Since we are about three weeks in time from both Memorial Day and Independence Day and close to Flag Day on June 14, it’s a good time to reflect upon these American holidays through the words of America’s greatest poet, Walt Whitman.

Whitman sang the praises of America with his words and served his country as a nurse during its Civil War. The quantity and quality of his poems make it impossible to do them justice in one short essay, but focusing on Whitman’s national anthem — “I Hear America Singing” — is a good place to start.

First, a few words about “the Good Gray Poet,” who was unknown until age 36, when America’s most distinguished man of letters, Ralph Waldo Emerson, praised Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass” as “the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed” to world literature.

In an essay written as the introduction to a collection of Whitman’s poetry and prose, critic James E. Miller Jr. contends, “As Americans trying to understand our past, and even our present and future, we need to understand Walt Whitman... we should try to comprehend this man who styled himself the poet of democracy.”

Known as the poet of the common man, Whitman acknowledges in “I Hear America Singing” what would later be called blue-collar workers, including mechanics, carpenters, masons, boatmen, deckhands, shoemakers, hatters, wood-cutters and ploughboys, “each singing what belongs to him and to none else.” The poet praised the uniqueness and value of their jobs.

Consider this line from an 1867 Whitman poem: “The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,” praising the work of mothers, wives and girls.

The poem, which begins by listing “the varied carols” one can hear if one listens, concludes by citing the “strong melodious songs” of “the party of young fellows at night” after a day of satisfying work.

Now compare this post-Civil War period to 2020. America has not yet conquered what is perhaps its biggest threat since the Civil War, but the war against the pandemic continues to be fought from coast to coast by American workers in blue-collar and white-collar jobs.

If Whitman were writing a sequel to his anthem today, he would praise doctors, nurses and other health care workers, first responders, teachers, grocery store workers, truck drivers and ordinary citizens of all races and colors who have helped their neighbors in need of food, clothing and shelter.

The character of America has been severely tested in recent months, and it will continue to be tested in the months to come, but if we look around to any part of this country and listen, we can still “Hear America Singing.”

Jim Izzo lives in Mystic.

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