and South, without exception… "I was with many rebel officers and men among our wounded, and gave them always what I had, and tried to cheer them the same as any. . . . Among the black soldiers, wounded or sick, and in the contraband camps, I also took my way whenever in their neighborhood, and did what I could for them.”   

 

 

Well, let me also say that Washington DC was a nasty place to be living at that time.  Physically, it was a construction zone, nothing like the beautiful collection of buildings and streets designed by the French architect Pierre L Enfant that we see today.   It was muddy; it noisy; it was full of the noises of building and killing.  It was political.  Abraham Lincoln stated that during those days, “If there is a worse place than Hell, I am in it.”   

 

Dang, because DC, the city, was so bad? 

 

Because being president in the Civil War was so bad.  Lincoln had a different view of his role of leadership than most people today understand.  And we need to go back to when he was elected in 1860.  The country was divided- and even if you didn’t believe in slavery, the question of how to get rid of it wasn’t something people agreed on.  Many thought it should just be abolished. Others thought you should just keep it from expanding and let it die slowly.   Lincoln was surrounded by people on all sides who all wanted him to have “bold leadership”- do radical things- whatever those were to them- but Lincoln liked to respond to his critics by referencing an entertainer who was known for tight walking over water.  Sometimes, he even would push a wheelbarrow across these ropes; one time he stopped in the middle of the river to eat an omelete on his tightrope, sometimes he’d carry someone on his back- all crazy stunts that didn’t seem survivable.  Lincoln had seen him perform walking a tight rope across Niagara falls and he thought it was a perfect metaphor for how he saw himself.  Let me quote Lincoln here- the artist went by the name Blondin. Suppose,” Lincoln said, “that all the material values in this great country of ours, from the Atlantic to the Pacific—its wealth, its prosperity, its achievements in the present and its hopes for the future—could all have been concentrated and given to Blondin to carry over that awful crossing.” Suppose “you had been standing upon the shore as he was going over, as he was carefully feeling his way along and balancing his pole with all his most delicate skill over the thundering cataract. Would you have shouted at him, ‘Blondin, a step to the right!’ ‘Blondin, a step to the left!’ or would you have stood there speechless and held your breath and prayed to the Almighty to guide and help him safely through the trial?”    Lincoln saw himself on a tight rope and going too far one way or the other would make the entire thing collapse.  He wasn’t trying to crush and destroy his fellow man, even his Southern brother,  although he was trying to win the war and emancipate the slaves, which he did do.  He was trying to heal a nation- to bring brother back to brother.  And we must never forget that brothers WERE literally killing their brothers.  Uniting and building a country that was this morally divided was a seemingly impossible task- and he could see from his perch in Washington that this was hell. 

 

Whitman would stop to see him going in and out of the White House.  This was in the days when you could do that.  They didn’t even have secret service for the president. Whitman looked at Lincoln and saw sadness in his eyes.  But Whitman always believed Lincoln was the right man.  If anyone could bring America together, it was Lincoln. Lincoln didn’t hate his enemy.  He loved his enemy.  Just like Whitman.  This was the attitude where Whitman saw hope and a future as he sat with both confederate and Union soldier, black soldiers and white soldiers, mending their wounds, writing their final farewells.   

 

But make no mistake, Lincoln was committed to emancipation and as the war came to the end and reconstruction was in sight, he was preparing America to grant full citizenship that included voting rights to All American males- including African-American ones.  In one letter he said, “I am naturally anti-slavery.  If slavery is not wrong; nothing is wrong.  I cannot remember when I did not think so, and feel so”.  

 

And yet this is the same man who could say during his second inaugural address, one month before General Lee will surrender at Appomatox and 41 days before he will be murdered… 

  

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan -- to achieve and cherish a lasting peace among ourselves and with the world. to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with the world. all nations. 

 

There was one man in the crowd that day, who was actually so close to Lincoln he shows up in the inauguaration picture.  This man heard those words and was committed to stopping Lincoln from fulfilling this pledge.  John Wilkes Booth was standing not far from Lincoln that day.  On April 11, what we now know was to be his last speech, Lincoln called for black suffrage.  Booth was in the audience that day as well, after hearing Lincoln make that statement Booth is known to have said, “that is the last speech he will ever make.” 

 

On that fateful day, April 15, 1865 Whitman was visiting his family.  However, his significant other, Peter Doyle was in Washington DC and heard that the president was going to Ford’s theater to see a performance of the comedy “My American Cousin.”  It was Good Friday, the sacred day where Christians celebrate the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.  This is what Peter Doyle  said later about what happened that evening.  

 

I heard that the President and his wife would be present and made up my mind to go. There was a great crowd in the building. I got into the second gallery. There was nothing extraordinary in the performance. I saw everything on the stage and was in a good position to see the President's box. I heard the pistol shot. I had no idea what it was, what it meant—it was sort of muffled. I really knew nothing of what had occurred until Mrs. Lincoln leaned out of the box and cried, "The President is shot!" I needn't tell you what I felt then, or saw. It is all put down in Walt's piece—that piece is exactly right. I saw Booth on the cushion of the box, saw him jump over, saw him catch his foot, which turned, saw him fall on the stage. He got up on his feet, cried out something which I could not hear for the hub-hub and disappeared. I suppose I lingered almost the last person. A soldier came into the gallery, saw me still there, called to me: "Get out of here! we're going to burn this damned building down!" I said: "If that is so I'll get out!"  

 

Whitman used Doyle’s account to help pen the only poem that I know of where Whitman  used traditional poetic forms.  It is an Elegy for the death of Abraham Lincoln, titled “O Captain My Captain”.  He actually wrote two elegies- one speaking for the nation- in the voice of a common sailor- it he wrote in a formal style of poetry acceptable to the people of his day.  The second, in some ways more personal because it is in a style similar to what we see in the rest of Leaves of Grass.  The second poem, When Lilacs …”is often thought be be written after O Captain” Although I’m not sure it is.  It is more epic in its feeling- it uses symbols that are more archetypal and timeless- although that term wasn’t invented in his day.  In O Captain my Captain, Whitman takes on the persona of a soldier, a sailor.  In the second, he uses his own voice- that universal “I” like we see in Song of Myself.  We don’t have time to read the entirely of “O Lilacs When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’ , it has over 200 lines, but we can Read a little bit of it.  Instead we will focus on the only poem anthologized during Whitman’s lifetime- O Captain my Captain. 

 

The one I know from that famous scene in Dead Poet’s Society where the students stand for their fallen teacher, John Keating, immortalized by Robin Williams.  

 

Agreed- I can’t read this poem without thinking of Robin Williams, but we should probably try since we spent quite a bit of time setting up the image of Lincoln.  

 

 

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, 

The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won, 

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, 

While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring; 

                         But O heart! heart! heart! 

                            O the bleeding drops of red, 

                               Where on the deck my Captain lies, 

                                  Fallen cold and dead. 

 

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; 

Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills, 

For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding, 

For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning; 

                         Here Captain! dear father! 

                            This arm beneath your head! 

                               It is some dream that on the deck, 

                                 You’ve fallen cold and dead. 

 

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still, 

My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will, 

The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done, 

From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won; 

                         Exult O shores, and ring O bells! 

                            But I with mournful tread, 

                               Walk the deck my Captain lies, 

                                  Fallen cold and dead. 

 

As we have clearly expressed, Whitman the defender of the common man, does not usually elevate one person over another- but For Lincoln he makes a notable exception.  O Captain my Captain is written from the point of view of an insider. We can imagine a young soldier, a sailor.   He’s on the ship- Of course, the captain is President Lincoln- the ship is the country.  The tone is one of exultation then distress.  We had finished- the fearful trip was done!!!  We had made it then…. 

 

Christy, and it’s important to note that it WAS done.  Lincoln did bring that ship to harbor.  On April 2, right before he died on the 11th The confederacy vacated Richmond.  On April 4, President Lincoln together with his ten year old son Tad walked through the streets and into Jefferson Davis’ office.  “Admiral Porter who was with him had this to say, “No electric wire could have carried the news of the President’s arrival sooner than it was circulated through Richmond.  As far as the eye could see the streets were alive with negroes and poor whites rushing in our direction, and the crowd increased so fast that I had to surround the President with sailors with fixed bayonets to keep them off.  They all wanted to shake hand with Mr. Lincoln or his coat tail or even to kneel and kiss his boots.”  Later on Admiral Porter said this, “I should have preferred to see the President of the United States entering the subjugated stronghold of the rebel with an escort more befitting his high station, yet that would have looked as if he came as a conqueror to exult over a brave but fallen enemy.  He came instead as a peacemaker, his hand extended to all who desired to take it.”  Christy, at one point, it is said that an older African American gentleman bowed before Lincoln and Lincoln went to the man, took him by the hand and raised him up and told him he didn’t need to kneel to anyone, he was a free man.  I cannot imagine the emotion. 

 

And so we try to imagine the emotion – after so much carnage, who could walk the tightright and heal the utter hatred still inherent in the heart of both victor and defeated.  Notice there is meter, each stanza is composed of iambs which may or may not mean anything to you.  It just means there’s a beat- like a drum beat, like a heart beat- “The ship has wethered every rack, the prize we sought is won.  The people are exalting. 

 

But then he dies…in the first two stanzas, the boy addresses the captain as someone still alive, but by the third stanza he has accepted the reality.  And of course, this is exactly has grief strikes.  We never accept it initially, at least I have that problem.  I’ll share my personal experiences in a different episode, but it’s natural.  He says, “Rise up, Father.”  We feel a sense of desperation- the idea- of = no,  no, no, this can’t be happening.  It’s not possible.  Not now. Not after all of this.   But by the third stanza, the sailor unwillingly switches to the third person.  My captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still.”   There is a sense of intimacy, “MY father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will”.  We also see that that formality of the meter breaks down in that last line, “Fallen cold and dead”.  The sailor has broken down.   America is not just devastated because their leader is dead, but they are now vulnerable- what’s going to happen to us.  Who can lead us?  Who can walk the tightrope? 

 

And that of course, is the ultimate tragedy.   We will never know what might have been had he lived to complete his second term, but one statesman grasped fully the tragedy when he predicted that “the development of things will teach us to mourn him doubly.”  And of course he was right, even Jefferson Davis, the leader of the conferederacy, although I point out that Lincoln never one time acknowledged him as preside,  bemoaned Lincoln’s death after losing the war and for good reason.  After Lincoln’’s death, profiteers, corruption and all kinds of chaos descended on America.  Grant, who was a sincere and an incredible advocate for African Americans, was able to defeat the confederate armies but not able to contain the host of corruption that plagued our nation during reconstruction. 

 

And so we end with Whitman’s final poem- his most personal tribute to Lincoln and the one that many consider the better if less famous work, “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom”.  In this poem, Whitman reverts to his usual style of free verse and strong metaphors.  It’s beautiful and for me, it’s where we see the universal truth of lost moral leadership and grief emerge- he expresses loss well beyond the moment of Lincoln.  Let’s read just the first little bit.  It’s long, and references the journey of Lincoln’s casket to its final resting place without ever mentioning Lincoln’s name.  

 

When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d, 

And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night, 

I mourn’d, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring. 

 

Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring, 

Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west, 

And thought of him I love. 

 

2 

O powerful western fallen star! 

O shades of night—O moody, tearful night! 

O great star disappear’d—O the black murk that hides the star! 

O cruel hands that hold me powerless—O helpless soul of me! 

O harsh surrounding cloud that will not free my soul. 

 

There are three big symbols in this poem= the lilacs, the sun and then a bird.  But since we read only the first two stanzas, I want to focus on those.  Lilacs are flowers that have a strong smell and were blooming at the time of Lincoln’s death.  They are beautiful, but they also return every spring.  The star is an obvious symbol for Lincoln.  I want to point out that Whitman never really used stars as positive images for leaders because he didn’t like the idea of a ruler just hoarding over us- but again, in this case, he made an exception.  Lincoln was the powerful star- and of course, we are left to answer, why would a man, so bent on equality of humans, elevate this one man- the only man he would elevate- it wasn’t just because he was the president.  It was because he embodied what a great leader truly was- and this is the nice idea that I think resonates through the ages.   

 

Agreed, average leaders and I will say most leaders give lip service to serving all people, but we can see by their actions, that a lot of that is propaganda.  Most are in it to win it.  It’s easy to get to the top and view oneself as better than the rest of us.  It’s just natural to do what’s best for me or my team, so to speak.  It’s natural to want to put enemies in submission- prove own own power and greatness.  But Lincoln was different- his compassion for his enemy, his unwavering commitment to integrity, his ability to see beyond his current moment, is a star- something that outlasts us all.  The South as well as the North mourned deeply Lincoln’s loss.  The procession described in this poem where the casket was taken from Washington DC back to Illinois was something that had never happened in the history of the United States and has not happened since.   

 

It is a legacy of leadership that Whitman not only admired but also immortalized.  It’s also a legacy that I find inspiring no matter how great or small our little ships are, if we are ever called to be a captain.  It’s something to think about when we smell lilacs in the Spring.  For Whitman every time we smelled those flowers, we grieve, but also we remember- because just as lilacs return every Spring, so does a new opportunity- the end of the Lilac poem looks to the future.  In another of Whitman’s great poems, “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” he says this, “We use you, and do not cast you aside-we plant you 
        permanently within us, 
     We fathom you not-we love you-there is perfection in 
        you also, 
     You furnish your parts toward eternity, 
     Great or small, you furnish your parts toward the soul.” 

It's a nice idea, Lincoln was a man, but for Whitman he embodied an ideal we can all aspire to: integrity, humility, compassion and grace- in defeat and death but also in victory.  Whitman believed in those ideals in leadership- leadership that embraces those things can lead a ship to harbor in scary waters.  Perhaps, when we smell the lilacs, we can be reminded that those ideals are also planted in us.  

 

Thanks for listening.  We hope you enjoyed our discussions of Walt Whitman.  Next episode, we will look farther into the American past to even deeper roots of democracy on the American continent, the Iroquois constitution.  So, thanks for listening, as always please share a link to our podcast to a friend or friends.  Push it out on your social media platforms via twitter, Instagram, facebook or linked in.  Text an episode to a friend, and if you are an educator, visit our website for instructional resources. 

Peace out. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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