May 31: America's Most Surprising Poet (Vol. 39, pp. 338-339)

Walt Whitman was born this day in 1819. He is the most modern poet included in this series, and I'm certain that some of the editors of the series might have thought him a little too modern. Certainly, when you compare his work to that of his contemporaries, it is like night and day.

But today, we get prose for Whitman's birthday, and what prose! — the preface to "Leaves of Grass."

"The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem," he writes. Whitman believed that the source of that poetry came from the genius of the common people. In these 10 pages, he demonstrates his great love for America and for all the creative energy it contains.

As manifestos go, this is perhaps one of the best for how a person should conduct his or her life:

"This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body..."

And that is why Whitman endures as one of America's greatest poets and writers.

May 30: When the Throb of the War Drum is Stifl'd (Vol. 42. pp. 1280-1290)

For the traditional Memorial Day, we have "The Building of the Ship," Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem he wrote after the end of the Civil War. It takes about 10 pages before you get to the payoff — the eloquent and immortal final stanza:

"Sail on, O Ship of State!

Sail on, O UNION, strong and great!

Humanity with all its fears,

With all the hopes of future years,

Is hanging breathless on thy fate!"

Our ship of state survived a bloody civil war, two world wars, the Great Depression, the Cold War and eight years of George W. Bush. Humanity with all its fears is breathlessly waiting to see if we can survive the looming catastrophes of a collapsed global financial system, a disrupted climate and ecosystem, peak oil and a human population whose capacity to destroy has outstripped its capacity to think intelligently.

May 29: Adventures in Baghdad (Vol. 16, pp. 177-184)

Another selection from "The Thousand and One Nights," although today's story sounds like it came by way of Aesop. It's about a merchant who daydreams about all the money he is going to make selling a tray of glassware and how he'll be able to marry the king's daughter, but in his reverie, he kicks over the tray. How do you say, "Don't count your chickens before they hatch," in Arabic?

May 28: Master of Melodious Lyrics (Vol. 41, pp. 816-822)

Thomas Moore was born this day in 1779, so we're treated to more overwrought 19th century English poetry. If poems such as "The Last Rose of Summer" and "The Light of Other Days" turn you on, have at it.

May 27: Lessing's Courageous Stand for Toleration (Vol. 32, pp. 185-195)

"Education is Revelation." That's how Gotthold Ephraim Lessing begins his essay, "The Education of the Human Race."

The piece degenerates into an analysis of the Old Testament. It becomes just another religious tract, until you read a little past today's assignment and find he gets back to the importance of education — that it is a belief in the future and in the steady improvement of the human race, not because it might result in eternal life, but because it might also make for a better life in this realm.

May 26: Daughter Declares Her Love (Vol. 46, pp. 212-225)

On this day in 1583, Shakespeare's first daughter Susanna was baptized. Why do we have the first act of "King Lear" to mark this occasion? Cordelia, of course.

May 25: Do What You Fear (Vol. 5, pp. 121-131)

Ralph Waldo Emerson was born this day in 1803, and the editors picked out a real barn-burner for his birthday — his 1841 essay, "Heroism," where he forthrightly laid down what it meant to be heroic.

" Self-trust is the essence of heroism. It is the state of the soul at war, and its ultimate objects are the last defiance of falsehood and wrong, and the power to bear all that can be inflicted by evil agents. It speaks the truth and it is just. It is generous, hospitable, temperate, scornful of petty calculations and scornful of being scorned. It persists; it is of an undaunted boldness and of a fortitude not to be wearied out. Its jest is the littleness of common life.

"Times of heroism are generally times of terror, but the day never shines in which this element may not work. The circumstances of man, we say, are historically somewhat better in this country and at this hour than perhaps ever before. More freedom exists for culture. It will not now run against an axe at the first step out of the beaten track of opinion. But whoso is heroic will always find crises to try his edge. Human virtue demands her champions and martyrs, and the trial of persecution always proceeds. "

No matter how dark the times may seem, there is always someone willing to step up, someone who does not fear the axe. The history of our nation is filled with these people — people who meet Emerson's definition of heroism.