Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 April 1892 — Walt Whitman. [ARTICLE]

Walt Whitman.

Since the publication of his chief work, ’Leaves of Grass,” in 1855, he has been regarded as one of the brightest stars in our poetical firmament. —Minneapolis Times. He was an American of Americans. He was the friend of Lincoln, and, like Lincoln, he came close to the plain people from whom he and Lincoln sprung. —New York Recorder. The dilettante prettiness of most modern poems was not to his taste. He struck his lyre with his fist at times, instead of his fipger tips, but the music was resonant and will reach posterity.— Nfew York Herald. Walt Whitman’s was a hopely yet lovable character. Within his heart there dwelt a sturdy nobility that was ever asserting itself in his peculiar rhymes. His poetry .was a flexible index to his soul.---Grand Rapids Herald. Uttering his message, convinced of his vocation, aware and awake to his power, he has never faltered. In obscurity and neglect, in poverty and persecution, he has continued true to his own ideals, and held steadily to his own conception of his duty as the chosen priest and poet of democracy.—Philadelphia Press. In his writings he was hampered by no poetic forms of rhythm or meter, but embodied his spontaneous thoughts in the language they suggested io him. Many fine sentiments were embodied even in his "Leaves of Grass,” though it transgressed the sterner proprieties and approached a forbidden realism.— Detroit Free Press. No poet ever wrote more individuality into verse. It was native Yankeeism of a decidedly Whitmanesque species that sprang from his pen. But the inspiration, aside from the revolutionary individuality of the form, touched universal intuitions which found echo in many tongues and climes. —Minneapolis Tribune.