Monday evening I
attended a performance by Shakespearean actor Stephen Collins at the
Moultonborough Public Library. It was a one-hour, one man play entitled “Unlaunch’d
Voices: An Evening with Walt Whitman,” written by Michael Z. Keamy, and
sponsored by the New Hampshire Humanities. It was a magnificent performance.
I have loved Whitman’s Leaves
of Grass, ever since first reading it in Poetry Club at Tilton School over
fifty years ago. To enter into the living presence of the poet on the 200th
anniversary of his birth was a joy. He was truly a man ahead of his time.
Near the end of the play there is a monologue that captures
the poet’s philosophy of life. I am not sure how many of these words are
Whitman’s own and how many are the playwright’s thoughts placed in the poet’s
mouth. (I suspect mostly the latter.) In either case they catch the spirit of
the man, and they intrigued me enough to share them here:
Love the
earth and sun and the animals.
Despise
riches.
Give alms to
everyone that asks.
Stand up for
the stupid and crazy.
Devote your
labor and income to others.
Hate tyrants.
Argue not
concerning God.
Have
patience and indulgence toward the people.
Take off
your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men.
Go freely
with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of
families.
Read these
leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life.
Re-examine
all you have been told at school or church or in any book.
Dismiss
whatever insults your own soul.
And your
very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its
words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of
your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment