All about Walt Whitman

5 CONCLUSION (Part 20)

From “Passage to India,” published in 1871, we bring two excerpts to illustrate what the true son of God, the poet, is singing: God’s purpose. This means that in this poem he is not singing the materials of his America or the earth, he is going beyond geography and culture since he has seen that the earth is to be all linked together, towards what is universal and eternal: the soul, and its divinity and connection with the Creator. He includes the great achievements of his time; however, he is sailing much farther than that, he is asking his soul to sail “the seas of God.”  As we have stated at the comment on “Salut au Monde!,” we have the feeling that this poem is a continuation of that one, but at another degree of awareness, passing from material, from what is seen and physical, to the immaterial, to the unseen and spiritual. I would not dare to say metaphysical because the poet himself wrote in a note that there is nothing philosophical about “Passage to India,” because it is focused on “evolution” (WHITMAN, 2002, p.345).

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WHITMAN:

From section 2:

[…]

Passage to India!
Lo, soul, seest thou not God’s purpose from the first?
The earth to be spann’d, connected by network,
The races, neighbors, to marry and be given in marriage,
The oceans to be cross’d, the distant brought near,
The lands to be welded together.

[…]

From section 8:

[…]

Swiftly I shrivel at the thought of God,
At Nature and its wonders, Time and Space and Death,
But that I, turning, call to thee O soul, thou actual Me,
And lo, thou gently masterest the orbs,
Thou matest Time, smilest content at Death,
And fillest, swellest full the vastnesses of Space.
[…]

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OUR RE-CREATION:

From section 2:

[...]

Passagem para a Índia!

Olha, alma, não vês o propósito de Deus desde o início?

A terra para ser transposta, conectada por rede,

As raças, os vizinhos, para casar e ser concedidos em matrimônio,

Os oceanos para ser cruzados, o distante aproximado,

As terras para ser soldadas.

[...]

From section 8:

[…]

Rapidamente me encolho ao pensar em Deus,

Na Natureza e suas maravilhas, Tempo e Espaço e Morte,

Mas que eu, virando, chamo a ti Oh alma, tu Eu real,

E vê, tu gentilmente dominas os orbes,

Tu emparelhas com o Tempo, sorris contente pra Morte,

E preenches, expandes bastante as vastidões do Espaço.

[...]

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