Walter Whitman, Jr., was born on May 31, 1819, at Long Island, New
             York, to poor, obscure parents of English, Dutch, and Welsh descent-- the second son in
             a family of nine children. The first of his work was called "Leaves of Grass", at 1855. "It
             represents him as such, in shirt and trousers, with one hand on his hip and the other in his
             pocket (7; 137)." " 'Leaves of Grass,' is Whitman's own means of freeing himself from the
             outward and understandable world of precipitating himself into the mood of ecstasy (7;
             164)." About eight hundred copies of "Leaves of Grass" were printed. Very few were
             sold. Dr. Bucke, Whitman's first biographer, replies, "Whitman can in the 'Leaves of
             Grass' identify the traces of Whitman's first remarkable mystic experience (7; 144)." The
             readers of "Leaves of Grass" discovered that there was twelve untitled poems and a
             preface explaining the poets view of poetry and its purpose. Whitman has made an impact
             Walt Whitman also understands how the past continues to exist: it exists in
             the present, and comes into living form only when some individual man is willing to
             challenge it. "Whitman's poetry has delicacy of music, of diction, and of form (8; 88)."
             Whitman quotes, "Soul sympathizes with soul . And that which tries to kill my soul, my
             soul hates. My soul and body are one. Soul and body wish to keep clean and whole (8;
             22)." His message about himself is that he is the master of his fate. He is the captain of
             his soul. Whitman's essential message was the "open road." "Now Whitman wanted his
             soul to save itself, 'he' didn't want to save it. It is a narrow, tight way, where the soul
             walks hemmed in between compulsions (8; 20)." His heroic message is: the soul is not to
             pile up defenses round herself. She is to go down the open road, as the road opens, into
             "Now Whitman was a great moralist. He was a great leader. He was...