Whitman, the great poet, has meant so much to me. Whitman,
the one man breaking a way ahead. Whitman, the one pioneer. And only Whitman.
No English pioneers, no French. No European pioneer-poets. In Europe the
would-be pioneers are mere innovators. The same in America. Ahead of Whitman,
nothing. Ahead of all poets, pioneering into the wilderness of unopened life,
Whitman. Beyond him, none. His wide, strange camp at the end of the great
high-road. And lots of new little poets camping on Whitman’s camping ground
now. But none going really beyond. Because Whitman’s camp is at the end of the
road, and on the edge of the precipice. Over the precipice, blue distances, and
the blue hollow of the future. But there is no way down. It is a dead end.
Pisgah. Pisgah sights. And Death. Whitman like a strange,
modern, American Moses. Fearfully mistaken. And yet the great leader.
The essential function of art is moral. Not aesthetic, not
decorative, not pastime and recreation. But moral. The essential function of
art is moral.
But a passionate, implicit morality, not didactic. A
morality which changes the blood, rather than the mind. Changes the blood
first. The mind follows later, in the wake.
Now Whitman was the great moralist. He was a great leader. He was a great changer of the blood in the veins of men.