Whitman and Discussion Section

Last week we read two short poems by Walt Whitman:

HALCYON DAYS.
Not from successful love alone,
Nor wealth, nor honored middle age, nor victories of politics or war.

But as life wanes, and all the turbulent passions calm,

As gorgeous, vapory, silent hues cover the evening sky,

As softness, fulness, rest, suffuse the spirit and frame like freshier, balmier air;

As the days take on a mellower light, and the apple at last hangs

really finished and indolent ripe on the tree,

Then for the teeming quietest, happiest days of all!

The brooding and blissful halcyon days!

AMERICA.
Centre of equal daughters, equal sons,

All, all alike endear'd, grown, ungrown, young or old,

Strong, ample, fair, enduring, capable, rich,

Perennial with the Earth, with Freedom, Law and Love,

A grand, sane, towering, seated Mother,

Chair'd in the adamant of Time.

I think (and my students agreed) that this captures the possible problems with democracy (that John Stuart Mill also saw)--the rise of individualism, the reign of mediocrity, etc. Actually, what I think Whitman is really fruitful in relation to is Tocqueville's thoughts on the possibility for quietude in the democratic age. Suddenly, the halcyon days become an undesirable and boring thing (as both my classes pointed out).