Uttering joyous leaves all its life—without a friend, a lover near—
I know very well I could not!
In a large succession of Whitman's philosophico-political poems he accents the idea of the importance of masculine ties on lines of the old hellenic sort—the Sacred Band—as vital to the State, in the restoration of the true democracy. As in the following:
"I will sing the song of companionship
I believe these are to found their own ideals of manly love.
I will let flame forth from me the burning fires that were
threatening to consume me.
I will lift what has too long kept down these smouldering fires,
I will give them complete abandonment:
I will write the evangel-poem of comrades and of love.
For who but I should understand love, with all its sorrow and joy?
And who but I should be the poet of comrades?"
"I dreamed in a dream I saw a city, invincible to the attacks of
the whole earth.
I dreamed that that was the new city of Friends.
Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust love—it led
the rest.
It was seen every hour in the actions of men,
And in all their looks and words."
"… I believe the main purport of these States is to found a superb
friendship, exaltée, previously unknown;
Because I perceive it waits, and always has been waiting, latent in
all men."
"… Come, I will make the continent indissoluble,
I will make the most splendid race the sun ever shone upon,
I will make divine, magnetic lands,
With the love-of comrades,
With the life-long love of comrades!"
"… Far, far in the forest, or sauntering later in summer, before
I think where I go—
O, here I last saw him that tenderly loves me, and returns again,
never to separate from me."
— 380 —
