perpetual illumination and spiritual equilibrium. However, even as the
persona prepares to depart on Death’s glorious voyage—in this matchless
exercise of wish ful¤llment—he still reveals a need to reassure himself
that his conjectures are valid and that the projected “journey” will be
“safe.”
Sail forth—steer for deep waters only,
Reckless O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me,
For we are bound to where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.O my brave soul!
O farther farther sail!
O daring joy, but safe! Are they not all seas of God?
O farther, farther, farther sail!The mystic faith that pervades “Passage to India” does not settle the
questions of whether the persona’s visionary journey to attain wisdom
and holiness is feasible or where it may ultimately lead.^21 But there can be
little doubt that the very act of contemplating this glorious possibility—
even with the goal uncertain and his faith subject to moments of doubt—
provided Whitman with comfort and a profound sense of satisfaction.
2
In the mid-1870s Whitman composed four poetic testaments of faith in
which death is the central element. “Song of the Redwood-Tree” (1873)
and “Prayer of Columbus” (1874) are, in effect, companion pieces that
dramatize the persona’s patient and heroic readiness for death. Each fea-
tures a transparent Whitman surrogate who, on the brink of death, envi-
sions what his life and his death will have contributed to the future of
mankind. The lyrical and affecting “Song of the Universal” (1874) and the
abstruse “Eidòlons” (1876) constitute the most sustained expressions of
philosophical idealism in all of Leaves of Grass.
The ambitious and supple “Song of the Redwood-Tree” incorporates
two bravura “arias” in which a dryad of the world’s most magni¤cent tree
species—the persona’s thinly veiled alter ego—chants its readiness to die,
216 / “Sweet, Peaceful, Welcome Death”