incognita as his precursors who dreamt of “crossing all seas” and who
readied the way for the momentous voyage of his soul. Their exploits, like
his own, he concludes, have conformed to a cosmic plan, a “purpose vast,”
which is not yet understood. Contemplating the world’s “vast Rondure,
swimming in space,” he senses that he is on the verge of discovering
some “inscrutable purpose, some hidden prophetic intention” that gov-
erns the universe. In this moment of inspired musing, when the seas
“seem already cross’d” and the universe begins to appear almost intelligible,
he feels con¤dent of his honorable place in the succession of visionaries
and poets.
From the poem’s beginning, the persona is drawn to the “India” of his
soul’s desiring with its imagined “Towers of fables immortal fashion’d
from mortal dreams!”—“fables spurning the known, eluding the hold of
the known, mounting to heaven!” In Whitman’s customary usage the
words fable and myth are often interchangeable with the word faith; and
thus the poem’s reference to “fables immortal” can perhaps be translated
as “faith in immortality.” In an anthropocentric way, Whitman envisions
an ideal future that is “fashion’d from” his own “mortal dreams.” To the
“never-happy hearts” of the world’s men and women who have become
immiserated by their dif¤cult lives on this seemingly “unloving earth,”
this “cold earth, the place of graves,” he offers his bardic visions of ame-
lioration. Like Democratic Vistas, which predicts that a class of inspired
literati will lead America into a wholesome democratic future, “Passage
to India” proclaims that “Finally shall come the poet worthy of that
name, / The true son of God shall come singing his songs.” Thereafter,
“Nature and Man shall be disjoin’d and diffused no more, / The true son
of God shall absolutely fuse them.” Anticipating his self-portrait as a
tragic Columbus ¤gure in “Prayer of Columbus” (1874), “Passage to In-
dia” sketches a Whitmanlike Columbus who is scorned, poor, and facing
death, but who is certain that his faith and prophecy will be justi¤ed
“centuries after thou art laid in thy grave”:
(Curious in time I stand, noting the efforts of heroes,
Is the deferment long? bitter the slander, poverty, death?
Lies the seed unreck’d for centuries in the ground? lo, to God’s
due occasion,
Uprising in the night, it sprouts, blooms,
And ¤lls the earth with use and beauty.)“Sweet, Peaceful, Welcome Death” / 213