He
died in 1892, and was buried in Harleigh Cemetery, near Camden.
POETRY.--Whitman gave to the world in 1855 the first edition of the poems,
which he called _Leaves of Grass_. His favorite expression, "words simple
as grass," and his line:--
"I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars,"
give a clue to the idea which prompted the choice of such an unusual title.
He continued to add to these poems during the rest of his life, and he
published in 1892 the tenth edition of _Leaves of Grass_, in a volume
containing four hundred and twenty-two closely printed octavo pages.
Whitman intended _Leaves of Grass_ to be a realistic epic of American
democracy. He tried to sing this song as he heard it echoed in the life of
man and man's companion, Nature. While many of Whitman's poems have the
most dissimilar titles, and record experiences as unlike as his early life
on Long Island, his dressing of wounds during the Civil War, his
comradeship with the democratic mass, his almost Homeric communion with the
sea, and his memories of Lincoln, yet according to his scheme, all of this
verse was necessary to constitute a complete song of democracy.
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