Anthology of Ideas

Yes, the Earth is “work’d over and over with sour dead”, but the earth is the symbol of renewal, so why should they poison it? The earth and its environs are incorruptible. Like a body, the Earth can renew itself, but unlike a body, it can heal from any injury or poison. When “normal” plants first evolved, they took over the earth and corrupted its atmosphere with their toxic breaths. The Earth embraced this change and it and all its life adapted to these changes giving rise to our everyday world. Humans have become the plants poisoning the air, water, and soil without realizing that it is not the earth they are killing but themselves. The Earth can survive everything from nuclear war to asteroid impacts; however, those whom live on its surface are vulnerable to being brushed away like a proverbial insect.

For Walt Whitman and other “Bright Romantics,” death does not represent an end but new beginnings, renewal and life. Whitman sees death from the perspective of a phoenix — each death brings new life, so death is “low and delicious” and the word “stronger and more delicious than any” because if one focuses solely on life, they will always be disappointed because of the finite nature of life, but if one focuses on death, life will always be sweet because it will bring death which brings more life. In the poem “This Compost”, Whitman recognizes this fact, and he is able to embrace death and reconcile the poisonous and decaying nature of death with the knowledge that it will create life. The poem “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking” moves beyond this temporal interpretation of death, and Whitman recognizes that death creates emotions and desires that drive a poet and are responsible for many of the most beautiful songs – both man’s and beasts.