terms in Whitman’s writings), maintaining that the “in¤nite process” of
immortality “is possible only if we presuppose that the existence of a ra-
tional being is prolonged to in¤nity, and that he retains his personality for
all time. That is what we mean by the immortality of the soul. The high-
est good is therefore practically possible, only if we presuppose the im-
mortality of the soul. Thus immortality is inseparably bound up with the
moral law.”^76 And of course, Whitman does presuppose the immortality
of the soul.
But as he concludes his hopeful gospel, the persona remains painfully
aware that he can offer his “brothers and sisters” only “outlines,” or what
he elsewhere calls “faint clews and indirections.” His animated tone re-
veals that he is still frustrated by an incomplete understanding of death
and by his inability to explain its meaning. But having tested, in what he
famously called his “language experiment,” the power of human speech
to convey his intimations concerning life and death, he sticks to what he
feels must be so—his faith in the cycles of eternal renewal and advance-
ment, con¤rmed both by his worldly experience and by his moments of
mystical illumination. After all, why should one so convinced of his di-
vine selfhood, one whose faith “swings on more than the earth I swing
on,” be stymied by the inadequacy of language to convey intangible ideas?
Why should he be vexed by the limitations of mortal argument? “Song
of Myself” was designed to inspire its readers with an awareness that im-
mortality and a purposeful universe are as real as the events in their daily
lives. And Whitman’s satisfaction with having ful¤lled his mission as well
as any mortal poet can do is expressed in his seemingly ®ippant, but
deadly serious, disclaimer: “Do I contradict myself? / Very well then...
I contradict myself; / I am large... I contain multitudes.” He refuses to
be judged by conventional logic or by the limitations inherent in lan-
guage. Looking back on his masterpiece after a score of years, Whitman
declared that “in certain parts, in these ®ights... I have not been afraid
of the charge of obscurity... because human thought must leave dim
escapes and outlets.” Through all his trials, as Ivan Marki observes, Whit-
man kept his faith and never compromised his identity.^77
In sections 51 and 52, which conclude the poem, the persona takes his
¤nal leave of the reader and embarks on the mystic road that will lead
him to “the next fold of the future.” As he does in the rousing ending of
“Song of the Open Road” (1856), he sounds a call for companions to join
him along the uncharted path that he is about to follow, hailing the “lis-
“Triumphal Drums for the Dead” / 73