By a coincidence, perhaps not quite unintentional, an American poet of the immediate day, W. E. Davenport, who follows the verse-structure (or no-structure) of Whitman, lately published in a leading New York magazine an hellenic vignette "The Parting" that might have been written by the youth-adoring Whitman himself. It seems to be an Italian reminiscence:
"After so much of, art, pictures, statues, rich and towering churches,
And nature's infinite splendid sights, my South-Italian mountain-towns—Agnone, Sala, Acri and Cosenza—
Sticks in my mind one simple scene, of cheerful, fond intent—befitting not the expense of many lines:
A teacher scarcely old, a traveler, seer of sights and observer of men and their ways,
By a group of youths at eve in the open street surrounded.
Of these—their pleased looks, their manners, easy, free, full of cheerful resolve;
Their wit, brightness, mirth, courtesy, confidence, outstreched hands, with or without words—
And he, the elder, pleased just as much, easy and confident as they—
Toward dusk in the street, before the hotel, bidding good-by;
Saying only, "Good-night, good-night, we shall see each other again."
American Verse
of the Day.
Several contemporary poets of the United states, older and younger, have interjected the accent of at least psychic uranianism in their verses, though none known to the present writer approach Whitman in loftiness, directness and clarity. Professor George E. Woodberry, of Columbia University, is the authour of a long elegy, giving title to a volume, "The North-Shore Watch;" a retrospect and lament inspired by the death of a lad—a poem hellenically passional, and of superiour poetic quality. Noticeable, passim, is also the poetry frequently tending to the sort of psychology here in question (though unequal in inspiration) by the Canadian-American, Bliss Carman.
Suggestions in
American Prose.
In prose, as in verse, of American origin, the connection between the addresses
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