ROBERT K . MARTIN
Not I, not anyone else can travel that roadf oryou,
You must travelitf oryourself
I kiss you agood-by kiss.
Long have you timidly waded holding aplank by the shore,
Now I willyou to be a boldswimmer
Toj ump off in the midst of the sea.
..
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Having made love, learned about the world , and then bid the world adieu , he
is calm again , he has found happiness . Characteristically Whitman's image is
physical and sensual :
Wrench 'd and sweaty-calm and cool then my body becomes,
I sleep- I sleep long.
It
is only after the experience of sexual gratification , achieved through the
dream, that the visionary experience becomes possible. It is the euphoria of
the satisfied lover that gives rise to Whitman's poetry of vision-the poems of
realization of unity . Its needs fulfilled , the body expands to encompass the
world , through its physical embodimem of the lover, who in his role as
" other" is the world . One can accept the death of the world only after tran–
scending unitary death, escaping beyond the fear of the' 'little death" into a
realization that all death brings resurrection , that the penis shall indeed rise
again .
Homosexuals are a constant affront to the society , because they demand
to
be defined in terms of their sexuality . The homosexual has no existence as a
group unless it is through sexual preferences and experiences . He cannot be
wished away with the thought that such matters are of no importance , or with
the piety that all human experience is basically similar. Whitman's poetry ,
particularly " Song of Myself, " shows how the poet translates his love for the
world , his cosmic promiscuity , into a myth of the wandering lover seeking his
partners in all places and at all times . The visionary is rooted in the sexual , and
Whitman will not let his root be torn out. He remains what he is for those who
will read him , despite all that has been done to him. He can be secure in the
knowledge he spoke of in' 'Scented herbage ofmy breast" and which we have
seen
to
be fundamental to his other poems as well :
