awaken'd, open'd his eyes, gave me a long, steady look, turning his face very slightly to gaze easier-one long, clear silent look-a slight sigh-then turn'd back and went into his doze again. Little he knew, poor death-stricken boy, the heart of the stranger that hover'd near."

The poet's admiration for Lincoln, growing steadily as the war progressed, produced some of his greatest, certainly his most familiar, poems.

But even after the war, his poems were poorly received in America. Damned by critics, denounced by clergy, totally ignored by the common people for whom he wrote. To his surprise, acceptance came in England where the Rosettis, Tennyson, Ruskin, Gosse and Carlyle praised him and such as Symonds, socialist Edward Carpenter (later wrote LOVE'S COMING OF AGE and THE THIRD SEX) and the widow Mrs. Gilchrist (one of the first literary figures to praise him later came to America hoping to marry him) became his avowed disciples. The coarseness which American intellectuals rejected appealed even to the most effete Victorians, although as part of their not unsnobbish attitude toward America. For some, Whitman had finally set to music that wide utopia, that great experiment in democracy.

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The poet began to receive pilgrims. Carpenter and Mrs. Gilchrist (who spent years at Camden), Oscar Wilde, the later famous naturalist John Burroughs, close friend and biographer even the old Brahmin, Emerson, along with Thoreau.

Worked some time as government clerk (losing the job when a superior discovered his "vulgar" poems) ten years in Washington, then settled down in Camden for remaining years, among friends — a quiet, sometimes vigorous. affectionate old man, seriously ill for long periods.

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In Washington he met Peter Doyle, a young horse-car conductor to whom he was closely drawn. Doyle later described their meeting:

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"You ask where I first met him? It is a curious story. We felt to each other at once. I was a conductor. The night was very stormy... Walt had his blanket -it was thrown around his shoulders — he seemed like an old sea-captain. He was the only passenger, it was a lonely night, so I thought I would go in and talk with him. Something in me made me do it and something in him drew me that way. He used to say there was something in me had the same effect on him. Anyway, I went into the car. We were familiar at once I put my hand on his knee we understood. He did not get out at the end of the trin in fact went all the way back with me. I think the year of this was 1866. From that time on we were the biggest sort of friends. I stayed in Washington until 1872, when I went on the Pennsylvania Railroad. Walt was then in the Attorney-General's office. I would frequently go out to the Treasury to see Walt; Hubley Ashton was commonly there-he would be leaning familiarly on the desk where Walt would be writing. They were fast friends talked a good deal together. Walt rode with me oftenoften at noon, always at night. He rode round with me on the last trip sometimes rode for several trips. Everybody knew him. He had a way of taking the measure of the driver's hands had calf-skin gloves made for them every winter in Georgetown these gloves were personal presents to the men. He saluted the men on the other cars as we passed threw up his hand. They cried to him, "Hello, Walt!" and he would reply, "Ah, there!" or something like. He was welcome always as the flowers in May... It was our practice to go to a hotel on Washington Avenue after I was done with my car. I remember the place well there on the corner. Like as not I would go to sleep lay my head on my hands on the table. Walt would stay there, wait, watch, keep me undisturbed would wake me up when the hour of closing came."