His spirit appears to be impelled on its perpetual journey to divinity by
an urge that is reminiscent of Saint Augustine’s dictum that God had so
made humanity that “the inherent gravitation of our being is toward
Him.”^66 But because he wants to be seen as a feisty American democrat,
the persona boasts that he (or his perfected self) will agree to meet God
only as an equal. A fragmentary notebook entry reads: “If I walk with Jah
[sic] in Heaven and he assume to be intrinsically greater than I it offends
me, and I shall certainly withdraw from Heaven—for the soul prefers
freedom in the prairie or the untrodden woods—and there can be no
freedom where.. .” (here the entry breaks off). Even if he were to be-
come God and master of the known universe, he boasts, he would not
be satis¤ed with that status but would aspire higher still.^67 Like Moses
glimpsing the Promised Land, the unquenchable persona ascends a hill
to catch a Pisgah-sight of the eternal life to which he aspires.
And I said to my spirit, When we become the enfolders of those
orbs and the pleasure and knowledge of every thing in them,
shall we be ¤lled and satis¤ed then?To which his spirit replies in a quaint ¤gure of speech, “No, we level that
lift and pass and continue beyond.” This oddly mechanical image seems
to depict the persona’s soul being hoisted through the in¤nite spheres by
means of a block and tackle (a reminder that Whitman was involved in
house building in the 1850s) or, alternatively, that his spirit will be hoisted
through the spheres by a “lift”! (A prototype steam-driven elevator was
exhibited at the Crystal Palace during the 1853 World’s Fair in New York
City.) On the Romantic assumption that unsophisticated minds are natu-
rally attracted to the truth, the priestly persona appears con¤dent that
children and “roughs,” mothers, and laborers are best attuned to the gos-
pel embodied in Leaves of Grass. To illustrate this principle, he offers his
“dear son”—presumably a representative disciple, one of the common
people—his scriptural Bread of Life, saying, “Here are biscuits to eat and
here is milk to drink.” And he challenges this young precursor of future
generations to be a “bold swimmer” and thus to overmatch him. Unfor-
tunately, the natatorial metaphor loses some of its force when we recall
that Whitman himself was a weak swimmer whose specialty, he admitted,
was ®oating.
“Triumphal Drums for the Dead” / 67