Walt Whitman was a highly influential American poet
and a key member of the transcendentalist movement, along with contemporaries Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David
Thoreau. Although he rarely specifies the term ‘universal
brotherhood’, a democratic spirit of liberty, fraternity, and equality pervades
the poetry of Walt Whitman with a warm-hearted, inclusive, all-embracing cosmopolitan
sense of friendship and comradery.
Moreover, his
desire to express a sense of the world’s holistic unity by praising the
extensive diversity that underlies it is a distinctive feature of his writing.
Furthermore, his monistic view has a deep sense of a pervasive spiritual
essence that embraces and inter-connects everything. Hence humanity is a
wonderfully diverse, inter-dependent unity and by sensing the macrocosm that is
reflected in the microcosm of one’s inner being, Whitman, with a joyful sense
of wonder, is constantly inspired to describe the transcendent unity that
unites us all together in the kaleidoscopic variety of nature and society,
past, present and future.
Salut au Monde!
(Greetings to the World!), Leaves of Grass (1892) is perhaps one of his more
concerted efforts at expressing his notion of universal brotherhood, of which
some key extracts are presented below.
Within me
latitude widens, longitude lengthens,
Asia, Africa,
Europe, are to the east—
America is provided
for in the west,
Banding the bulge of the earth winds the hot equator,
Curiously north
and south turn the axis-ends;
Within me is
the longest day—the sun wheels in slanting rings—
it does not set
for months,
Stretched in
due time within me the midnight sun
just rises above the horizon, and sinks again,
just rises above the horizon, and sinks again,
Within me
zones, seas, cataracts, plains, volcanoes, groups,
Oceanica,
Australasia, Polynesia, and the great West
Indian islands. (2)
Indian islands. (2)
I hear the
Hebrew reading his records and psalms,
I hear the
rhythmic myths of the Greeks,
and the strong
legends of the Romans,
I hear the tale
of the divine life and bloody death
of the beautiful God, the Christ,
of the beautiful God, the Christ,
I hear the
Hindoo teaching his favorite pupil the loves, wars, adages,
transmitted
safely to this day from poets who wrote three thousand years ago. (3)
I see the spots
of the successions of priests on the earth
—oracles, sacrificers, brahmins, sabians, lamas,monks, muftis, exhorters;
—oracles, sacrificers, brahmins, sabians, lamas,monks, muftis, exhorters;
I see where
druids walked the groves of Mona—
I see the
mistletoe and vervain,
I see the
temples of the deaths of the bodies of Gods—
I see the old signifiers.
I see the old signifiers.
I see Christ
once more eating the bread of his last supper,
in the midst of
youths and old persons,
I see where the
strong divine young man, the Hercules,
toiled faithfully and long, and then died,
toiled faithfully and long, and then died,
I see the place
of the innocent rich life and hapless
fate of the beautiful nocturnal son, the full-limbed Bacchus,
fate of the beautiful nocturnal son, the full-limbed Bacchus,
I see Kneph, blooming, dressed in blue,
with the crown of
feathers on his head,
I see Hermes,
unsuspected, dying, well-beloved, saying to the people,
Do not weep
for me,
This is not
my true country,
I have
lived banished from my true country—I now go back there,
I return to
the celestial sphere, where every one goes in his turn. (6)
I see the
cities of the earth,
and make myself
at random a part of them, (9)
I see male and
female everywhere,
I see the
serene brotherhood of philosophs,
I see the
constructiveness of my race,
I see the
results of the perseverance and industry of my race,
I see ranks,
colors, barbarisms, civilizations—
I go among
them—I mix indiscriminately,
And I salute
all the inhabitants of the earth. (10)
And you, each
and everywhere, whom I specify not,
but include just the same!
but include just the same!
Health to you!
Good will to you all—from me and America sent,
For we acknowledge
you all and each.
Each of us
inevitable,
Each of us
limitless—each of us with his or her right upon the earth,
Each of us
allowed the eternal purport of the earth,
Each of us here
as divinely as any is here. (11)
I have looked
for equals and lovers,
and found them ready
for me in all lands;
I think some
divine rapport has equalized me with them.
Salut au
Monde!
What cities the
light or warmth penetrates,
I penetrate
those cities myself,
All islands to which birds wing their way,
I wing my way
myself.
Toward all, I
raise high the perpendicular hand—I make the signal,
To remain after
me in sight forever,
For all the
haunts and homes of men. (13)
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