It is probably partly because his field is so large, his demands so exacting, his method so new (necessarily so), and from the whole standard of the poems being what I may call an astronomical one, that the critics complain so generally of want of form in him.  And the critics are right enough, as far as their objection goes.  There is no deliberate form here, any more than there is in the forces of nature.  Shall we say, then, that nothing but the void exists?  The void is filled by a Presence.  There is a controlling, directing, overarching will in every page, every verse, that there is no escape from.  Design and purpose, natural selection, growth, culmination, are just as pronounced as in any poet.

There is a want of form in the unfinished statue, because it is struggling into form; it is nothing without form; but there is no want of form in the elemental laws and effusions,—­in fire, or water, or rain, or dew, or the smell of the shore or the plunging waves.  And may there not be the analogue of this in literature,—­a potent, quickening, exhilarating quality in words, apart from and without any consideration of constructive form?  Under the influence of the expansive, creative force that plays upon me from these pages, like sunlight or gravitation, the question of form never comes up, because I do not for one moment escape the eye, the source from which the power and action emanate.

I know that Walt Whitman has written many passages with reference far more to their position, interpretation, and scanning ages hence, than for current reading.  Much of his material is too near us; it needs time.  Seen through the vista of long years, perhaps centuries, it will assume quite different hues.  Perhaps those long lists of trades, tools, and occupations would not be so repellent if we could read them, as we read Homer’s catalogue of the ships, through the retrospect of ages.  They are justified in the poem aside from their historic value, because they are alive and full of action,—­panoramas of the whole mechanical and industrial life of America, north, east, south, west,—­bits of scenery, bird’s-eye views, glimpses of moving figures, caught as by a flash, characteristic touches indoors and out, all passing in quick succession before you.  They have in the fullest measure what Lessing demands in poetry,—­the quality of ebbing and flowing action, as distinct from the dead water of description; they are thoroughly dramatic, fused, pliant, and obedient to the poet’s will.  No glamour is thrown over them, no wash of sentiment; and if they have not the charm of novelty and distance, why, that is an accident that bars them in a measure to us, but not to the future.  Very frequently in these lists or enumerations of objects, actions, shows, there are sure to occur lines of perfect description:—­