If I’m going to be honest with both myself and whoever decides to read this, in my opinion “The Village Blacksmith” is not an impressionable poem. Don’t get me wrong I’m a huge fan of Wadsworth, (in poems such as “My Lost Youth” “The Rainy Day” and “A Psalm of Life”) but this poem about the blacksmith never really struck a chord. I can appreciate his meter, his manipulation and juxtaposition of words, but when I look upon the poem as a whole, I find it somewhat easy to consign to oblivion.
However, when I look upon Whitman’s work as a whole he strikes not just one but multiple chords within me that I cannot dismiss even if I so wish to. I find it difficult to compare his work to the work of his contemporaries, because there is a certain stability (and somewhat similar style) in much of their work, that makes it negatively incomparable with that of Whitman’s. Yet if I had to choose, the two poems I enjoyed the most were “I vex me not with brooding on the years” by Thomas Bailey Aldrich, and “The Hunters of Men” by John Greenleaf Whittier. Both poems (although riddled with rhythmic meter and defined metaphors) bring forth thought provoking concepts that stretch beyond the means of the possible surface level interpretations one may draw. This is the same thing Whitman does in making the reader connect on a deeper level, yet I feel as though he is substantially more successful in doing so by delving into the chaotic yet categorical realm of free verse.
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