Whitman’s Wisdom

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 200^th 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.