沃尔特·惠特曼/ Walter Whitman
沃尔特·惠特曼（1819—1892），美国19世纪最杰出的诗人，美国浪漫主义文学的大师。
惠特曼一生各个时期的诗作都收录在《草叶集》中。他以豪迈、铿锵有力的诗句讴歌了美国自由资本主义时期蓬勃发展的社会，歌唱民主与自由，歌颂“自我”，歌颂大自然，歌颂劳动，并以火一样的语言抨击资本主义的罪恶与弊端，支持废奴运动。
《草叶集》被认为是美国文学史上具有划时代意义的诗作，这不仅在于其内容的人民性和民主与自由思想，而且也在于其形式上的革命，他开创了自由体诗歌的新时代。惠特曼是一个时代的结束，也是美国文学一个新的时代的开始。
Ace in the Hole
Understand these new words before you listen to this article.
1. picturesque [,pikt??'resk] adj. 独特的；生动的
2. imperturbability ['imp?,t?:b?'bil?ti] n. 冷静；沉着
3. rebuke [ri'bju:k] v. 指责；制止
4. reminiscence [,remi'nis?ns] n. 回忆；怀旧
5. pervade [p?:'veid, p?-] v. 弥漫；遍及
I should not take either the biggest or the most picturesque tree to illustrate it. Here is one of my favorites now before me, a fine yellow poplar, quite straight, perhaps 90 feet high, and four feet thick at the butt. How strong, vital enduring! How dumbly eloquent! What suggestions of imperturbability and being, as against the human trait of mere seeming. Then the qualities, almost emotional, palpably artistic, heroic, of a tree; so innocent and harmless, yet so savage. It is, yet says nothing. How it rebukes by its tough and equable serenity as weathers, this gusty-temper’s little whiffet, man that runs indoors at a mite of rain or snow. Science (or rather half-way science) scoffs at reminiscence of dryad and hamadryad, and of trees speaking. But, if they don’t, they do as well as most speaking, writing, poetry, sermons or rather they do a great deal better.I should say indeed that those old dryad—reminiscences are quit as true as any, and profounder than most reminiscences we get. (“Cut this out,”as the quack mediciners say, and keep by you.) Go and sit in a grove or woods, with one or more of those voiceless companions, and read the fore going, and think.