"Turn O Libertad"

"Then turn, and be not alarm'd O Libertad--turn your undying face, / To where the future, greater than all the past, / Is swiftly, surely preparing for you."

I love it when Whitman talks to the future. I get this same feeling in the last lines of this poem. Clearly, the war IS over, and Whitman is marking this turning point as a pivotal moment in history. Liberty means alot to WW. She stands tall and proud--reigning over her kingdom. He spent the entire war tending to the wounded and writing poems. He lived in poverty in order to do these things. Why? Did he think he was going to have his big moment when all was said and done? That finally he would be recognized, and when he was recognized, people would see his humanity for ALL war victims? I'd like to believe in the good of Whitman, but I feel like he may have had an angle he was working the entire time he was playing nurse. Don't get me wrong, he did a good thing, a great thing, but when all was said and done, where did this leave Whitman, the man?  Perhaps I have become too cynical, but in looking back at previous poems and how Whitman's life has gone, he CHOSE his own path, and he always did so for his own reasons. 

I'll tell you something though, I think Whitman was handsome man and his photographs have a kind spirit about them. Even in his 60s he looked like a trustworthy soul. He reminds me of The Man from Snowy River - the guy with the pegged leg--the one who was looking for the mother load! I think Whitman was looking for the mother load too. Maybe not so much money, but prestige.