I am starting to think that Whitman might be a little bit of a stalker. After reading the Abraham Lincoln journal entry in Specimen Days I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, but now reading "The White House by Moonlight" it's becoming clear that he is a little obsessed. He ends the entry with a line that made me laugh out loud, "sentries at the gates, and by the portico, silent, pacing there in blue overcoats -- stopping you not at all, but eyeing you with sharp eyes, whichever way you move." Of course they're eyeing you Walt. They think you are stalking Honest Abe!
On a completely different note, I also liked reading this because it infuses the journal with the imagery of purity and potential, none of which I can see when looking at the White House and what it symbolizes, not for over a decade now. Whitman is very poetic in this journal entry, it is once again, not just a jotting down of thought. For example, he writes, "...the White House of future poems, and of dreams and dramas, there in the soft and copious moon..." Beautiful. I envy his outlook on the White House and the Presidency, of America and what it stands for.
Yes . . .he definitely stalked Abe.
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