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... f his work. If Walt was not in this setting of mood, there are many who believe that Whitman would have been able to write such poetry. Walt being alone kept him from being happy, although this motivated Whitman to express his thoughts and feelings in to what he wrote. Also the look of the tree being rude, unbending, and lusty was how Whitman felt how he looked and how he was. This poem is also about the love that Walt Whitman wanted in his life.
Whitman felt alone without a lover near. And I broke off a twig with a certain number of leaves upon it, and twined around it a little moss, And brought it away, and I have placed it in sight of my room, It is not needed to remind me as of my own dear friends, (For I believe lately I think of little else than of them, ) Yet it remains to me a curious token, it makes me think of manly love" (Whitman 126 - 127). The twig from which Whitman broke off the tree, is the object that represents Walt. He relates the moss in this to be a lover. I lover that he has not found in life yet.
He believes that the moss being twined around the twig proves that the twig and the moss are strong together. This represents the love that Walt needs in his life. "The poet believes the expression of his emotions of 'manly love' to be as rudimentary and natural as growing vegetation" (Allen & Davis 184). To Whitman and the romanticist "natural" means "good. " As Whitman looks at the tree, he realizes that the tree is wonderful tree with nothing around it. "For all that, and though the live-oak glistens there in Louisiana solitary in a wide flat space" (Whitman 127). The tree has made itself great with no support or help around it, which Walt feels that he can not do at all. "Uttering joyous leaves all its life without a friend a lover near, I know very well I could not" (Whitman 127).
The tree "uttering joyous leaves" is like Whitman writing great poems, which Walt feels he can not do without the help of friends. He repeats this line again at the end because he knows that there is no way he can make it without a friend or lover. "To a Stranger" is a poem in Calamus just like "I Saw in Louisiana. " The poem started out being titled "A Passing Stranger, " but in 1867 the poem was put into Calamus with its present title. It placed number twenty-two of the Calamus poems. Unlike other poems, this poem was not revised or moved around.
This poem is different from "I Saw in Louisiana, " because there are no objects in the poem that Whitman uses to represent his feelings. On the other hand he uses strangers he sees to show how there can be people you relate with all around you and you don't even know it. "We are all strangers on earth" (Schyberg 291). Whitman feels that this is true. Whitman says, "an accidental meeting is a reunion from the era of stars" (Schyberg 291). In this poem Whitman sees strangers and wonders if they can be something he was looking for. "Passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you, You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me as of a dream, ) " (Whitman 127).
Whitman thinks of the stranger as someone he was seeking in life that could be a friend to him or even a lover. When he sees the stranger thinks of it as a dream, because he doesn't know if that is who he is seeking. Whitman not wanting to be alone, is constantly looking for another companion along the way. As Whitman sees these stranger, he thinks of what similarities that he could possibly have with these strangers. "I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you, All is recall'd as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured, You grew up with me, were a boy with me or a girl with me, I ate with you and slept with you, your body has become not yours only nor left my body mine only, " (Whitman 127). Whitman thinks of the good times that he has had, and if the stranger has had good times just as he did. Walt thinks about himself growing up, and if the stranger went through some of the same things that he went through as a child.
Whitman thinks of stranger even after the stranger is long gone. "I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you when I sit alone or wake at night alone" (Whitman 127). Even though Walt does not speak to the stranger he thinks about he or she when he is alone. Whitman does not want to lose the stranger that he has seen. "I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again, I am to see to it that I do not lose you" (Whitman 127). Whitman wants to be with this stranger sometime in the future. But to Whitman, being with the stranger could be how they were before they met. He can still grow up with the stranger as a friend and eat and sleep with the stranger, but it doesn't mean they will be together throughout life.
Whitman doesn't want to lose the stranger because he or she could be a good companion to him. "I Saw in Louisiana" and "To a Stranger" give good examples on how Whitman puts his life into his writing. Love and companionship are to major aspects that Walt Whitman needed in his life. Without those two things, Whitman felt that he could not produce good poems or even have a good life. The poems in Calamus are some of the best poems that show Whitman's true feeling of his friends and lovers.
Many don't even understand how Whitman felt. John Burroughs say, "Whitman is so hard to grasp, to put in a statement. One cannot get to the bottom of him, he is bottomed in Nature, in democracy, in science in personality" (Loving 1).
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