Walt Whitman, photographed by Matthew Brady, c. 1860. Larger.
At the edge of the continent, California has marked the end of the journey for unnumbered emigrants and travelers. For the great bard Walt Whitman, however, California wasn't so much the end of a personal journey, but the figurative completion of humanity's quest for "what is yet unfound."
"Ocean Beach, Early Morning," photograph by Mike DelGaudio, 2004. Larger.
In the 1867 poem "Facing West from California's Shores," the poet gazes across the Pacific to meditate on Asian beginnings and the ancient migration west that has culminated in California.
Facing west from California's shores,
Inquiring, tireless, seeking what is yet unfound,
I, a child, very old, over waves, towards the house of maternity, the land of migrations, look after,
Look off the shores of my Western sea, the circle almost circled;
For starting westward from Hindustan, from the vales of Kashmere,
From Asia, from the north, from the God, the sage, and the hero,
From the south, from the flowery peninsulas and the spice islands,
Long having wander'd since, round the earth having wander'd,
Now I face home again, very pleas'd and joyous,
(But where is what I started for so long ago?
And why is it yet unfound?)
Walt Whitman experimented with a modern American voice. In the "barbaric yawp" of his poems, he gave us America as he found it, a democratic laboratory, vital and crude and honest and sublime.
Walt Whitman, photographed by George C. Cox, 1887. Larger.
California is a land of promise, a land of dreams so powerful and vivid that you can experience them even if you never come here.
In 1873, American bard Walt Whitman composed his "Song of the Redwood-Tree," wherein he imagined California as the land where the "true America" would fulfill its promise.
. . . lands of the Western shore, . . .
I see in you, certain to come, the promise of thousands of years, till now deferr'd,
Promis'd to be fulfill'd, our common kind, the race.
The new society at last, proportionate to Nature,
In man of you, more than your mountain peaks or stalwart trees imperial,
In woman more, far more, than all your gold or vines, or even vital air.
Fresh come, to the new world indeed, yet long prepared,
I see the genius of the modern, child of the real and ideal,
Clearing the ground for broad humanity, the true America, heir of the past so grand,
to build a grander future.
Though Walt Whitman never visited California's shores, he saw as clearly as any emigrant the Golden State's capacity to reinvigorate the American dream.
below to hear radio segment.
