You who celebrate bygones,
Who have explored the outward, the surfaces of the races, the life
that has exhibited itself,
Who have treated of man as the creature of politics, aggregates,
rulers and priests,
I, habitan of the Alleghanies, treating of him as he is in himself
 in his own rights,
Pressing the pulse of the life that has seldom exhibited itself,
(the great pride of man in himself,)
Chanter of Personality, outlining what is yet to be,
I project the history of the future.
Whitman saw himself as the supreme individual, the man who creates his own future from the now. This is also the poet’s aim, to explain the present with a prophetic spirit. 
 Note that Whitman viewed the human body as beyond description, which may explain the way he portrays the historian. Consider this line from  I Sing the Body Electric : 
 The love of the body of man or woman balks account, the body itself balks account…
To a Historian