Original subtitles

Downloaded from YTS.MX

Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX

- [Andrew] On the beach at night alone,

as the old mother sways her to

and fro singing her husky song,

as I watch the bright stars shining,

I think a thought of the clef of the universes

and of the future.

All identities that have existed

or may exist on this globe, or any globe,

All lives and deaths, all of the past, present, future.

This vast similitude spans them, and always has spanned,

And shall forever span them

and compactly hold and enclose them.

(light orchestral music)

- [Andrew] On the night the Civil War began,

Walt Whitman wrote in his autobiography--

- [Walt] "I had been to the opera in 14th street

"that night, and after the performance,

"was walking down Broadway toward 12 o'clock,

"on my way to Brooklyn,

"when I heard in the distance the loud cries

"of the newsboys, who came presently tearing

"and yelling up the street, I bought an extra and,

"with a small crowd of others, who gathered impromptu,

"read the news, which was evidently authentic,

"one of us read the telegram aloud,

"while all listened silently and attentively.

"No remark was made by any of the crowd,

"which had increased to 30 or 40,

"but all stood a minute or two,

"I remember before they dispersed."

(upbeat piano music) (explosion booming)

- [Andrew] Following the bombardment at Fort Sumter,

when Confederate forces opened fire

on the federal military installation in Charleston,

South Carolina's harbor, war fever gripped the country.

In the spring of 1861, President Abraham Lincoln

called for 75,000 new soldiers to put down the rebellion.

Nearly everyone thought the war would be brief.

New recruits came from towns and cities across the country.

Crowds gathered to cheer the soldiers going off to war.

The wave of patriotism also swept up Whitman,

who wrote a poem about war's "ruthless force"

that seizes people from their peacetime activities:

(grand orchestral music)

- [Walt] Beat, beat drums!

Blow, bugles, blow!

Through the windows, through doors,

burst like a ruthless force,

into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation,

into the school where the scholar is studying;

Leave not the bridegroom quiet, no happiness

must he have now with his bride,

nor the peaceful farmer any peace,

ploughing his field or gathering his grain,

so fierce you whir and pound you drums

so shrill you bugles blow.

Beat, beat, drums!

Blow, bugles, blow!

Over the traffic of cities, over the rumble

of wheels in the streets.

Are beds prepared for sleepers at night in the houses?

No sleepers must sleep in those beds,

no bargainers' bargains by day,

no brokers or speculators, would they continue?

Would the talkers be talking?

Would the singer attempt to sing?

Would the lawyer rise in the court

to state his case before the judge?

Then rattle quicker, heavier drums, you bugles wilder blow.

- Walt's brother George enlisted

in the 51st New York Regiment.

Originally signing on for 100 days,

he would end up serving four years fighting

in some of the most important and bloody battles

of the war, even spending months

as a malnourished prisoner of war.

But the family was not about to have another son

go off to war.

To procure a substitute for Jeff, the Whitman family

came up with the needed $300 for a substitute.

Before the Civil War, Whitman volunteered

at a New York hospital tending to sick

and injured stagecoach drivers.

He was friends with many, who had nicknames

like Broadway Jack, Balky Bill, and Yellow Joe.

But by the spring of 1862,

he was also nursing injured soldiers.

As the months wore on, it became clear

that this would not be a brief war with an easy victory.

One morning in December 1862,

Whitman sat down to read the newspaper

at his home in Brooklyn.

What he was about to read would

alter the course of his life.

The New York Herald listed the names

of wounded Union soldiers in the battle

of Fredericksburg in Virginia.

Walt saw his brother's name George on the list.

The battle had been a calamitous loss for the Union army.

He knew he had to visit his brother

and help in any way he could.

Within hours, he boarded a train to Washington DC.

But when changing trains in Philadelphia,

he was robbed and arrived in Washington penniless

in a city he had never been to before.

He wrote his mother:

- [Walt] "Dear Mother,

"As to me, I know I put in about three days

"of the greatest suffering I ever experienced in my life.

"I wrote to Jeff how I had my pocket picked

"in a jam and hurry, changing cars at Philadelphia,

"so that I landed here without a dime.

"The next two days I spent hunting through the hospitals,

"walking all day and night, unable to ride,

"trying to get information,

"trying to get access to big people,

"I could not get the least clue to anything.

"By Thursday afternoon I lit on a way

"to get down on the government boat that runs to Aqui creek.

"When I found dear brother George,

"and found that he was alive and well,

"Oh, you may imagine how trifling all my little cares

"and difficulties seemed, they vanished into nothing."

- [Andrew] For over a week, Walt shared George's tent

and saw first hand the carnage of battle.

- [Walt] "It is pretty cold.

"The ground is frozen hard, and there is occasional snow.

"I go around from one case to another.

"I do not see that I do much good but I cannot leave them.

"Once in a while some youngster holds on to me convulsively,

"and I do what I can for him.

"At any rate, stop with him and sit near him for hours,

"if he wishes it."

- [Andrew] Witnessing the destruction of war,

he wrote the poem,

"A Sight In Camp In The Daybreak Gray And Dim"

(dramatic orchestral music)

- [Walt] A sight in camp in the daybreak gray and dim,

as from my tent I emerge so early sleepless,

as slow I walk in the cool fresh air

the path near by the hospital tent.

Three forms I see on stretchers lying,

brought out there untended lying,

Over each the blanket spread, ample brownish woolen blanket.

Gray and heavy blanket, folding, covering all.

Curious I halt and silent stand,

Then with light fingers I from the face

of the nearest the first just lift the blanket.

Who are you elderly man so gaunt and grim, with well,

gray'd hair, and flesh all sunken about the eyes?

Who are you my dear comrade?

Then to the second I step,

and who are you my child and darling?

Who are you sweet boy with cheeks yet blooming?

Then to the third, a face nor child nor old,

very calm, as of beautiful yellow-white ivory.

Young man I think I know you, I think this face

is the face of the Christ himself,

dead and divine and brother of all, and here again he lies.

- But Walt also discovered a camaraderie

among the men that he wanted to celebrate in his poetry.

After eight days, Walt left George

and the military camp to return to Washington.

He intended to stay

for just a brief time before heading back to New York.

But when he arrived in DC and witnessed the plight

of so many other sick and injured soldiers,

he could not leave them.

He knew he had to stay in Washington

and do what he could to help them.

Whitman's good friend William Douglas O'Connor,

whom Walt met in the publishing office in Boston,

found a room for Walt on the second floor

of a house that once stood here.

O'Connor and his family lived on the third floor.

Walt would often visit them.

Some days Walt would see Abraham Lincoln

riding here on Vermont Avenue with his military entourage

going to or from the Soldier's Home,

where he spent about one-quarter of his presidency.

Walt wrote in his autobiography that he and Lincoln

would sometimes exchange cordial bows

and that he perceived in Lincoln's eyes a deep sadness.

With help from a friend, Walt secured part-time

work at the Army Paymaster's Office.

Most days, after finishing work,

Walt returned home to bathe and change clothes.

He then visited one of the hospitals

to tend to the sick and injured soldiers.

The Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum,

one of the most popular tourist attractions in the nation.

But what many of these tourists may not know

is that this was once the site of

Armory Square Hospital,

the largest Civil War hospital in Washington.

Over three years, this hospital

served more than 13,000 sick and injured soldiers.

It even had its own weekly newspaper,

the Armory Square Hospital Gazette, which Walt wrote for.

Whitman made more visits to this hospital than to any other.

He wrote to his mother:

- [Walt] "I devote myself much to Armory Square Hospital

"because it contains by far the worst cases,

"most repulsive wounds, has the most suffering,

"and most need of consolation,

"I go every day without fail and often at night,

"sometimes stay very late, no one interferes with me,

"guards, doctors, nurses, nor any one,

"I am left to take my own course."

- [Andrew] When Walt visited the hospitals,

he would often jot down notes in a small book.

These notes became the basis

for his later book "Memoranda During the War."

(light piano music)

- [Walt] "Thursday, January 21, 1863:

"Devoted the main part of the day to Armory Square Hospital;

"went pretty thoroughly through Wards F, G, H, and I;

"some 50 cases in each ward.

"In ward F supplied the men throughout

"with writing paper and stamped envelope each;

"distributed in small portions, to proper subjects,

"a large jar of first-rate preserved berries,

"which has been donated to me by a lady, her own cooking.

"Found several cases I thought good subjects

"for small sums of money, which I furnished.

"Wednesday, February 4, 1863:

"In one case, the wife stays by the side of her husband,

"his sickness, typhoid fever, pretty bad.

"In another, by the side of her son, a mother,

"she told me she had seven children,

"and this was the youngest."

- [Andrew] He called the injured soldiers

"my own children or younger brothers."

After the war, one ex-soldier asked Walt

to send him his poems.

- [Man] For I always enjoyed them so much

when you read them

to me in old Ward A.

- Walt was a deeply deeply compassionate

and empathetic person, and I think he was so moved by that

and it comes out in his poetry, absolutely.

You see him just connecting with people

and this is, by the way, he's an introvert.

And yet just to sit down and listen to a person

or to understand the suffering that they're going through,

he immediately would just empathize with people,

and I think he was, he really picked out

a good role for himself

and it really certainly gave him a direction.

For a person, who for much of his life

had been fairly directionless

suddenly doing these,

for the next three years, hospital visits,

really gave him a purpose

that he would not have found otherwise.

- [Andrew] There were times when if Walt

saw an amputation was not needed, he intervened.

A newspaper after the war quoted a grateful Union

army veteran saying about Walt--

- [Man] "This is the leg that man saved for me."

- [Andrew] Walt described caring for the soldiers

in his poem "The Wound-Dresser."

(dramatic orchestral music)

- [Walt] Bearing the bandages, water and sponge,

Straight and swift to my wounded I go,

Where they lie on the ground after the battle brought in,

Where their priceless blood reddens the grass the ground,

or to the rows of the hospital tent,

or under the roofed hospital,

to the long rows of cots up and down each side I return,

to each, and all one after another I draw near,

not one do I miss.

An attendant follows holding a tray,

he carries a refuse pail

soon to be filled with clotted rags and blood,

emptied, and filled again.

I onward go, I stop,

with hinged knees and steady hand to dress wounds,

I am firm with each, the pangs are sharp yet unavoidable.

One turns to me his appealing eyes, poor boy!

I never knew you,

yet I think I could not refuse this moment

to die for you, if that would save you.

- He was afraid, as he says early in the poem

people would forget what happened after the war.

So, the war ended in April,

so he's still tending to soldiers through December

because there's still hospitals there with wounded.

But meanwhile reconstruction's going and people are happy

and complains about their cheer

and moneymaking, and that they're gonna lose

the lessons of the war.

So, he uses the children as the future apparently.

The young ones, in order to say

here's what you should remember about the war, America.

But he writes about the horror

of what the soldiers went through

and describing them.

And that was not considered proper poetic material

as some of the realists like young Henry James

slammed the poem for writing

material that was not poetic material,

wasn't language, it was also experiences

that you did or didn't write about,

that were or were not poetry,

were or were not art at the time.

So Whitman opened all that up to art as well.

It's another of his achievements.

(dramatic orchestral music)

- [Walt] Thus in silence in dreams' projections,

returning, resuming, I thread my way through the hospitals.

The hurt and wounded I pacify with soothing hand,

I sit by the restless all the dark night, some are so young.

Some suffer so much, I recall the experience sweet and sad.

- [Andrew] Walt raised funds

to distribute gifts to the soldiers.

In a letter to a donor, he wrote--

- [Walt] "I always carry a haversack

"with some articles most wanted,

"I distribute nice large biscuits, sweet crackers,

"peaches with sugar, give preserves of all kinds,

"oysters, wine, brandy, pickles, letter-stamps,

"envelopes and note paper, the morning papers,

"socks, and 50 other things,

"I have lots of special little requests.

"Frequently I give small sums of money,

"shall do so with your brother's contribution,

"the wounded are very frequently brought

"and lay here a long while without a cent,

"lads of 15 or 16 more frequent than you have any idea."

- [Andrew] In a letter to his sister-in-law Mattie,

Walt described one young soldier

who was very sick yet received no medical attention.

- [Walt] "He seemed to have entirely given up,

"and lost heart, he had not a cent of money,

"not a friend or acquaintance."

- [Andrew] Walt gave him some money to buy milk.

- [Walt] "Trifling as this was,

"he was overcome and began to cry."

- The effect ultimately was a morale booster.

Everyone needs a friend,

especially considering these young men,

most of them are farm boys.

This is the biggest adventure of their life,

the first time they've ever left home.

And considering, okay, now you're wondering

and you've been sent off to some strange army hospital

and you don't know anyone at all.

You're impressionable and that's a little scary.

And so in comes this kindly deeply empathetic man

who immediately wants to be your friend

and that has a big morale impact on people.

People wanna know that someone cares about them

and Walt really really demonstrated that

on all of them.

And you see that in the letters.

I mean, how many letters he wrote for soldiers.

Most of the soldiers were literate,

however those who were getting to the point

where they were gonna be dying

and they just got too weak where they couldn't,

that's where Walt would step in and write a letter for them.

And those are some of the most tear-jerking letters

that you can read about that Walt Whitman has written.

And they made a big impact on the soldiers

and on their families as well.

So, and many of the soldiers, of course,

stayed friends with him.

I mean, people wrote him for decades afterwards,

remembering that he was their friend in the hospitals,

at a time when they really really needed friend,

Walt provided that.

- [Andrew] In the hospitals, injured Union soldiers

lay side by side with injured Confederate soldiers.

Men who had been enemies just days before,

now recovered together.

Walt visited them all.

(light piano music)

- [Walt] "I staid tonight a long time by the bedside

"of a new patient, about 19 years.

"Evidently very intelligent and well bred,

"very affectionate, held on to my hand,

"and put it by his face, not willing to let me leave.

"As I was lingering, soothing him in his pain,

"he says to me suddenly,

"I hardly think you know who I am,

"I don't wish to impose upon you, I am a rebel soldier.

"I said I did not know that, but it made no difference.

"Visiting him daily for about two weeks after that,

"while he lived, death had marked him

"and he was quite alone,

"I loved him much, always kissed him, and he did me.

"In an adjoining Ward, I found his brother,

"an officer of rank, a Union soldier,

"a brave and religious man,

"it was in the same battle both were hit.

"One was a strong Unionist, the other Secesh.

"Both fought on their respective sides,

"both badly wounded, and both brought together here

"after absence of four years.

"Each died for his cause."

- [Andrew] Throughout the war, by his own account,

Walt made more than 600 hospital visits,

some lasting several days and nights,

and ministered to over 80,000 sick

and wounded soldiers on both sides of the war.

The suffering he witnessed was unprecedented

in American history.

The poet visited soldiers in makeshift hospitals

throughout Washington, including the Patent Office Building,

in what is today the Smithsonian Museum of American Art.

He began his visits in the beginning of 1863 continuing

into 1866, when the last Civil War hospital

in Washington shut down.

- [Walt] "In my visits to the hospital

"I found it was in the simple matter of personal presence,

"and emanating ordinary cheer and magnetism,

"that I succeeded and helped more than by medical nursing,

"or delicacies, or gifts of money, or anything else.

"In camp and everywhere,

"I was in the habit of reading to the men.

"They were very fond of it,

"and liked declamatory poetical pieces.

"We would gather in a large group by ourselves,

"after supper, and spend the time in such readings,

"or in talking, and occasionally

"by an amusing game called the Game of 20 Questions."

- At a time when the medial service of the day

and of the day orthodox religious people

representing the Christian commission

and the sanitary commission

were rather formal and standoffish,

and bureaucratic in their approach to things,

he was coming in and he was

listening to the soldiers and treating them

as individuals and if one them wanted to pray,

he would read the Bible with the person,

but if the next person wanted a cigar,

he would get that person some tobacco

or he'd get the next person some brandy

or get the next person some peach ice cream

or candy or write a letter home

for the person or write a letter to the person's wife

or he would stay up all night and help somebody

get through an amputation.

- [Andrew] Sometimes he would write letters home

to the parents of a solider:

(light orchestral music)

- [Walt] "Washington, August 10 1863.

"Mr. and Mrs. Haskell,

"I thought it would be soothing to you

"to have a few lines about the last days of your son,

"Erastus Haskell of Company K, 141st New York Volunteers,

"I am only a friend, visiting the wounded and sick soldiers.

"In my limited talks with him, he told me

"about his brothers and sisters by name

"and his parents, wished me to write his parents

"and send them all his love.

"He was in the band as a fifer I believe.

"While he lay sick here, he had his fife

"laying on the little stand by his side, he once told me

"that if he got well he would play me a tune on it,

"but, he says, I am not much of a player yet.

"Many nights I sat in the hospital by his bedside till

"far in the night, The lights would be put out,

"yet I would sit there silently, hours, late,

"perhaps fanning him, he always liked to have me sit there.

"I shall never forget those nights,

"it was a curious solemn scene,

"the sick and wounded lying around in their cots,

"just visible in the darkness,

"and this dear young man close at hand lying

"on what proved to be his death bed.

"I do not know his past life, but, what I saw of him,

"he was a noble boy.

"I think you have reason to be proud of such a son.

"I write you this letter,

"because I would do something at least in his memory,

"his fate was a hard one, to die so.

"He is one of the thousands

"of our unknown American young men

"in the ranks about whom there is no record of fame,

"no fuss made about their dying so unknown,

"but I find them the real precious and royal ones

"of this land, giving themselves up, even their young

"and precious lives, in their countries' cause.

"Poor dear son, though you were not my son,

"I felt to love you as a son,

"what short time I saw you sick & dying here.

"Mr. and Mrs. Haskell, though we are strangers

"and shall probably never see each other,

"I send you and all Erastus' brothers

"and sisters my love, Walt Whitman."

- [Andrew] One of Walt's best friends in Washington

was William O'Connor, who Walt befriended years

before in Boston, and his wife Nelly.

They were neighbors and Walt would frequently visit.

Although he and O'Connor were quite fond of each other,

their conversation often turned to heated arguments

on politics and the war.

- William Douglas O'Connor was probably Walt's best friend,

especially here in Washington DC,

and he was sort of the captain of their social circle.

He was the one, especially after the Civil War ended

and they were all, by the way,

he and all their other friends,

they were all federal workers, they were all clerks,

and many of them were fellow authors,

and so every night they would meet up

and they would have tea together

and have these incredible conversations.

- [Andrew] Another good friend was John Burroughs,

who would later become famous as a naturalist and writer.

Their friendship would last for the rest of Walt's life.

Burroughs and Whitman got along very well,

often taking long walks in nature together,

with the younger man teaching the poet

about the natural world.

Burroughs once remarked--

- [John] "The more I see and talk with him,

"the greater he becomes to me.

"He loves everything and everybody."

(light piano music)

- [Andrew] Even from Washington, Walt acted as the head

of the family, sometimes returning to Brooklyn

to visit and help his siblings and mother.

They had many troubles: his brother Andrew

was dying of tuberculosis aggravated by alcoholism.

He would die at age 36.

Their older brother Jesse

was growing increasingly violent

and was showing serious signs of mental illness.

In time, Walt was compelled to commit him

to what was then known as King's County Lunatic Asylum.

All these troubles weighed on him.

- [Walt] "It is awful to see so much

"and not be able to relieve it."

- The horror and sadness and people's suffering

was so graphic to him.

And so difficult.

How does one do that two and a half years that he did?

You have to be affected by it.

(light acoustic guitar music)

- [Andrew] Back in Washington,

Walt enjoyed seeing President Abraham Lincoln,

someone he was very fond of.

On the eve before the battle of Gettysburg

in July 1863, which proved to be the turning point

of the war, Walt wrote his mother.

- [Walt] "Mr. Lincoln passes here, 14th Street,

"every evening on his way out,

"I had a good view of the President last evening,

"he looks more careworn even than usual,

"his face with deep-cut lines and his complexion gray,

"through very dark skin, a curious looking man,

"very sad, I said to a lady who was looking with me,

"Who can see that man without losing all wish

"to be sharp upon him personally?

"Who can say he has not a good soul?"

- He was a huge admirer of Abraham Lincoln,

which is kind of amazing,

given that he was a New York democrat.

New York democrats tended not to like republicans,

but their values were really really aligned really closely,

and once Walt gets down here,

certainly by the summer of 1863,

he has a huge admiration for the president.

They both believe that the war had to be fought,

that slavery needed to be ended,

and so they really really aligned right quickly

on this issue, and also the war was a tragedy

but at the same time there was

no really getting around the war, it had to be fought

and won by the union.

- [Andrew] In January 1865, Whitman finally

found a full-time government position

at the Patent Office building,

the very place where he visited the wounded

and sick soldiers two years before.

Working in the Office of Indian Affairs,

his main responsibility was to copy reports

and documents for which he was paid $1200 per year.

Although he could not have known it,

it was at this time that Walt was about

to meet the love of his life and it would happen

in the most unexpected way.

(light orchestral music)

One frigid evening in the middle of winter

near Capitol Hill in DC,

Walt entered a horse-car to return home.

The conductor was a 21-year old,

ex-Confederate soldier named Peter Doyle.

- [Peter] "You ask where I first met him?

"It is a curious story.

"We felt to each other at once.

"I was a conductor.

"The night was very stormy,

"he had been over to see John Burroughs

"before he came down to take the car, the storm was awful.

"Walt had his blanket wrapped round his shoulders,

"he seemed like an old sea captain.

"He was the only passenger, it was a lonely night,

"so I thought I would go in and talk with him.

"Something in me made me do it and something

"in him drew me to him, anyway, I went into the car.

"We were familiar at once,

"I put my hand on his knee, we understood.

"He did not get out at the end of the trip,

"in fact went all the way back with me.

"From that time on we were the biggest sort of friends."

- [Andrew] Walt and Pete spent a lot of time together.

Sometimes Walt would join Pete on his horse-car shift,

- Walt and Pete had a number of different activities

they liked to do together.

They loved to go hiking

and, in fact, it was Walt who was sort of the one

with the whip on this one,

so he would take these long long hikes

where they would cross over from DC,

they would cross the long bridge

and then hike down through Alexandria,

take the ferry across and hike

all the way back up.

This must've been a 20-mile round trip.

It was pretty incredible.

That's a long day.

(birds chirping)

- [Peter] "We took great walks together,

"off towards or to Alexandria, often.

"We went plodding along the road, Walt always

"whistling or singing.

"We would talk of ordinary matters.

"He would recite poetry, especially Shakespeare,

"He would hum airs or shout in the woods.

"He was always active, happy, cheerful, good-natured.

"Many of our walks were taken at night.

"He never seemed to tire."

- [Andrew] He loved to show Pete the night sky.

- [Peter] "Walt knew all about the stars.

"He was eloquent when he talked about them."

- Pete and Walt were together for a long time

and Pete had a big influence on Walt's poetry,

which is kind of amazing.

Again, he is a kid with a third-grade education.

People didn't really talk about homosexuality back then,

but certainly his family knew,

they knew who his different partners were and whatnot,

so I think the scales have fallen away

from peoples' eyes over this issue,

that you know, okay, Walt was, for his time,

an openly gay man, at a time when people didn't talk

about these kind of things,

and all of his friends knew who Pete was

and they understood their relationship

wasn't just a friendship.

- [Andrew] March 4, 1865, the day of Abraham Lincoln's

second Presidential Inauguration.

Walt was on hand to witness

one of the most important political speeches

in American history.

- [Abraham] "With malice toward none, with charity for all,

"with firmness in the right as God gives us

"to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work

"we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds,

"to care for him who shall have borne the battle

"and for his widow and his orphan."

(light piano music)

- [Andrew] Two days later the Inaugural Ball was held,

of all places, in the Patent Office building,

the very place where Whitman worked.

Hours before the festivities commenced,

Walt walked upstairs to view the preparations

for that night.

Writing for the New York Times, he observed--

- [Walt] "I have this moment been up to look

"at the gorgeously arrayed ball and supper-rooms,

"where the music will sound and the dancers'

"feet presently tread,

"what a different scene they presented

"to my view a while since, filled with a crowded mass

"of the worse wounded of the war,

"brought in from Second Bull Run,

"Antietam, and Fredericksburg.

"Tonight beautiful women, perfumes,

"the violins' sweetness, the polka and the waltz;

"but then, the amputation, the blue face,

"the groan, the glassy eye of the dying,

"and many a mother's son amid strangers,

"passing away untended there."

(light piano music)

- [Andrew] On April 9, the day finally came

when Confederate general Robert E. Lee

surrendered to Union general Ulysses S. Grant

at Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia.

Contrary to popular belief,

this did not end the Civil War,

as fighting continued for several more weeks

in the Deep South and the West.

Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy,

and his administration continued to flee southward.

Yet Lee's surrender certainly was the beginning of the end,

and marked the moment when the Army

of Northern Virginia surrendered to the Army of the Potomac.

Five days later,

while Walt was visiting his family in Brooklyn,

Pete learned that President Lincoln

was to attend a performance of

"Our American Cousin" at Ford's Theater.

- [Peter] "I heard that the President

"and his wife would be present and made up my mind to go.

"There was a great crowd in the building,

"I got into the second gallery.

"There was nothing extraordinary in the performance.

"I saw everything on the stage

"and was in a good position to see the President's box.

(gun firing)

"I heard the pistol shot.

"I had no idea what it was, what it meant,

"it was sort of muffled.

"I really knew nothing of what had occurred

"until Mrs. Lincoln leaned out of the box and cried,

"The President's been shot!

"I saw Booth on the cushion of the box,

"saw him jump over, saw him catch his foot,

"which turned, saw him fall on the stage.

"He got up on his feet, cried out something

"which I could not hear for the hub-bub and disappeared."

- [Andrew] Meanwhile a co-conspirator

attempted to kill Secretary of State

William H. Seward, stabbing him five times.

Although badly hurt, Seward survived his wounds.

The planned attack on Vice President Andrew Johnson

was never carried out.

When Walt heard the news of Lincoln's assassination,

he was devastated.

Lincoln was more than just a president to him:

the poet saw him as a hero and captain

of a ship who led the ship of state

through a very treacherous storm to safe harbor.

According to a widely circulated newspaper report,

the night before his assassination,

Lincoln had a dream about a ship entering harbor

under full sail.

Whitman later said this dream was how his poem

"O Captain! My Captain!" came into being.

- [Walt] O Captain!

My Captain!

Our fearful trip is done,

the ship has weather'd every rack,

the prize we sought is won.

The port is near, the bells I hear,

the people all exulting.

While follow eyes the steady keel,

the vessel grim and daring.

But O heart!

Heart!

Heart!

O the bleeding drops of red,

where on the deck my Captain lies,

fallen cold and dead.

(bells ringing)

O Captain!

My Captain!

Rise up and hear the bells.

Rise up, for you the flag is flung,

for you the bugle trills,

for you bouquets and ribbon wreaths,

for you the shores are crowding,

for you they call, the swaying mass,

their eager faces turning.

Here Captain!

Dear father!

This arm beneath your head!

It is some dream that on the deck,

you've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still.

My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will.

The ship is anchor'd safe and sound,

its voyage closed and done.

From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won.

Exult O shores, and ring O bells!

(bells ringing)

But I with mournful tread,

walk the deck my Captain lies,

fallen cold and dead.

- [Andrew] This proved to be Whitman's most popular poem

and was the only poem to be anthologized

during his lifetime.

But Whitman also wanted to write a more personal elegy

that invoked images that reminded him of Lincoln's

final days and depicted his coffin traveling

through cities across America experiencing

its first Presidential assassination.

A poem that also paid tribute to the fallen soldiers

of the war.

(light orchestral music)

- [Walt] When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd,

and the great star early droop'd

in the western sky in the night,

I mourn'd, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.

Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring.

Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west,

and thought of him I love.

- The poem was first called

"President Lincoln's Burial Hymn."

It was a hymn, and it's very musical.

One of the most musical of all the poems,

with the rhythms, speech rhythms,

but made into very lilting music.

(light orchestral music)

- [Walt] Night and day journeys a coffin.

Coffin that passes through lanes and streets,

Through day and night with the great cloud

darkening the land,

With the pomp of the inloop'd flags

with the cities draped in black,

With the show of the States themselves

as of crape-veiled women standing,

With processions long and winding

and the fambeaus of the night

With the countless torches lit,

with the silent sea of faces and the unbarred heads

With the waiting depot, the arriving coffin,

and the somber faces,

With dirges through the night,

with the thousand voices rising strong and solemn,

With all the mournful voices of the dirges

pour'd around the coffin,

The dim-lit churches and the shuddering organs,

where amid these you journey,

With the tolling, tolling bells' perpetual clang,

Here, coffin that slowly passes,

I give you my sprig of lilac.

- "When Lilacs Last in the Doory'd Bloomed"

is an elegy, and like many elegies,

it's trying to enable the reader or the auditor

to come to terms with death.

In this case, it's coming to terms with the death

of the unnamed Abraham Lincoln,

President of the United States,

but it's also, as a later section of the poem indicates,

it's coming to terms with the death

of everyone who's died in the Civil War,

so there's a famous passage at the end

where he talks about the debris

and the debris of all the slain soldiers of the war.

And he has a vision of what all those soldiers were like.

Nobody experienced the death of all soldiers

in the Civil War,

but very few people could match Whitman's awareness

and direct involvement with suffering, death,

anguish, amputations, he as it were,

had experienced the war very very directly,

through the Civil War and so I think this poem

does a marvelous job of registering that

and registering its significance for the country.

(dramatic orchestral music)

- While almost everyone is familiar

with Lincoln's assassination,

few know that about a year earlier,

the president's oldest child, Robert Todd Lincoln

was riding the train one evening

from New York to Washington.

When the train stopped in Jersey City,

he exited onto an extremely crowded platform.

As Lincoln waited to buy a ticket

for a sleeping car,

the crowd pressed him against the train,

when suddenly it began to move.

Lincoln was caught off balance

and quickly fell into the very dangerous

space between the train and platform.

He later wrote that he was personally helpless

and could easily have been killed

were it not for the heroics

of a fellow passenger,

who immediately reached down to the tracks,

seized Lincoln's coat collar

and lifted him to safety, onto the platform.

When a grateful Lincoln turned to thank his rescuer,

he saw that it was none other than the renowned actor,

Edwin Booth, Walt's friend from New York,

and older brother to the president's assassin.

In a twist of fate, one brother would take the life

of the father while the other brother

saved the life of the son.

In the aftermath of the assassination,

Washington slowly returned to normal,

and Walt returned to work at the Bureau of Indian Affairs,

located on the basement level of this building.

But at the end of June that was about to change.

One evening, after office hours,

Secretary of Interior

James Harlan walked through the empty offices.

For whatever reason, he decided to search Whitman's desk

and found a copy of "Leaves of Grass."

He flipped through it and was scandalized by its contents.

He decided to fire Whitman on the spot.

The next day, Walt received his termination notice.

When Walt's friend William O'Connor found

about the firing, he was outraged.

What kind of a way was this to treat

someone who had so tirelessly

served his country visiting wounded soldiers?

He created a pamphlet entitled "The Good Gray Poet"

that strongly defended Whitman's character and poetry.

The phrase stuck and the polemic

did much to establish Whitman's reputation.

O'Connor also used his connections to secure Walt

a position in the Attorney General's office,

where he worked as a clerk in the Pardon Office.

- [Walt] "Dear Al, I am working now

"in the Attorney General's office.

"This is the place where the big southerners

"now come up to get pardoned,

"all the rich men and big officers of the reb army

"have to get special pardons,

"before they can buy or sell or do anything

"that will stand law.

"Sometimes there is a steady stream of them coming in here,

"old and young, men and women,

"I talk with them often and find it very interesting

"to listen to their descriptions

"of things that have happened down south

"and to how things are there now.

"There are between four and 5000 pardons

"issued from this Office."

- [Andrew] He would spend the rest

of his years in Washington working

in the Attorney General's office.

When it became the Department of Justice in 1870,

Whitman was one of its first employees.

(light piano music)

As the post-war years went by,

Whitman sensed that the country was changing.

The unity and sense of purpose the nation experienced

during the war was giving way to corruption and greed,

what Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

dubbed the "Gilded Age" in their eponymous novel.

Grant's administration was notoriously corrupt

and the moneyed interests of the country seemed

to be taking over.

There were virtually no anti-trust laws,

and monopolies exerted a strangle-hold

on business and consumers.

In 1871, Whitman published "Democratic Vistas",

a booklet that called out the rampant corruption

and materialism that gripped the governing class:

- [Walt] "I say we had best look our times and

"lands searchingly in the face,

"like a physician diagnosing some deep disease.

"Never was there, perhaps, more hollowness at heart

"than at present, and here in the United States.

"Genuine belief seems to have left us.

"The underlying principles of the States

"are not honestly believed in nor

"is humanity itself believed in."

- And I think that's at the heart of virtually

every truly American writer, is struggling with this idea

of, as Fitzgerald put it,

"We beat on, boats against the current,

"born ceaselessly into the past."

What are the ideals the country was founded on?

What is the relationship of those ideals

to our present and, maybe more importantly,

to our future.

(light piano music)

- [Walt] "The depravity of the business classes

"of our country is not less than has been supposed,

"but infinitely greater.

"The official services of America, national state,

"and municipal, in all their branches and departments,

"except the judiciary are saturated in corruption,

"bribery, falsehood and administration;

"and the judiciary is tainted."

- [Andrew] Working at the Treasury Building,

next to the White House,

Walt would sometimes spot President Grant.

In one letter to his mother, he casually mentioned--

- [Walt] "I saw Grant today

"on the avenue walking by himself,

"I always salute him and he does the same to me."

- [Andrew] But the future President James A. Garfield

was actually a friend, as Pete explained.

- [Peter] "Garfield and Walt were very good friends.

"Garfield had a large manly voice;

"we would be going along the Avenue together,

"Walt and me, and we would hear Garfield's salutation

"at the rear.

"He always signaled Walt with the cry:

"After all not to create only!

"When we heard that we always knew

"who was coming.

"Garfield would catch up and they would enter

"into a talk; I would fall back sometimes.

"They spoke of books mainly but of every

"other earthly thing also.

"Often they would not get through the first run

"and would go up and down the Avenue several times together,

"I was out of it."

- Garfield became President in 1881,

but within months succumbed to an assassin's bullet.

He was the second President in U.S. history

to be assassinated.

Although Walt worked for the Justice Department,

his actual office was here in the Solicitor's Office,

in the US Treasury building.

And he lived across the street

on the top floor of a boarding house,

in a very modest room that was poorly heated

during the cold winters.

To keep warm, Walt spent many evenings

here in his office.

One cold evening in January 1873,

Walt was in his office, when he suddenly

felt something very painful come over him,

he could barely move the left side of his body.

He tried to walk home, the night watchman

noticed him struggle and offered to help,

but Walt waved him off.

With great difficulty, he managed to cross the street,

climb upstairs to his room, and go to bed.

When he woke hours later, he had lost feeling

on the left side of his body.

He had suffered a massive stroke and could no longer walk.

The man who had helped so many thousands

to recover now needed healing himself.

- [Walt] "Dearest Mother,

"I have been not well for two or three days

"but am better today.

"I have had a slight stroke of paralysis on my left side

"and especially the leg, occurred Thursday night,

"last and I have been laid up since.

"I am writing this in my room as I am not able

"to get out at present, but the doctor gives me good

"hopes of being out and at my work in a few days."

(light piano music)

- [Andrew] When they learned what happened,

Peter Doyle and other friends came to help.

They picked up medications and did what they could.

But there was little the doctor could do.

At age 53, Walt had to re-learn how to walk.

In the beginning he could not take more than a few steps.

By the middle of February, he could take short walks

in the street with the help of his friends.

By May, he was able to get around again with a cane

and could work a few hours per day.

But things were about to get far worse.

(dramatic orchestral music)

In May 1873, Walt received news about his mother.

She had fallen gravely ill.

He must hurry to Camden to see her.

Although still in a frail state himself,

Whitman found his way to Camden,

New Jersey on May 20 to visit her.

Just three days later, she passed away.

Whitman called the loss of his mother,

"The great dark cloud of my life.

"My physical sickness," he wrote,

"Bad as it is, is nothing to it."

His time in Washington now over, Walt soon moved

in permanently with his brother George

and his family in Camden, New Jersey.

This was a very dark time in Walt's life

and he felt very depressed.

He wrote a letter to Pete.

- [Walt] "July 7, 1873.

"I am only able to write the same old story,

"since I last wrote, I have had some pretty bad spells,

"suffered at intervals all last week and yesterday,

"with the strange and painful distress in the head,

"now I am here, crippled, laid up for God knows how long,

"unable to help myself, but your visits,

"if I could only have a daily visit here,

"such as I had there."

- [Andrew] Walt wrote a poem called "Prayer of Columbus,"

ostensibly about the anguish that Christopher Columbus

must have felt, when he and his crew were shipwrecked

in Jamaica for a year during their fourth

and final voyage to the New World.

But the work really describes the poet's own struggle.

He told his friend--

- [Walt] "I shouldn't wonder if I have unconsciously

"put a sort of autobiographical dash in it."

A batter'd, wreck'd old man,

Thrown on this savage shore, far, far from home,

Pent by the sea and dark rebellious brows,

12 dreary months,

Sore, stiff with many toils, sicken'd and nigh to death,

I take my way along the island's edge,

venting a heavy heart.

I am too full of woe!

Happily I may not live another day;

I cannot rest O God, I cannot eat or drink or sleep,

till I put forth myself, my prayer, once more to Thee.

All my emprises have been fill'd with Thee.

My speculations, plans, begun and carried

on in thoughts of Thee.

Sailing the deep or journeying the land for Thee;

Intentions, purports, aspirations mine,

leaving results to Thee.

- [Andrew] The poem was published

in Harper's magazine in 1874.

The following year, Walt suffered another stroke,

this one affecting the right side of his body.

For hours, he would sit alone in his room, feeling down.

But even in his darkest hours, Whitman always

believed that life had a purpose,

as expressed in his poem, "O Me! O Life!"

- [Walt] O Me!

O Life!

Of the questions of these recurring,

of the endless trains of the faithless,

of cities fill'd with the foolish,

of the empty and useless years of the rest,

with the rest of me intertwined.

The question, O me!

So sad, recurring, What good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer.

That you are here, that life exists and identity,

that the powerful play goes on,

and you may contribute a verse.

- [Andrew] Yet just as things were at their gloomiest,

he was about to find relief in the most unlikely of places.

In 1876, Walt was able to walk outside again,

although his left foot would remain lame

for the rest of his life.

He visited the elaborate Centennial Exposition

in Philadelphia that attracted

nearly 10 million visitors from around the world

to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the signing

of the Declaration of Independence.

It was here that the telephone was first introduced

to the public.

He met a young man named Harry Stafford,

who introduced Walt to his parents,

George and Susan Stafford,

who were tenant farmers in New Jersey.

They all clicked right away.

Walt began to spend a lot of time at the Stafford farm,

writing in his notebook--

- [Walt] "Am with folks I love and that love me."

- [Andrew] Susan Stafford said--

- [Susan] "I think he is the best man I ever knew."

(light piano music)

- [Andrew] Near the farm was a wooded stream

that largely went unnoticed,

but it was this simple stream that nourished

and rejuvenated him.

It was called Timber Creek.

In his autobiography, "Specimen Days",

Whitman recalls his experiences at Timber Creek

and how they helped nurse him back to life.

- [Walt] "In February '73 I was stricken down by paralysis,

"gave up my desk, and migrated to Camden,

"New Jersey where I lived during '74 and '75,

"quite unwell, but after that began to grow better,

"commenced going for weeks at a time, even for months,

"down in the country, to a charmingly recluse

"and rural spot along Timber Creek.

"As I write, I am seated under a big wild-cherry tree,

"the warm day tempered by partial clouds a fresh breeze,

"and here I sit long and long, enveloped

"in the deep music drone of these bees,

"how it all nourishes, lulls me, in the way most needed."

- [Andrew] He revealed to his young friend Harry Stafford--

- [Walt] "If I had not known you, if it hadn't been for you

"and our friendship and my going down those summers

"to the creek with you,

"I believe I should not be a living man today."

"June 10, 1876, as I write, 5:30 p.m.,

"here by the creek,

"nothing can exceed the quiet splendor

"and freshness around me.

"We had a heavy shower, with brief thunder and lightning,

"in the middle of the day; and since, overhead,

"one of those not uncommon yet indescribable skies

"of limpid blue, with rolling silver-fringed clouds,

"and a pure dazzling sun.

"September 1, In the revealings of such light,

"such exceptional hour, such mood,

"one does not wonder at the old story fables

"of people falling into love-sickness with trees,

"seized ecstatic with the mystic realism

"of the resistless silent strength in them.

"August 27, 1877, another day quite free

"from marked prostration and pain, every day seclusion,

"every day at least two or three hours of freedom,

"bathing, no talk, no bonds, no dress, no books, no manners.

"September 5, 1877.

"How it is I know not,

"but I often realize a presence here,

"in clear moods I am certain of it,

"and neither chemistry nor reasoning nor asthetics

"will give the least explanation.

"All the past two summers it has been strengthening

"and nourishing my sick body and soul, as never before.

"Thanks, invisible physician,

"for thy silent delicious medicine, thy day and night,

"thy waters and thy airs, the banks,

"the grass, the trees, and even the weeds!"

(light piano music)

- [Andrew] Throughout Walt's life,

many women were drawn to him.

But one woman stands out, Anne Gilchrist,

an English widow with four grown children.

When Anne first read Whitman's poetry,

she experienced what she called, "A new birth of the soul."

She was moved to pen an article called

"A Woman's Estimate of Walt Whitman"

that established her as one

of the first great critics of "Leaves of Grass."

A year later, they became pen pals.

Anne soon declared her love in a passionate letter.

- [Anne] "If God were to say to me, see,

"he that you love you shall not be given

"to you in this life, he is going to set sail

"on the unknown sea, will you go with him?

"Never yet has bride sprung into her husbands arms

"with the joy I would take thy hand

"and spring from the shore."

- [Andrew] She desperately hoped Walt

would visit her in England.

She later wrote--

- [Anne] "Love thee day and night.

"Last thoughts, first thoughts,

"my Soul has staked all upon it."

- [Andrew] But Walt tried to tamper her expectations.

- [Walt] "Dear friend, you must not construct

"such an unauthorized and imaginary ideal figure

"and call it Walt Whitman

"and so devotedly invest your loving nature in it.

"The actual W.W. is a very plain personage,

"and entirely unworthy of such devotion."

- [Andrew] Anne always held fast

to the idea of marrying him.

In 1876, she announced that she was moving to Philadelphia.

- [Anne] "Do not think me too willful or headstrong,

"but I have taken our tickets

"and we shall sail August 30 for Philadelphia.

"Oh, I passionately believe there are years

"in store for us, years of tranquil, tender happiness.

"Me, making your outward life serene and sweet,

"you making my inward life so rich.

"Hold on but a little longer for me, my Walt."

- [Andrew] Walt did his best

to discourage her, but it was no use.

- [Anne] "Coming to America

"has been my settled steady purpose,

"resting on a deep, strong faith,

"ever since 1869.

"Do not dissuade me from coming this autumn,

"my dearest friend, I have waited patiently,

"seven years, patiently, yet often,

"especially since your illness, with such painful yearning.

"Your heart would yearn towards me if you realized it.

"I can not wait any longer."

- True to her word,

in late August, 1876, Anne sailed across the Atlantic Ocean

with three of her children,

furniture, china, and books.

She planned to make a new life.

But what would happen when they actually met?

After being pen-pals for six years,

the day finally came to meet.

It would be in the lobby of the Montgomery House hotel

in Philadelphia, where the Gilchrists were staying.

When they saw each other for the first time,

Anne immediately sensed Walt was genuinely happy to see her,

but it would not be a passionate romance.

However, Walt did feel a true kinship

with Anne and her children.

He began seeing Anne almost every day

in her new home in Philadelphia.

He even had his own bedroom there.

Anne's children thought of him as an uncle.

Walt delighted in conversing with Anne

about literature, philosophy, politics,

and especially science.

(light piano music)

But, in time, she realized that she would

never be more than a dear friend to Walt.

She decided to return to England

in the summer of 1879,

but the two would remain lifelong friends.

Back in England, she wrote him--

- [Anne] "I think of you continually and know

"that somewhere and somehow we are to meet again

"and that there is a tie of love between us

"that time and change and death itself cannot touch."

- [Andrew] Six years after returning to England,

Anne Gilchrist passed away.

Whitman wrote the poem "Going Somewhere" for Anne.

Its opening lines read--

- [Walt] My science-friend, my noblest woman-friend,

Now buried in an English grave,

and this a memory-leaf for her dear sake.

- [Andrew] Timber Creek had helped nourish the poet

back to life and his friends noticed

how much healthier he looked.

- [John] "Never saw Walt look so handsome,

"so new and fresh."

- [Andrew] Walt was well enough

to take his only trip out West.

(light piano music)

In the fall of 1879, he traveled by train through Ohio,

Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, and Colorado.

He especially loved the new city of Denver.

- [Walt] "In due time we reach Denver,

"which city I fall in love with

"from the first and have that feeling confirmed,

"the longer I stay there."

- [Andrew] And he admired the majesty

of the Rocky Mountains.

- [Walt] "Talk as you like, a typical Rocky Mountain canyon,

"under favoring circumstances, perhaps expresses,

"certainly awakes, those grandest

"and subtlest element-emotions in the human soul,

"that, all paintings, poems, reminiscences,

"or even music, probably never can."

- [Andrew] The following summer, Walt took his only trip

outside the United States, to visit his friend

Dr. Maurice Bucke and his family

for several months in Canada.

Bucke was the Medical Superintendent

at the London Asylum for the Insane in Ontario,

where he tried to make asylums

more humane places for patients.

Bucke was also a great admirer of "Leaves of Grass",

even committing much of it to memory.

He always believed that Whitman

had a profound spiritual experience

in his mid-30s that influenced his poetry.

He was a very loyal friend to Walt until the end.

(dramatic piano music)

In 1881, after 21 years,

Whitman finally finds another publisher

for "Leaves of Grass", James Osgood and Company in Boston.

But just a few weeks after printing the book,

the Boston district attorney wrote the publisher.

- [Oliver] Our attention has been officially directed

to a certain book entitled "Leaves of Grass."

Walt Whitman published by you.

We are of the opinion that this book is such a book

as brings it within the provisions

of the Public Statutes respecting obscene literature

and suggest the propriety

of withdrawing the same from circulation

and suppressing the editions thereof.

Otherwise the complaints which are proposed

to be made will have to be entertained.

Your Truly, Oliver Stevens,

District Attorney.

- [Andrew] The Boston publishers sent Whitman

a list of passages that the District Attorney

insisted be removed from "Leaves of Grass."

Walt wrote his publishers--

- [Walt] "Dear Sirs.

"Received the curious list, I suppose of course

"from the District Attorney's office, of suggestions lines

"and pages and pieces to be expunged.

"The list whole and several is rejected by me

"and will not be thought of under any circumstances."

- [Andrew] Walt was willing to make a few alterations,

but nothing like what the district attorney was seeking.

The Boston publisher decided to cease publishing the book.

Yet when news of the censorship spread,

it only fueled interest in the work.

A Philadelphia publisher offered to publish the book

and printed 3,000 copies.

They sold out in one day.

(light orchestral music)

With sales from the book and occasional lectures,

Walt bought a small house for himself

on 330 Mickle Street in Camden, New Jersey.

A modest house in a noisy part of town,

Whitman referred to it as his shanty.

In 1884, he moved in,

but knowing it would not be beneficial for him

to live alone in his condition, he invited Mary Davis,

a ship captain's widow who lived a few blocks away,

to be his housekeeper,

in exchange for living there rent-free.

She agreed and moved in with her dog, cat,

several birds, and furniture.

In spite of his declining health in later years,

Walt still continued to write poems.

Yet his poetry changed.

- I think those late poems,

they are shorter, he's writing in shorter bursts,

but he continues right to the end,

not only to write here and there a poem,

but to write an amazing amount of stuff.

His manuscripts at the end of his life

are like they were at the beginning of his life.

He's just always writing.

He's sitting in that big chair in his little Camden home

and he's jotting things all day long.

And when he writes one of these little poems,

for so long, I think we've just overlooked them.

We've just decided they're not worth our time.

They're not worth the effort to even think about,

but I think in very recent years,

led again by poets' responses to Whitman,

they're being looked at as something that needs

to be taken quite seriously.

(birds chirping)

- [Walt] Simple and fresh

and fair from winter's close emerging,

As if no artifice of fashion, business, politics,

had ever been;

Forth from its sunny nook of shelter'd grass,

innocent, golden, calm as the dawn,

the spring's first dandelion shows its trustful face.

- [Andrew] Up until his final days,

he continued to write and revise poetry.

He wanted to publish a final edition of

"Leaves of Grass" that would truly be his life's work.

- A fair number of people have praised the later poems,

but their neglected,

relative to the experiment early poetry.

The emphasis of critics has been on the first three editions

for a number of decades now.

But I think that the later poetry is gonna be

increasingly studied.

There's a lot of thought on aging and death there,

and as the baby boomer generation gets older,

I think there's gonna be people

that are gonna look to Whitman

for inspiration, insight, solace,

certainly people like Robert Creely and Ezra Pound

saw the greatness and the poetic talent

that manifested itself in the late poetry,

(birds chirping)

- [Walt] The soft voluptuous opiate shades,

The sun just gone, the eager light, dispell'd.

I too will soon be gone, dispell'd.

A haze-nirvana-rest

and night-oblivion.

- [Andrew] Famous people made the trip to Camden

to visit the good gray poet, as he was known.

The writer Oscar Wilde; the painter Thomas Eakins;

and Bram Stoker, the future author of "Dracula."

And whatever became of Peter Doyle, Walt's partner

from Washington?

- Pete, himself, does not have

another relationship after Walt.

This is his one big relationship that he has in his life.

He relocates eventually up to Philadelphia

so he can be closer to Walt,

but by that point, Walt, who had had a stroke,

has a fairly crowded house,

having a nurse around.

There's another young man who's

interviewing him all the time,

and then on top there's other young men

who are coming in and visiting him and whatnot

and I think Pete feels a little squeezed out.

And they don't see each other for a number of years,

even though they live right across the river

from each other.

And he stays there in Philadelphia,

and in fact he dies there,

in the early 1900s.

But he's not buried in Philadelphia.

It's kind of an amazing little backstory.

He's buried in DC, a congressional cemetery,

because there is a Doyle family plot.

(light piano music)

- [Andrew] A young man named Horace Traubel

was Walt's companion in his last years,

visiting him almost daily

as they delved into deep conversations about literature

and Walt's life, much of it written down for posterity.

Whitman spent much of his time in an upstairs room

that appeared somewhat chaotic

with papers strewn everywhere.

He would tell guests--

- [Walt] "This is no so much of a mess as it looks.

"You notice I find most of the things I look for,

"and without much trouble.

"The disorder is more suspected than real."

- [Andrew] Just before Whitman's 70th birthday,

a letter arrived.

- [Mark] "Hartford, May 24, 1889.

"To Walt Whitman.

"You have lived just the 70 years,

"which are greatest in the world's history and richest

"in benefit and advancement to its peoples.

"What great births you have witnessed!

"The steam press, the steamship, the steel ship,

"the railroad, the perfected cotton-gin, the telegraph,

"the phonograph, the photograph, the electrotype,

"the gaslight, the electric light, the sewing machine.

"And you have seen even greater births than these;

"for you have seen the application of anesthesia

"to surgery-practice, whereby the ancient dominion of pain,

"which began with the first created life,

"came to an end in this earth forever;

"you have seen the slave set free,

"you have seen the monarchy banished from France,

"and reduced in England

"to a machine which makes an imposing show

"of diligence and attention to business,

"but isn't connecting with the works.

"Yes, you have indeed seen much, but tarry yet a while,

"for the greatest is yet to come.

"Mark Twain."

- [Andrew] Around 1890, Thomas Edison recorded Whitman

reading his poem "America" on a cylinder wax recording.

This is the only recording

of Walt Whitman known to have been made.

- [Walt] America

Center of equal daughters, equal sons,

all, all alike endear'd, grown, ungrown, young or old,

strong, ample, fair, enduring, capable, rich.

Perennial with the Earth, with freedom, law and love.

(light orchestral music)

- [Andrew] One of his final poems

was entitled "Good-Bye My Fancy!"

in which knowing he is declining,

the poet bids farewell to his imagination, or fancy,

that served him so well over the decades.

- [Walt] Good-bye my Fancy!

Farewell dear mate, dear love!

I'm going away, I know not where,

or to what fortune, or whether I may ever see you again,

so Good-bye my Fancy.

Now for my last, let me look back a moment;

The slower fainter ticking of the clock is in me.

Exit, nightfall, and soon the heart-thud stopping.

Long have we lived, joy'd, caress'd togther.

Delightful!

Now separation, good-bye my Fancy.

- [Andrew] Walt lived to see his life's work completed,

the final edition of "Leaves of Grass",

published in Philadelphia.

His first edition in 1855 had 12 poems; the final one, 389.

Just two months before his death,

he sent this announcement to the New York Herald.

- [Walt] "Walt Whitman wishes respectfully

"to notify the public that the book "Leaves of Grass",

"which he has been working on at great intervals

"and partially issued for the past 35 or 40 years,

'is now completed, and he would like this

"new 1892 edition to absolutely supersede all previous ones.

"Faulty as it is, he decides it as

"by far his special

"and entire self-chosen poetic utterance."

- [Andrew] On March 26, 1892, Walt Whitman died at age 72.

He was buried at Harleigh cemetery in Camden, New Jersey

in a tomb that he designed

and supervised the construction for.

The remains of his parents

and several other family members were laid beside him.

Although the good gray poet is buried here,

his legacy lives on in the generations of poets

who came after him

and all those who cherish his poems.

- [Walt] I bequeath myself to the dirt

to grow from the grass I love,

If you want me again look for me under your bootsoles.

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,

But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,

And filter and fiber your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,

missing me one place, search another,

I stop somewhere, waiting for you.

(light orchestral music)