common folk, persuading them that their lives and their deaths can
be meaningful and satisfying and that he sees auguries of universal im-
mortality throughout the visible world. The crown jewel of the edition,
“Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” is the only extended depiction of the persona
as an all-seeing, all-empathizing postmortal being, dwelling in a mythical
hereafter, endowed with heightened powers of sympathy that bind him
to the living and afforded a superior view of the orderly workings of the
universal law. (Other poems, notably “So Long!” [1860] and “Passage to
India” [1871], depict varied but wishful versions of the persona’s happy
existence in a postmortal state.) Indicative, however, of Whitman’s vacil-
lations concerning death and immortality, the original version of “Cross-
ing Brooklyn Ferry” reveals the persona undergoing a crisis of faith in
which he questions his own certainty that there may exist a meaningful
life beyond death. And another 1856 poem, “This Compost,” depicts a
traumatic crisis of faith that is seemingly resolved by an epiphanic vision
of universal goodness and continuity and followed by a strong af¤rmation
of immortality. The 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass is replete with such
af¤rmations of immortality, even though two of its masterpieces—“Out
of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking” and “As I Ebb’d with the Ocean of
Life”—also re®ect deep crises of faith in which the persona questions his
ability to perceive an orderly universe and to interpret life and death.
However, in both poems, the episodes of personal crisis are momentarily
resolved by mystic signals from the heart of nature—a pattern found in
several poems. But they leave unresolved the question: To what extent are
these crises literary strategies to re®ect the triumph of faith over doubt,
and to what extent do they re®ect Whitman’s genuine crises of belief?
Drum-Taps, the elegant poetic record of Whitman’s witnessing of so
many deaths on the battle¤elds and in the hospitals and his empathetic
involvement with the dying soldiers, chie®y focuses on the grim reality of
death and dying as the central realities of the war. Whitman stresses the
fact that the soldiers whom he witnessed died calmly, even serenely, per-
haps to illustrate that dying is essentially devoid of terror. Few of the
poems describe his agonized reactions to these fatalities, and relatively
few declare that the dead soldiers are immortal, or they only suggest it
vaguely and by indirection. And although many of the postwar poems
celebrate the impending journey to a mystic beyond, some resonate with
the subdued cries of pain. Thus even “Passage to India” and “Prayer of
Columbus,” which voice the persona’s eager readiness for death, incorpo-
24 / Introduction