So Long! Walt Whitman's Poetry of Death

men, and bards. In view of the declaration in the 1855 preface that the old
order of priests and prophets is destined to be succeeded in America by
an order of poets it is hardly surprising that “Salut au Monde!” should
depict “the succession of priests on the earth”—the “avatars in human
form” in whose line of succession the persona has positioned himself as
an oracle and “exhorter.” His images of the tragic deaths of the young,
manly gods—avatars all—are particularly poignant.

I see the place of the idea of the Deity incarnated by the

avatars in human form,

I see the spots of the successions of priests on the earth,

oracles, sacri¤cers, brahmins, sabians, llamas [sic], monks,

muftis, exhorters,

I see where druids walked in 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 signi¤ers.^19

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 young man, the Hercules, toiled

faithfully and long, and then died,

I see the place of the innocent rich life and hapless fate of

the 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.

The tragic deaths of these ancient gods pre¤gure their resurrection. Christ,
at his last supper, awaiting the death that will translate him from Man to
Living God, appears, surrounded by his disciples, in a tableau possibly
inspired by Bertel Thorvaldsen’s impressive statuary group Christ and His
Apostles, to which Whitman was strongly attracted when it was shown

112 / “The Progress of Souls”