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Poetry Manuscripts

A Finding Aid to Manuscripts at All Known Repositories

An Integrated Finding Guide to Walt Whitman's Poetry Manuscripts

Original records created or revised by the Walt Whitman Archive and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries. Encoded Archival Description completed through the assistance of the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, the University of Nebraska Research Council, and the Institute for Museum and Library Services.

Title: An Integrated Finding Guide to Walt Whitman's Poetry Manuscripts

Creator: Whitman, Walt, 1819-1892

Repository: The Walt Whitman Archive

Abstract:

This integrated electronic guide was created by the Walt Whitman Archive through the work of the EAD Project Team at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The machine-readable finding aid, EAD encoding, and XSLT conflation were completed by Andrew Jewell, Mary Ellen Ducey, Brian Pytlik Zillig, and Brett Barney, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries. Kenneth M. Price, co-editor of the Walt Whitman Archive, and Katherine L. Walter are primary investigators for a grant received from the Institute for Museum and Library Services, which provided major funding for the completion of this project. Additional funding was provided by the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation and the University of Nebraska Research Council. The Integrated Guide to Walt Whitman's Poetry Manuscripts is in prototype form, as significant work is still underway. There are many manuscripts for which no relationship to a published poem is known; work is being done to create uniform titles for these items, which are currently described in the individual repository finding aids. In addition, a few finding aids for large collections—those at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas and the New York Public Library—are still being revised and encoded.

Scope and Content :

This Integrated Guide to Whitman's Poetry Manuscripts arranges by uniform title, and then by item title, all identified poetry manuscripts located in archival repositories throughout the United States and United Kingdom. Each item-level entry provides a title, date, and descriptive information, including physical characteristics when available. The large titles which are listed alphabetically are uniform titles based whenever possible on the final printing of Whitman's writings in Leaves of Grass (1891-92) or Complete Prose Works (1892). A uniform title may reference several distinct items that are associated with that title or work. Works that went through multiple revisions but did not appear in either one of these final collections of Whitman's poetry and prose use the final title as the uniform title. (That is, for example, a poem that appeared in the 1860, 1867, and 1872 editions of Leaves of Grass but then was dropped from future printings would take as its uniform title that given to it in the 1872 edition.) Access to an image of the original item, a transcription of the item, and a link to the repository finding aid are provided where available.

Biographical Information:

For additional biographical information, see "Walt Whitman," by Ed Folsom and Kenneth M. Price, and the chronology of Whitman's Life.

Subjects:

Whitman, Walt, 1819-1892

Whitman, Walt, 1819-1892--Manuscripts

Poets, American--19th century

After an Interval

Title: "After an Interval"
Date: about 1876
Physical Description: 1 leaf
Images: forthcoming

Content:

Clipped proof sheet of "After an Interval," first published in 1876. No annotations on sheet.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

After certain disastrous campaigns

Whitman Archive ID: pml.00006
Title: After certain disastrous campaigns
Date: about 1862
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1

Content:

A poem unpublished in Whitman's lifetime, "After Certain Distastrous Campaigns" was published first in The Uncollected Poetry and Prose of Walt Whitman (ed. Emory Holloway. Garden City, N.Y., Toronto: Doubleday, Page and Company, 1921). The manuscript shows that Whitman originally considered the title "Answer me, year of repulses," which is also the first line of the poem.

Repository: The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York

After death

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00133
Title: After death
Date: about 1855
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 7 x 15 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

Whitman apparently never used the recto lines, but the deleted lines on the verso bear a strong resemblance to the opening of his 1856 "Poem of The Sayers of The Words of The Earth," titled in successive editions "To the Sayers of Words" (1860 and 1867), "Carol of Words" (1871, 1876), and, finally (in the 1881 edition of Leaves), "A Song of the Rolling Earth." The undeleted ink line on the verso resembles a later draft of a line inscribed in Feinberg notebook #697 at the Library of Congress.

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

After the Argument

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00001
Title: After the Argument
Date: about 1891
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 9.5 x 21.5 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

A draft of "After the Argument." The poem was published first in Lippincott's Magazine, March, 1891.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Title: "Old Age Echoes"
Date: about 1891
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 68.5 x 16.5 cm
Images: forthcoming

Content:

Galley Proof of four poems under the general title "Old Age Echoes": "Sounds of the Winter," "The Unexpress'd," "Sail Out for Good, Eidolon Yacht!," and "After the Argument." This grouping was published in March, 1891 in Lippincott's Magazine. A note in Traubel's hand appears at the top of the page.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Title: "Old Age Echoes"
Date: about 1891
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 25 x 16.75 cm
Images: forthcoming

Content:

Offprint from the March, 1891 issue of Lippincott's Magazine of four poems under the general title "Old Age Echoes": "Sounds of the Winter," "The Unexpress'd," "Sail Out for Good, Eidolon Yacht!," and "After the Argument."

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Title: "Old Age Echoes"
Date: March, 1891

Content:

Copy of the March, 1891 issue of Lippincott's Magazine with four Whitman poems under the general title "Old Age Echoes": "Sounds of the Winter," "The Unexpress'd," "Sail Out for Good, Eidolon Yacht!," and "After the Argument." Also published in this issue are a full page portrait of Whitman, Whitman's "Some Personal and Old-Age Memoranda" (later published as "Some Personal and Old Age Jottings"), Traubel's "Walt Whitman: Poet and Philosopher and Man," and a review of Whitman's book, November Boughs.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Title: "Old Age Echoes"
Date: about 1891
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 28.5 x 16.5 cm, 6 x 14 cm attached, handwritten
Images: forthcoming

Content:

Proof sheet of "Old Age Echoes" with many corrections written in ink, red ink, and pencil. "Old Age Echoes" is a general heading for four poems: "Sounds of the Winter," "The Unexpress'd," "Sail Out for Good, Eidolon Yacht!," and "After the Argument."

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

After the Dazzle of Day

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00002
Title: After the Dazzle of Day
Date: about 1888
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 14 x 14.5 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

This four-line verse was first published in the New York Herald, February 3, 1888. In the lower right-hand corner is the notation: "For Francis Howard Williams, May 1896, Traubel."

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

After the Sea-Ship

Title: "After the Sea-Ship"
Date: about 1874

Content:

Two clipped proof sheets of "After the Sea-Ship." No annotations on sheets. This poem was first published as "In the Wake Following" in 1874 and was also known as "Waves in the Vessel's Wake" in early drafts.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00064
Title: Song of the Redwood Tree
Date: about 1873
Physical Description: 20 leaves, 11 x 12.5 cm to 22.5 x 17.5 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26

Content:

This manuscript contains a rough draft of the poem "Song of the Redwood-Tree" written, according to a note intialed by Whitman, during October and November 1873 prior to its first publication in the February 1874 issue of Harper's Magazine. In 1876 the poem was published in the group "Centennial Songs" and annexed to Two Rivulets. The poem appears ungrouped again in Leaves of Grass (1881). Several leaves contain deleted and undeleted titles or variant verse references to other published poems: "Eidólons", "Waves in the Vessel's Wake", "(a sonnet)" written "for Century Verses," which appears from a Library of Congress manuscript to have been a working title of the group that became "Centennial Verses" and "A California song".

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Whitman Archive ID: mil.00001
Title: Waves in the Vessel's wake
Date: about 1874
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

Heavily revised draft of a poem that, after extensive further revision, was published first in the December 1874 issue of the New York Daily Graphic as "In the Wake Following." The poem first appeared under its final title, "After the Sea-Ship," in 1876, in the "Sea-Drift" group of Two Rivulets.

Repository: Albert M. Bender Collection, Special Collections Department, F. W. Olin Library, Mills College

After the Supper and Talk

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00004
Title: After the Supper and Talk
Date: 1887
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 28 x 25.5 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

Signed draft of the poem, which was first published in 1887. On the verso is a proof sheet from "After All, Not to Create Only" with one correction.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Title: "After the Supper and Talk"
Date: about 1887
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 12 x 15 cm, handwritten
Images: forthcoming

Content:

A proof of "After the Supper and Talk," with corrections (all punctuation) in ink and two words written in purple pencil: "30 Copies." This poem was published first in 1887.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00082
Title: After the Supper and Talk
Date: about 1885
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 25 x 20 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

A draft of "After the Supper and Talk". This poem was rejected by Harper's in 1885 but published in Lippincott's Magazine in November 1887, after which it eventually became the final poem in the "First Annex" titled "Sands at Seventy." To the verso are pasted sections 16 and 18-19 of "Poem of Joys" (final title: "A Song of Joys") clipped either from the independent book Passage to India (1871) or from the "Passage to India" supplement to Leaves of Grass.

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Title: "November Boughs"
Date: 1887
Physical Description: handwritten
Images: forthcoming

Content:

Clipping from a newspaper of four Whitman poems: "You Lingering Sparse Leaves of Me," "'Going Somewhere,'" "After the Supper and Talk," and "Not Meagre Latent Boughs Alone." At the top is the title "November Boughs." At the bottom of the clipping is written, in Whitman's hand, "1887." The poems were published first in Lippincott's Magazine, November, 1887.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Title: "November Boughs"
Date: about 1887
Physical Description: 3 leaves, handwritten
Images: forthcoming

Content:

Three proofs of a collection of four poems ("You Lingering Sparse Leaves of Me," "'Going Somewhere,'" "After the Supper and Talk," and "Not Meagre Latent Boughs Alone") under the general title "November Boughs." The first is made by pasting together proofs of each poem in the order desired; the other two have all four poems printed on one sheet. Two of the proofs have corrections and notations in Whitman's hand.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00003
Title: So Loth to Depart!
Date: about 1887
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 26 x 20 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

Draft of poem later revised and published as "After the Supper and Talk" in 1887. On verso detached from Leaves of Grass, part of "Poem of Joys," first published in the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass, and later published as "A Song of Joys." The title "Poem of Joys" is in Whitman's hand.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

All is Truth

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00206
Title: As of the The Truth
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 4 leaves, leaf 2 19.5 x 13 cm, all other leaves 21.5 x 13 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8

Content:

This poem became section 18 of the cluster "Leaves of Grass" in the 1860 edition. In 1872 the poem received the title "All is Truth," and in 1881, after various repositionings, it was finally transferred to the cluster "From Noon to Starry Night". The second leaf is a composite formed when Whitman deleted and cut away the original first two verses on the leaf, flipped the new small section over and upside-down, pasted it to the foot of the remaining original verses, and inscribed a verse in light ink on the newly created blank space.

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

America (unpublished poem)

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00006
Title: America
Date: undated
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 18.5 x 21.5 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

Despite the title, this manuscript does not appear to be a draft of the poem, "America," published in 1888, but it has been published separately and posthumously as "[America]" and begins "No Homer, Shakspere, Voltaire." This manuscript was likely composed in the last two decades of Whitman's career (roughly 1870-1892) when he was more apt to mention other writers explicitly in his poetry.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

America

Whitman Archive ID: pri.00002
Title: America
Date: ca. 1888
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

Six lines of "America," which was published first in 1888.

Repository: Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library

Among the Multitude

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00336
Title: To One Who Will Understand
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 21.5 x 13 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

On one leaf of pink paper (21.5 x 13 cm), in black ink, with revisions in the same ink, in pencil, and in fine ink (in that order). Pinholes mostly in center. Originally titled "To Those Who Will Understand" and numbered 100 (then 101, then the current ?100 in the fine pen). This was revised to form section 41 of "Calamus" in 1860 and was permanently retitled "Among the Multitude" in the 1867 Leaves.

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

And Yet Not You Alone

Whitman Archive ID: yal.00049
Title: [Nor you alone]
Date: about 1885
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1

Content:

This is a draft of the poem, "And Yet Not You Alone," published as part of "Fancies at Navesink" in the magazine, Nineteenth Century, in August 1885. The draft also has, in the bottom margin, the title of the poem which follows it in "Fancies at Navesink," "Proudly the Flood Comes In." This manuscript is bound with others under the title, "Fancies at Navesink."

Repository: Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Whitman Archive ID: yal.00050
Title: [your needed blending]
Date: about 1885
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1

Content:

This is a draft of the poem, "And Yet Not You Alone," published as part of "Fancies at Navesink" in the magazine, Nineteenth Century, in August 1885. This manuscript is bound with others under the title, "Fancies at Navesink."

Repository: Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Are You the New Person Drawn toward Me?

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00332
Title: To a new personal admirer
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 2 leaves, leaf 1 13 x 11.5 cm; leaf 2 20 x 16 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

Content:

On two pieces of white wove paper, 13 x 11.5 and 20 x 16 cm, in brown-black ink, with substantial revisions in the same ink. Pinholes mostly at center and in left margins of both pages. This poem, featuring a new first line, became section 12 of "Calamus" in 1860; in 1867 Whitman dropped the last 2 1/2 lines and permanently retitled it "Are you the New Person Drawn Toward Me?" The first page contains verses corresponding to lines 2-3 of the 1860 version, and the lines on the second page ("Do you suppose you can easily/ be my lover,...") became verses 4-11.

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

armies & navies pass on the surface

Whitman Archive ID: tex.00005
Title: [Armies & navies pass on the surface] | [Locust whirring they come in July]
Date: probably 1850-1870
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

This manuscript was probably composed in the 1850s or 1860s. On one side of the leaf are approximately five lines toward a poem about the effects of war that was never published in Whitman's lifetime. On the other side are two sentences or lines, one headed "Locust," and the other headed "Sunflower." The relationship of these notes to Whitman's published work is unknown.

Repository: The Walt Whitman Collection, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin

As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free. And Other Poems

Whitman Archive ID: tex.00003
Title: [Americans are charged with disproportionate brag and]
Date: 1819-1872
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1

Content:

A paragraph, heavily revised, expressing the opinion that the United States is the culmination of human development. A note at the bottom of the sheet refers to "As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free," a poem first published in the New York Herald on 26 June 1872. This poem was later published with seven other poems in a pamphlet, As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free (1872). Subsequently it was included as a supplement bound with Two Rivulets (1876). Later still Whitman changed the title to "Thou Mother with Thy Equal Brood," added a new opening stanza, and additional revisions, and incorporated the poem into Leaves of Grass (1881-82). Extracts from this poem also appeared in the Washington Evening Star on the same date, within a larger article on the commencement exercises at Dartmouth College.

Repository: The Walt Whitman Collection, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin

As at Thy Portals Also Death

Whitman Archive ID: tex.00006
Title: As at thy Portals also Death
Date: about 1881
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

Draft, with revisions, of "As at Thy Portals Also Death," which was first published in the 1881 edition of Leaves of Grass. A second, smaller leaf, was at some point pasted over the lines at the bottom of the first leaf, but the two have become separated and are at present stored separately.

Repository: The Walt Whitman Collection, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin

As Consequent, Etc.

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00082
Title: [some threading Ohio's]
Date: 1881
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 13 x 14.5 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

A draft of lines of "As Consequent, Etc.," first published in the 1881 edition of Leaves of Grass. On the verso in a letter from the Camden and Atlantic Railroad dated January 25, 1881.

Repository: The Thomas Biggs Harned Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman: A Register of His Papers in the Library of Congress, 1842-1937

Ashes of Soldiers (Poem)

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00054
Title: [Ashes of ?soldiers heroes]
Date: about 1871
Physical Description: 2 leaves, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

Draft of lines which bear a relationship to "Ashes of Soldiers," first published in 1865. On the second leaf is a one line reading "The Soul of their Ashes risen." This manuscript was likely composed around 1870-1871, when Whitman was revising and expanding the poem for republication. This manuscript appears to be a draft of the first two linegroups of "Ashes of Soldiers." These linegroups were added in 1871 to a poem first published as "Hymn of Dead Soldiers" in Drum-Taps (1865). It was only in 1871 that he added the imagery of ashes to this poem.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00050
Title: Ashes of Roses
Date: about 1870
Physical Description: 2 leaves, 23.5 x 13.5 and 10 x 13.5 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

Content:

Poem draft, parts of which have been printed as "? Ashes of Roses." The manuscript may bear a relationship to "Ashes of Soldiers," a poem published first in 1865 as "Hymn of Dead Soldiers" in Drum-Taps. It was only in 1871 that Whitman added the imagery of ashes to this poem. The manuscript was likely composed around 1870-1871, when Whitman was revising and expanding the poem for republication. Alternatively, the manuscript may be a draft of a unique poetic work unpublished in Whitman's lifetime.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00298
Title: Songs of Parting
Date: about 1881
Physical Description: 18 leaves with handwritten annotations, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18

Content:

Bound proofs of Whitman's cluster "Songs of Parting," containing 17 poems. Opposite a portrait of Whitman, the title page reads, "Songs of Parting, by Walt Whitman, The Poet's Corrected Proof." These corrections were probably for the 1881 edition of Leaves of Grass. The 17 poems included are: "As the Time Draws Nigh," "Ashes of Soldiers," "Years of the Modern," "Thoughts," "Song at Sunset," "My Legacy," "Pensive on Her Dead Gazing, I Heard the Mother of All," "Camps of Green," "Bathed in War's Perfume," "Now Finalé to the Shore," "As they Draw to a Close," "The Untold Want," "Portals," "These Carols," "To the Reader at Parting," "Joy, Shipmate, Joy!," and "So Long."

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

As I Ebb'd with the Ocean of Life

Whitman Archive ID: har.00003
Title: Bardic symbols
Date: about 1860
Physical Description: 3 leaves, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

Content:

Partial late draft, with minor revisions, of "Bardic Symbols," first published in the April 1860 issue of the Atlantic Monthly. The poem was later revised and published under the title "As I Ebb'd with the Ocean of Life." Two of the manuscript leaves are stored with a letter to the editor, James Russell Lowell, dated October 2, 1861; the other leaf is stored separately.

Repository: Manuscripts Department, Houghton Library, Harvard University

Title: "Bardic Symbols"
Date: April, 1860

Content:

Portions of two copies of The Atlantic Monthly containing Whitman's poem "Bardic Symbols." The poem appeared in revised forms and with different titles throughout Whitman's career. In the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass, it was known as "Leaves of Grass, Number 1"; in the 1867 edition of Leaves of Grass it was titled "Elemental Drifts"; and, in the 1881-1882 edition, the title was again changed to "As I Ebb'd With the Ocean of Life."

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00033
Title: Sea Winrows
Date: 1860-1881
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1

Content:

A list of words probably related to the poem "As I Ebb'd with the Ocean of Life," originally published as "Bardic Symbols" in the Atlantic Monthly 5 (April 1860). The final version of the poem was published in Leaves of Grass (1881-82). The verso features the words "Sands and Drifts."

Repository: The Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library

As If a Phantom Caress'd Me

Title: "Whispers of Heavenly Death"
Date: about 1870
Physical Description: 15 leaves, 20 x 13 cm, handwritten
Images: forthcoming

Content:

Mostly mounted clippings of poems taken from Leaves of Grass, stitched and tied with ribbon by Walt Whitman. An autograph title page is followed by pages numbered in red pencil 469-484. One poem, "Joy, Shipmate, Joy!," on p. 481 is written entirely in Walt Whitman's hand, and other corrections and additions are in Whitman's hand throughout. The poems included are: "Whispers of Heavenly Death," "Yet, Yet Ye Downcast Hours," "As Nearing Departure" (later published, in a different form, as "As the Time Draws Nigh"), "Darest Thou Now O Soul," "Of Him I Love Day and Night," "Quicksand Years That Whirl Me I Know Not Whither" (later published as "Quicksand Years"), "That Music Always Round Me," "As If a Phantom Caress'd Me," "O Living Always, Always Dying," "Here, Sailor!" (later published as "What Ship Puzzled at Sea"), "A Noiseless Patient Spider," "To One Shortly to Die," "Joy, Shipmate, Joy!," "This Day, O Soul," "What Place is Besieged?," "The Last Invocation," and "Pensive and Faltering."

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

As in a Swoon

Title: "As in a Swoon"
Date: about 1876
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 6.5 x 12.5 cm, handwritten
Images: forthcoming

Content:

A proof pasted on another sheet of paper, with seven words in Whitman's hand: "Walt Whitman, (discarded from last booklet.)" "As in a Swoon" was published first in 1876.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Whitman Archive ID: yal.00004
Title: As in a Swoon
Date: about 1876
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

This is a manuscript of the poem, "As in a Swoon," first published in the 1876 printing of Leaves of Grass. Although this poem was not included in any subsequent editions of Leaves of Grass, Whitman did include it in the 1891 volume, Good-Bye My Fancy, and as one of the few poems in the 1892 volume, Complete Prose Works.

Repository: Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

As I Sit Writing Here

Whitman Archive ID: pri.00001
Title: As I Sit Writing Here
Date: ca. 1888
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

Four lines of "As I Sit Writing Here," which was published first in 1888.

Repository: Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library

As I Walk These Broad Majestic Days

Whitman Archive ID: duk.00287
Title: [Poem, as in a rapt and]
Date: before 1860
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1

Content:

A manuscript proposing ideas for a poem in the form of a prophetic vision about the future of America. Possibly related to "As I Walk These Broad Majestic Days," which was first published as "Chants Democratic 21" in 1860. This scrap has been attached by a collector or archivist to a backing sheet, together with "An After Thought or Two," and "[Poem ante-dating]."

Repository: The Trent Collection of Walt Whitman Manuscripts, Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library

As of Forms

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00124
Title: As of Forms
Date: around 1860
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 21.5 cm x 13 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

Manuscript draft of the unpublished poem "As of Forms" which is possibly one of a group of poems Whitman composed prior to the third edition of Leaves of Grass.

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Assurances

Title: "[the scope of government]"
Date: between 1855-1856
Physical Description: handwritten
Images: forthcoming

Content:

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

As the Greek's Signal Flame

Whitman Archive ID: hav.00001
Title: As the Greek's Signal Flame
Date: 1887
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
Images: forthcoming

Content:

A broadside of Whitman's poem "As the Greek's Signal Flame," which is subtitled "For Whittier's 80th birthday, December 17, 1887." The poem was published first in 1887.

Repository: Haverford College Quaker and Special Collections

Title: "As the Greek's Signal Flame"
Date: about 1887
Physical Description: 2 p., 12 x 15.25 cm, handwritten
Images: forthcoming

Content:

Written in ink at the top of a proof of "As the Greek's Signal Flame"(subheaded "For Whittier's 80th birth-day, December 17th, 1887"), a seven-line poem, with a printed signature, nine words: "If convenient put in paper of Saturday Dec. 17." Another copy of the same proof, with no annotations.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

As the Time Draws Nigh

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00231
Title: Nearing Departure
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 16 x 20 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

Whitman retitled the poem "To My Soul" in the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass. In 1867 Whitman cut eight lines and revised others, retitling the poem "As Nearing Departure" and moving it to an untitled group of poems in the supplement "Songs Before Parting." In 1872 it was finally retitled "As the Time Draws Nigh" and transferred to the cluster "Songs of Parting" within the main body of Leaves of Grass.

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Content:

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Title: "Whispers of Heavenly Death"
Date: about 1870
Physical Description: 15 leaves, 20 x 13 cm, handwritten
Images: forthcoming

Content:

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

As They Draw to a Close

Content:

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Autumn Rivulets

Title: "Autumn Rivulets"
Date: about 1881
Physical Description: handwritten
Images: forthcoming

Content:

Written in ink at the bottom of a proof of "Old War-Dreams," four words: "Walt Whitman's New Book." Accompanying is a collection of proofs of "Autumn Rivulets," with cancelled title "As Consequent, Etc." without any other markings or annotations. The poems included are: "From Far Dakota's Canons," "A Farm Picture," "What Best I See on Thee" (U.S. Grant), "The Sobbing of the Bells," "Italian Music in Dakota," "By Broad Potomac's Shore," "Excelsior," "With All thy Gifts," "To Rich Givers" "The Dalliance of the Eagles," "Tears," "After the Sea-Ship," "Aboard at a Ship's Helm," and "Thick-Sprinkled Bunting." "Autumn Rivulets" was published first in 1881.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Backward Glance O'er Travel'd Roads, A

Whitman Archive ID: bpl.00005
Title: Corrections in Plates
Date: ca. 1888
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

A list of corrections in Whitman's hand, including page numbers and notes, possibly corresponding to a proof of the 1891-1892 edition of Leaves of Grass and related to "[p 287]" above. The bottom of the page has Whitman's corrections to "A Backward Glance O'er Travel'd Roads" (first published in 1888).

Repository: The Walt Whitman Collection, Boston Public Library

Base of All Metaphysics, The

Whitman Archive ID: bpl.00023
Title: The Professor's Answer.
Date: ca. 1870
Physical Description: 2 leaves, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

Content:

This early draft of a poem Whitman titled "The Professor's Answer" was tipped into a copy of John Burroughs's Notes on Walt Whitman, as Poet and Person between pages 16 and 17. This poem, ultimately titled "The Base of All Metaphysics," first appeared in print as an addition to the "Calamus" group in Leaves of Grass, 1871.

Repository: The Walt Whitman Collection, Boston Public Library

Bathed in War's Perfume (Poem)

Content:

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Beat! Beat! Drums!

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00051
Title: [Beat! Beat! Drums!]
Date: 1860-1865
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

One leaf with a draft of the first stanza of "Beat! Beat! Drums!", first published simultaneously in Harper's Weekly and in the New York Leader on September 28, 1861. On the verso are lines on the death of President Lincoln, known as "[Thou West that gave'st him to us]" and first published in a Facsimile Edition of Drum-Taps in 1959. (Note: Early cataloguers incorrectly identified this fragment as part of "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd.")

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Beauty of the Ship, The

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00499
Title: The Beauty of the Ship
Date: 1876
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

A cancelled, early draft of "The Beauty of the Ship"written on the verso of an 1876 letter from Whitman to Robert Buchanan.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Beginners

Whitman Archive ID: hun.00006
Title: Beginners
Date: ca. 1860
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

A handwritten draft of "Beginners," a poem published first in 1860.

Repository: The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens

Bravo, Paris Exposition!

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00056
Title: Bravo, Paris Exhibition!
Date: about 1889
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 21 x 27.5 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

A draft of the poem published as "Bravo, Paris Exposition!" in 1889, with a diagonal line striking through the entire page.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00057
Title: Bravo, Paris Exhibition!
Date: about 1889
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 21 x 27.5 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

Signed draft of a poem with a variation in line 1 from the printed version. On the verso, written in pencil: "Can you use this? Put it under the "Personal" head like you did a year ago? "The price is $10, which please send me by mail here." In ink is the start of another sentence: "If you don't want it." The poem was published under the title "Bravo, Paris Exposition!" in 1889.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00058
Title: Bravo, Paris Exposition!
Date: about 1889
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 11.5 x 15 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

A proof sheet of "Bravo, Paris Exposition!" with corrections in Whitman's hand. "Bravo, Paris Exposition!" was published in 1889.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00059
Title: Bravo, Paris Exposition!
Date: about 1889
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 11.5 x 15 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

A proof sheet of "Bravo, Paris Exposition!" with corrections in Whitman's hand. "Bravo, Paris Exposition!" was published in 1889.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00060
Title: Bravo, Paris Exposition!
Date: about 1889
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 11.5 x 15 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

A proof sheet of "Bravo, Paris Exposition!" with corrections in Whitman's hand. At the top is a note reading "See notes, Oct 31, '89." "Bravo, Paris Exposition!" was published in 1889.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00061
Title: Bravo, Paris Exposition!
Date: about 1889
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

A proof sheet of "Bravo, Paris Exposition!" with corrections in Whitman's hand. At the top is a note in Traubel's hand: "Rec'd from W.W. Sept 30, '89". "Bravo, Paris Exposition!" was published in 1889.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Whitman Archive ID: tex.00082
Title: Bravo, Paris Exposition!
Date: undated
Physical Description: 1 leaf, proof with handwritten corrections
View Images: 1

Content:

"Bravo, Paris Exposition!" was published in Harper's Weekly 33, 28 September 1889. It was reprinted in Good-Bye My Fancy (1891) and in Leaves of Grass (1891–1892). According to a letter from Whitman to R. M. Bucke, this poem was also reprinted in the French paper "Le Temps."

Repository: The Walt Whitman Collection, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin

Broadway Pageant, A

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00277
Title: [You are English]
Date: 1856-1860
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 10 x 15 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

Whitman's use of the word "Libertad" and his way of handling the theme of immigration suggest that this might be part of an early draft of the poem eventually known as "A Broadway Pageant," first published in the June 27, 1860 issue of the New York Times as "The Errand-Bearers."

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Broadway

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00156
Title: Broadway
Date: 1888
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 22.5 cm x 20 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

This manuscript contains a draft version of the poem "Broadway". A note appearing at the top of the page states "Sent Herald March 3—sent again April 9 '88" indicating that this manuscript was likely composed and/or edited around the time of its first publication in the New York Herald, April 10, 1888.

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

By Blue Ontario's Shore

Whitman Archive ID: upa.00001
Title: [after all]
Date: about 1855
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

This manuscript is written on a green sheet used for the endpapers of the first edition of the 1855 Leaves of Grass, an edition that begins with a ten-page statement in prose, originally untitled and later known generally as the 1855 Preface. This manuscript seems to represent an early attempt by Whitman to recast the 1855 prose Preface into poetry; indeed, the first numbered poem in the cluster of poems titled, "Chants Democratic and Native American," which appeared in the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass is thought to be a renegotiation of the 1855 prose Preface not unlike the poem, "By Blue Ontario's Shore," which also was an adaptation of the prose Preface that later appeared in the 1856 Leaves of Grass.

Whitman Archive ID: duk.00030
Title: [a nation announcing itself]
Date: about 1856
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

A manuscript draft of the opening passage of "Poem of Many in One" (1856). The final title of the poem, "By Blue Ontario's Shore," first appeared in the 1881 edition of Leaves of Grass. On the verso is both prose and verse beginning "Asia" that appears to be a draft of "Salut Au Monde!," a poem first published as "Poem of Salutation" in the 1856 edition of Leaves of Grass.

Repository: The Trent Collection of Walt Whitman Manuscripts, Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library

Whitman Archive ID: upa.00005
Title: [are you and me] | [Sanity and ensemble characterise the great master]
Date: about 1856
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

On one side of the leaf are about 20 lines related to the 1855 preface to Leaves of Grass and to the poem first published as "Chants Democratic 1" in 1860. The lines were probably written as Whitman was mining the preface for material to be used in the poem, which was eventually titled "By Blue Ontario's Shore." On the reverse are 14 lines, also clearly related to the 1855 preface but only indirectly, if at all, to "Chants Democratic 1."

Title: "[George Walker]"
Date: between 1855-1856
Physical Description: handwritten
Images: forthcoming

Content:

A notebook Whitman used for various purposes in the mid-1850s. Edward F. Grier, in his edition of Whitman's Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts (New York: New York University Press, 1984. 6 vols), noted that the notebook contains lines and phrases that relate to several poems: "Song of the Broad-Axe," "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," "I Sing the Body Electric," "Starting from Paumanok," "A Song for Occupations," "By Blue Ontario's Shore," "Salut au Monde!," "To One Shortly to Die," and "A Woman Waits for Me."

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00284
Title: [Have I]
Date: about 1856
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 9 x 18 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

The words "Have I" at the beginning are inscribed on a small scrap of the same paper, which Whitman pasted over some deleted words in the upper right corner that cannot be discerned through the paper. Inscribed and extensively revised in pencil, these verses were part of a larger set of lines before Whitman cut away the rest. Although the page number and many words on the left side of the proof have been cut away, the remaining words identify it as being from the "Poem of Many in One (1856)," which eventually became "By Blue Ontario's Shore." These unused but also undeleted lines may have been intended for that poem or a number of other poems in Leaves of Grass.

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Title: "[med Cophósis]"
Date: between 1850-1856
Physical Description: handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

Content:

A notebook kept by Whitman in the early to mid-1850s. William White, in his edition of Whitman's Daybooks and Notebooks (New York: New York University Press, 1978. 3 vols.), noted a relationship between this notebook and the poems "Who Learns My Lesson Complete?," "By Blue Ontario's Shore," "Song of the Answerer," and "There Was a Child Went Forth."

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Whitman Archive ID: duk.00166
Title: [Produce great persons and the producers]
Date: 1856
Physical Description: 2 leaves, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

Content:

Manuscript and clipping. On one side of the manuscript leaf are several prose notes, including two versions of a paragraph that was later revised to become a line in "Poem of Many In One," published in 1856 and eventually titled "By Blue Ontario's Shore." The phrase "savage and luxuriant," which appears toward the bottom of this side, was used in Whitman's open letter to Emerson, published in an appendix to the 1856 edition of Leaves of Grass. On the other side of the leaf is a partial draft of "Poem of The Singers, and of the Words of Poems," also first published in 1856. In the final edition of Leaves of Grass this and another poem, which had been included in every edition since 1855, were combined to form "Song of the Answerer." Whitman pasted two newspaper clippings on the manuscript, one on each side. One of these, which had covered Whitman's paragraphs but has since been detached, is included in the file.

Repository: The Trent Collection of Walt Whitman Manuscripts, Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00304
Title: Europe
Date: about 1855
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 16 x 14 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

The recto notes represent an early stage of lines partially incorporated in "Poem of Salutation," the new third poem in the 1856 edition of Leaves of Grass, which was permanently retitled "Salut au Monde!" in the 1860 edition. If the note or title "Europe" suggests that Whitman might have first intended to divide his salutations into discrete sections based on the different continents, this is a plan he did not follow in the published version(s). The more polished (but deleted) lines on the verso represent a recasting in poetic form of several lines from the 1855 Preface. These were further revised for the 1856 "Poem of Many in One," after which the first verse drafted on this page (cut off here, and beginning "over the Texan, Mexican, Florid[ian,]/ Cuban seas...") was dropped. The two verses below this, however, were preserved relatively unchanged through the poem's many transformations until the text was essentially fixed under the title "By Blue Ontario's Shore" in 1881.

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00060
Title: Inscription
Date: between 1855 and 1867
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 19.5 x 12.5 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

This manuscript entitled "Inscription" appears to be a revision of other "Inscriptions" Whitman gathered in a notebook, along with prose drafts for a never-finished introduction to Leaves of Grass, and attached to his copy of the 1855 paper-bound edition. (The entire collection of draft "inscription" and introductory material is currently housed at the New York Public Library.) In the 1867 Leaves of Grass Whitman culled material from this poem and the other "Inscription" poems to create an italicized "Inscription" that he placed before "Starting from Paumanok" at the beginning of the book; in that edition he also transferred part of verse 2 to "As I Sat Alone by Blue Ontario's Shore" (later the line was dropped and the title was revised to "By Blue Ontario's Shore"). From 1872 onward, this poem, revised and retitled "One's-Self I Sing," was printed as the first of several poems in the "Inscriptions" cluster that opened the book. In the 1888 November Boughs, however, Whitman reprinted the 1867 version as "Small the Theme of my Chant." Note: This manuscript draft may have been written before the Civil War, since it does not include the 1867 line "My Days I sing, and the Lands—with interstice I knew / of hapless War."

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

By Broad Potomac's Shore

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00619
Title: [for 'Again old heart so gay']
Date: 1872
Physical Description: 2 leaves, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

Content:

Two pages of notes for a piece entitled "Again old heart so gay" about "the idea of constantly recurring Birth and Death." This manuscript is probably related to "By Broad Potomac's Shore," first published in 1872.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Title: "By Broad Potomac's Shore"
Date: about 1872
Physical Description: 1 leaf
Images: forthcoming

Content:

Proof of "By Broad Potomac's Shore," first published in 1872, with no annotations on sheet.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Calamus

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00306
Title: [A leaf for hand-in-hand]
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 14.5 x 9 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

On one leaf of white wove paper (14.5 x 9 cm), in black ink, with revisions in pencil. Pinholes in center and at top. A blue-pencil number 3 appears in the upper right corner over an erased 9. With substantial additions and revisions this evolved into section 37 of "Calamus" in 1860; after further revision it became "A Leaf for Hand in Hand" in 1867.

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00312
Title: [Earth]
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 14.5 x 9.5 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

On one leaf of white wove paper (14.5 x 9.5 cm), in brown-black ink, with revisions in lighter ink (including the deletion, undone in 1860, of the phrase "My likeness!" after "Earth!"). Pinholes mostly at top and in center. Whitman penciled in the number 15 in the lower-left corner. Originally poem XI in the sequence "Live Oak, with Moss" (with the Roman numeral ornamentally drawn), this was revised to become section 36 of "Calamus" in 1860. In 1867 Whitman retitled the poem "Earth! My Likeness!"

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00267
Title: [Full of wickedness]
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 15.5 x 8 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

The verses on the recto, while not published word-for-word until 1897, seem to represent an early draft of the poem first published as number 13 of the cluster "Leaves of Grass" in the 1860 Leaves of Grass, and eventually titled "You Felons on Trial in Courts." Whitman's careful script and verse forms here also resemble the methods of inscription used for the "Live Oak, with Moss" poems dated to the post-1856, pre-1860 period. The undeleted notes on the back are titled "Poems". A cartoon hand in the left margin points to the phrase "religious emotions." Whitman's use of the title "Calamus Leaves" dates these notes to the same pre-1860 period as the deleted verses on the recto, since "Calamus-Leaves" was what he renamed the cluster "Live Oak, with Moss" before settling on "Calamus" for the 1860 edition. A section of the notes below the rest (beginning "spirituality—the unknown,...") is inscribed in verse form.

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00313
Title: [Here the frailest leaves of me]
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 15 x 9.5 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

On one leaf of white wove paper (15 x 9.5 cm), in medium-brown ink, with one revision in the same ink. Pinholes mostly at top and in center. The two sets of verses are divided by a short horizontal line. In 1860 the first set, with the addition of a new first line ("Here my last words, and the most baffling,") became section 44 of "Calamus"; the poem was permanently retitled "Here the Frailest Leaves of Me", and the new first line dropped, in 1867. The second set was revised to form section 38 of "Calamus" in 1860; in 1867 it was further revised and retitled "Fast Anchor'd, Eternal, O Love."

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00314
Title: [Hours continuing long]
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 2 leaves, leaf 1 9.5 x 9 cm; leaf 2 14.5 x 9 cm pasted to 5 x 9.5 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

Content:

On two pieces of white wove paper, the first cut down to 9.5 x 9 cm and the second comprising two sections (14.5 x 9 and 5 x 9.5 cm) joined by means of a strip of pink paper. In brown-black ink, with revisions in the same ink and in pencil. Pinholes mostly at top and in center of leaves. Whitman penciled in the numbers 11 and 12 (apparently over other numbers) in the lower-left corner of each page; his partly erased pencil note "(finished in/ the other city)" appears on the first page. The ornamental number "VIII" replaces a deleted ornamental "IX" on the first page, and the top of another "IX" appears at the foot of the second page, beneath a wavy line indicating the end of the poem. Whitman removed the lower section of page 2 from the top of current leaf 1:3:33 ("I dreamed in a dream of a/ city..."). This poem, the eighth in the sequence "Live Oak, with Moss," became section 9 of "Calamus" in 1860. This was its only appearance in Leaves. The first page contains what would become verses 1-3 in 1860, and the second ("Hours discouraged, distracted,") contains lines 4-12.

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00315
Title: [I dreamed in a dream of a]
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 9.5 x 9 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

On one leaf of white wove paper cut down to 9.5 x 9 cm, in brown-black ink, with revisions in pencil. Pinholes at top and in center. Whitman numbered the leaf 13, in pencil, in the lower-left corner. The excised top portion of the leaf became the bottom section of page 2 of 1:3:11, the poem (eighth in the sequence "Live Oak, with Moss") beginning "Hours continuing long, sore/ and heavy-hearted..." In 1860 this poem was substantially revised to form section 34 of "Calamus"; in 1867 it was retitled "I Dreamed in a Dream."

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00316
Title: [I saw in Louisiana a]
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 2 leaves, 15 x 9.5 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

On two leaves of white wove paper, both 15 x 9.5 cm, in black ink, with extensive revisions in the same ink, in light brown ink, and in pencil. Pinholes mostly at top and in center of both pages. Whitman numbered the pages 2 and 3 in pencil. This was originally the second section of the sequence "Live Oak, with Moss" (one of the deleted lines reads "I write/ these pieces, and name/ them after it [the Louisiana live-oak];"), with ornamental Roman numeral. It became section 20 of "Calamus" in 1860; the lines on the first manuscript page correspond to verses 1-7, and those on the second ("It is not needed to remind/ me...") to verses 8-13. The poem was retitled "I saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing" in 1867.

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00321
Title: [Long I thought that knowledge]
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 3 leaves, leaves 1 and 2 15 x 9.5 cm; leaf 3 6.5 x 9.5 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

Content:

On three pieces of white wove paper (the first two 15 x 9.5 cm, the third 6.5 x 9.5 cm), in black ink, with revisions in the same ink and in pencil. Whitman also penciled in the numbers 7, 8, and 8 1/2 in the lower-left corner of each page. Pinholes at the head and in the center of each page. This was the fifth poem of the original sequence "Live Oak, with Moss"; the poem number is inscribed ornamentally, as with the Roman numerals Whitman used for other "Live Oak" poems, and a wavy line appears after the last verse. The lines on the first leaf became verses 1-5 of section 8 of "Calamus" in 1860; the second leaf's lines ("Take notice, you Kanuck woods") became verses 6-10; and the lines on the half-page ("I am indifferent to my own/ songs—") became verses 11-12. There were no further appearances of this poem during the poet's lifetime, Whitman having canceled it in his "Blue Book Copy" of the 1860 Leaves.

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00324
Title: [O you whom I often and silently come where you are]
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 14.5 x 9 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

On one leaf of white wove paper (14.5 x 9 cm), in brown-black ink, with revisions in the same ink. Pinholes mostly at the top, with a few lower down. The tenth section of the original sequence "Live Oak, with Moss" (with ornamental Roman numeral), this was reformatted and renumbered but otherwise left unrevised as section 43 of "Calamus" in 1860. In 1867 Whitman permanently retitled it "O You Whom I Often and Silently Come."

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00328
Title: [Sometimes]
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 15 x 9.5 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

On one leaf of white wove paper (15 x 9.5 cm), in light brown ink, with one revision in the same ink. Pinholes at top and in center. A blue pencil mark, possibly the number 4, has been inscribed in the upper right corner. Bowers notes that the page bears the imprint of a papermaker's lozenge die, perhaps that of Platner and Smith of Lee, Massachusetts. This poem became section 39 of "Calamus" in 1860; in 1867 Whitman replaced the third line with a new one and permanently retitled the poem "Sometimes with One I Love."

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00329
Title: [That shadow]
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 17 x 9.5 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

One one leaf of lined light blue wove paper (17 x 9.5 cm), in pencil, with one pencil revision. Only two sets of pinholes, both in center. This was revised to become section 40 of "Calamus" in 1860; in 1867 it was retitled "That Shadow, My Likeness."

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00330
Title: [These I, singing in spring]
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 4 leaves, 20 x 16 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8

Content:

These leaves comprise four sections of a poem inscribed on the first and third sides of two folded half-sheets (20 x 16 cm) of the same white wove paper used for 1:3:1 and 1:3:2, in the same light brown ink and, like them, with only minor revisions. The pages were folded and pinned together to form a small pamphlet. Pinholes mostly at center-top and in what was the left margin of the pamphlet. The lines on page 1 became verses 1-8 of section 4 of "Calamus." in 1860; page 2 ("Solitary, smelling the earthy/ smell,...") became verses 9-14; page 3 ("Here lilac with a branch of/ pine,") became verses 15-22; and page 4 ("And stems of currants, and/ plum-blows,") became verses 23-28. From 1867 on the poem was titled "These I, Singing in Spring."

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00331
Title: [This moment as I sit alone]
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 1 leaf, cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

On one leaf of white wove paper, in dark brown ink, with revisions in pencil. Pinholes in center and at top. Whitman penciled in the number 6 in the lower-left corner. The fourth poem in the original sequence "Live Oak, with Moss" (with ornamental Roman numeral), it became section 23 of "Calamus" in 1860 and was permanently retitled "This Moment, Yearning and Thoughtful" in 1867.

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00337
Title: [To the young man]
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 15 x 9 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

On one leaf of white wove paper (15 x 9 cm), in black ink, with revisions in the same ink and in pencil. Whitman also penciled in the page number 16 in the lower-left corner. Pinholes in center and at top. This page bears the same papermaker's mark as 1:3:35. Twelfth in the original sequence "Live Oak, with Moss" (with ornamental Roman numeral), it became section 42 of "Calamus" in 1860. In 1867 Whitman changed the poem to an apostrophe, adding the first line "O Boy of the West!" (later removed) and permanently retitling it "To a Western Boy."

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00338
Title: [What think you I have]
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 8.5 x 9 cm pasted to 6.5 x 9 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

On a composite leaf of white wove paper consisting of two sections (8.5 x 9 and 6.5 x 9 cm) pasted together. Both sections are in black ink but, as Bowers notes, the lower verses were inscribed using a darker, thicker pen; the upper section is unrevised, but the lower section bears several alterations in the original ink. Pinholes at top of both sections and in the current center. Whitman numbered the page 9, in pencil, in the lower-left corner. Originally the sixth section of the sequence "Live Oak, with Moss," this poem was revised to form section 32 of "Calamus" in 1860, and in 1867 was retitled "What Think You I Take My Pen in Hand?"

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00339
Title: [When I heard at the close of]
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 2 leaves, 15 x 9.5 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

Content:

On two leaves of white wove paper, both measuring 15 x 9.5 cm; the lower half of the second page is pasted over with a section of white paper (8 x 9 cm) containing four revised verses. In black ink, with revisions in the same ink and in pencil. Pinholes mostly at top of both pages. Whitman numbered the pages 4 and 5, in pencil, in their lower-left corners. The third section of "Live Oak, with Moss" (with ornamental Roman numeral), this poem became section 11 of "Calamus" in 1860 and was permanently retitled "When I Heard at the Close of the Day" in 1867. For an earlier draft of the poem numbered V please see the verso of leaves 15-16 of "Premonition" (1:1:15-16). Bowers (p. 88) supplies the three earlier lines concealed by the paste-on revision to the second leaf. The lines on the first page correspond to verses 1-5 of the 1860 version, and those on the second page ("And when I thought how/ my friend,...") to lines 6-13.

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00340
Title: [You bards of ages hence]
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 2 leaves, leaf 1 8 x 9 cm; leaf 2 14.5 x 9.5 cm pasted to 5.5 x 9.5 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

Content:

On two sections of white wove paper, the first cut down to 8 x 9 cm and the second a composite of two pieces pasted together, the top measuring 14.5 x 9.5 and the bottom 5.5 x 9.5 cm. In black ink, with a few revisions in the same ink. Pinholes at top and in center of both pages. Whitman numbered the first 9 1/2 and the second 10, in pencil, in the lower-left corner of each leaf. The Roman numeral is inscribed in an ornamental style, and the poem terminates with a wavy line. The seventh poem in the sequence "Live Oak, with Moss," became section 10 of "Calamus" in 1860 and was permanently retitled "Recorders Ages Hence" in 1867. The lines on the first page correspond to verses 1-3 of the 1860 version, and those on the second page ("Publish my name and hang up/ my picture...") to lines 4-11.

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00307
Title: As of Eternity
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 2 leaves, 21 x 13 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

Content:

On two leaves of pink paper, both 21 x 13 cm, in black ink, with minor revisions in the same ink. Pinholes mostly in center and at top of both pages. This poem became section 21 of "Calamus" in 1860; the lines on the first manuscript page became verses 1-6, and those on the second ("I hear not the volumes of/ sound merely—...") became 7-9. Retitled "That Music Always Round Me" in 1867, it was transferred in 1871 to the "Whispers of Heavenly Death" cluster in Passage to India. In 1881 Whitman incorporated it, with the rest of the cluster, in the main body of Leaves.

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00308
Title: Buds
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 21.5 x 13 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

On pink leaf (21.5 x 13 cm), in black ink, with minor revisions in the same ink.A few pinholes at top and near center. A pencil question mark appears in parentheses in the upper-right corner. The number 52 appears to have been revised from 51. After adding several verses, Whitman designated this poem section 13 of "Calamus" in the 1860 Leaves, and, after dropping the first two and last three lines of the 1860 version, permanently retitled it "Roots and Leaves Themselves Alone" in 1867.

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00310
Title: Calamus-Leaves
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 15 x 9 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

On white wove leaf, 15 x 9 cm, in black ink, with the title "Live Oak, with Moss" stricken out and "Calamus-Leaves" added in light brown ink, and with one small revision in blue pencil. Whitman numbered this page 1 in pencil. The first section of the original sequence "Live Oak, with Moss," this became section 14 of "Calamus" in 1860 and was permanently retitled "Not Heat Flames up and Consumes" in the 1867 Leaves.

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00318
Title: Leaf [A promise to Indiana]
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 22 x 13 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

On one leaf of pink paper (22 x 13 cm), in black ink, with revisions in the same ink. Pinholes mostly in center. The original title was "Leaflet," and the original number seems to have been 70. After substantial revision (including the addition of the new first line "A promise and gift to California,") this poem became section 30 of "Calamus" in 1860. Whitman further revised the poem before including it, permanently retitled "A Promise to California," in the 1867 Leaves.

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00319
Title: Leaf [O dying! Always dying!]
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 21.5 x 12 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

On one light blue Williamsburgh tax blank (21.5 x 12 cm), in dark brown ink, with revisions in fine pen and pencil. Whitman penciled in a question mark, in parentheses, next to the title. With the addition of the new first line "O love!" this became section 27 of "Calamus" in 1860. In the 1867 Leaves it was retitled "O Living Always—Always Dying!" Whitman next transferred it to the "Passage to India" supplement bound in with Leaves, where it reappeared in 1876; in the 1881 Leaves Whitman permanently added it to the cluster "Whispers of Heavenly Death."

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00320
Title: Leaf [What place is besieged]
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 21.5 x 13 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

On one leaf of pink paper (21.5 x 13 cm), in black ink, with a fair copy of the poem at the bottom of the leaf and a deleted draft featuring heavy revisions in the same ink and in pencil at the top. This poem was originally numbered 68, and its title was "Leaflet—." In 1860 it became the second numbered verse paragraph of section 31 of "Calamus." In 1867 Whitman split up the two paragraphs and made them separate poems; these verses were moved to a position between the "Calamus" and a "Leaves of Grass" cluster and permanently retitled "What Place Is Besieged?" In 1881 the poem was transferred to the cluster "Inscriptions."

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00325
Title: Poemet
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 2 leaves, 21 x 13 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

Content:

On two pink leaves (21 x 13 cm), in black ink, with revisions in the same ink and in light ink. Pinholes in center, at top, and in top-left corner. This poem was originally titled "Leaf" and apparently numbered 78; Whitman inscribed its new title, "Poemet," in light ink. It became section 17 of "Calamus" in 1860, with the lines on the first leaf corresponding to verses 1-7 and those on the second ("And what I dreamed I will/ henceforth tell...") to verses 8-13 of the first published version. Retitled "Of Him I Love Day and Night" in 1867, it was transferred to the "Whispers of Heavenly Death" cluster in Passage to India in 1871. In 1881 Whitman incorporated it, with the rest of the cluster, in the main body of Leaves.

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00326
Title: Prairie-Grass
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 21 x 13 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

On one leaf of pink paper (21 x 13 cm), in black ink, with revisions in an even blacker ink and in pencil. Pinholes in center. The poem was originally numbered 53. In 1860 Whitman designated it section 25 of "Calamus," transforming the title into a new first line and expanding the original first line into verses 2-4. In 1867 he further revised it, permanently retitling it "The Prairie-Grass Dividing."

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Content:

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00334
Title: To A Stranger
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 2 leaves, 21 x 13 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

Content:

On two leaves of pink paper, both 21 x 13 cm, in black ink, with revisions in the same ink and in light ink. Pinholes mostly in center and in left margin of each page. This poem was first numbered 94, and the first word was "Stranger"; Whitman penciled in a question mark, in parentheses, next to the title. It was numbered section 22 of "Calamus" in 1860: the lines on the first page correspond to verses 1-6 of the 1860 version, and those on the second ("You give me the pleasure") to verses 7-10. Whitman reintroduced the title "To a Stranger" in the 1867 Leaves.

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00335
Title: To one a century hence, or any number of centuries hence
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 10 x 13 cm pasted to 11.5 x 13 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

On one composite leaf of pink paper formed of two sections (10 x 13 and 11.5 x 13 cm) of the same page cut apart and pasted together in a new order. The poem number was originally 101 and then changed to 102; this number was deleted and the current ?101 added in fine pen. Bowers explains that the poem, in two discrete verse sections and inscribed in black ink (with title), originally occupied one full side of this leaf. When Whitman wanted to expand the first section without having to retranscribe the second one, he simply cut the two sections apart, flipped the first section over (turning it upside-down in the process), pasted the second section to the lower edge of the verso of the first section, and wrote his new first section (beginning "Throwing far, throwing over the head/ of death" and incorporating the original title as verse 3) in the blank space now created above the second section. The new first section is written and revised in light ink. As Bradley and Blodgett observe, the words "thirty-eight years old the/ eighty-first year of The States" indicate that Whitman composed the poem in 1857; these were revised to read "I, forty years old the Eighty-third Year of The States" in the 1860 Leaves, in which this poem constituted section 45 of "Calamus." In 1867 Whitman retitled the poem "Full of Life, Now."

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00336
Title: To One Who Will Understand
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 21.5 x 13 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Camps of Green

Content:

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Carol Closing Sixty-Nine, A

Whitman Archive ID: amh.00001
Title: A Carol Closing Sixty-Nine and To Get the Final Lilt of Songs
Date: 1888
Physical Description: 1 leaf,
View Images: 1

Content:

Uncorrected galley proof of "A Carol Closing Sixty-Nine" and "To Get the Final Lilt of Songs," both of which were first published in separate issues of the New York Herald in 1888. This date is written on the leaf, possibly in Whitman's hand. The first published title of "To Get the Final Lilt of Songs" was "The Final Lilt of Songs."

Repository: Amherst College Archives and Special Collections

Title: "A Carol Closing Sixty-Nine"
Date: about 1888
Physical Description: 2 leaves
Images: forthcoming

Content:

Proof sheet with printed signature; proof sheet without printed signature. "A Carol Closing Sixty-Nine" was first published in 1888.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00157
Title: A Carol-Cluster at 69
Date: 1887
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 21 cm x 20 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

This manuscript contains a draft version of a poem entitled "A Carol-Cluster at 69" which was likely composed and edited around the time of its first publication in the New York Herald, May 21, 1888. In the same year, this poem appears in the annex Sands at Seventy under the title "A Carol Closing Sixty-nine".

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00158
Title: Carols at nearing Seventy
Date: around 1887
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 28 cm x 21.5 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

This manuscript contains a draft version of a poem appearing with two alternative titles: "Carols at Nearing Seventy" and "Carols Closing Sixty-Nine". A note at bottom states "Sent to Lippincotts." The poem was first published with the title in the New York Herald, May 21, 1888. In the same year, this poem appears in the annex Sands at Seventy under the title "A Carol Closing Sixty-nine".

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Title: "Old Age's Lambent Peaks"
Date: about 1888
Physical Description: 2 leaves, 34.5 x 15 cm
Images: forthcoming

Content:

Two copies of a proof sheet with three poems: "Old Age's Lambent Peaks," "A Carol Closing Sixty-Nine," "To Get the Final Lilt of Songs," all published first in 1888. No annotations on the sheets.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Title: "Old Age's Lambent Peaks"
Date: about 1888
Physical Description: 2 leaves, 33 x 15 cm; envelope 10.5 x 13 cm, handwritten
Images: forthcoming

Content:

An edited proof sheet with three poems: "Old Age's Lambent Peaks," "A Carol Closing Sixty-Nine," "To Get the Final Lilt of Songs," all published first in 1888. In addition to corrections, Whitman has written a note to the printer at the top of the page. Also included is an envelope with "printer's proofs, short poems, Walt Whitman, 1888, (autographic)" written on it.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Centennial Songs---1876

Content:

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Chanting the Square Deific

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00183
Title: [Once I passed through a populous] I am the child of Democracy
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 20 x 16 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

The recto verses appearing on this manuscript became the main section 9 of "Enfans d'Adam" in 1860 and were retitled "Once I Pass'd Through a Populous City" in 1867. On the verso appear two fragments: an undeleted verse that would be used in Satan's section of "Chanting the Square Deific" in "Sequel to Drum-Taps" (1865-66); and what would become section 23 of "Proto-Leaf", which becomes "Starting from Paumanok" in 1867. The undeleted verse is upside-down relative to the deleted section.

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Whitman Archive ID: duk.00273
Title: [Poem of "(the Devil]
Date: 1865 or before
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1

Content:

This note for a poem about the devil is possibly related to the poem "Chanting the Square Deific," which was first published in 1865. The scrap has been attached by a collector or archivist to a backing sheet, together with "[And there a hunter's camp]," "[(written for the voice)]," and "Poem of Sadness."

Repository: The Trent Collection of Walt Whitman Manuscripts, Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library

Chants Democratic and Native American

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00115
Title: [Walt Whitman's law]
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

This leaf bears the deleted title "To an artist, literat, &c". The first line "Come, I have now to tell you" revises and expands on another manuscript "To a Literat". These lines were eventually revised to form section 13 of the 1860 version of the poem "Chants Democratic" which was revised and permanently retitled "Laws for Creations" in 1872.

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00110
Title: They do not seem to me
Date: about 1860
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 13 cm x 11.5 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

This manuscript is a draft of lines that were published in "Chants Democratic," number 13, in the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass. That poem was later revised and published as "Laws for Creations"; however, the lines on this manuscript are a draft of the section of the poem that was deleted after the 1860 publication.

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00114
Title: To a Literat
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

The first two verses, taken more or less directly from a prose manuscript, "[Of Biography]," have no revisions, but the remaining three verses represent a significant expansion of the themes in the prose notes and are extensively revised. These verses, which precede "[Walt Whitman's law]" in the composition process, correspond, like "[Of Biography]," to section 13 of the 1860 version of the poem "Chants Democratic and Native American" which was revised and permanently retitled "Laws for Creations" in 1872.

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Children of Adam

Whitman Archive ID: duk.00279
Title: [Theory of a Cluster of Poems]
Date: about 1860
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1

Content:

Note suggesting a cluster of poems about "the passion of Woman-Love," along with a few trial lines, all apparently related to the 1860 cluster "Enfans d'Adam" (later retitled "Children of Adam").

Repository: The Trent Collection of Walt Whitman Manuscripts, Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library

Christmas Greeting From a Northern Star-Group to a Southern, 1889-'90, A

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00008
Title: [A North Star]
Date: about 1889
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 18 x 20.5 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

Written in pencil on a tan piece of paper cut from a larger sheet, 130 words with the title "A North Star [page torn] South." The poem was later revised and titled "A Christmas Greeting" and published in 1889.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00007
Title: A Christmas Greeting
Date: about 1889
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 20 x 23.5 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

This manuscript of "A Christmas Greeting" was apparently intended for the printer, as there are few alterations. In right hand corner is notation in red: "if convenient let me have proof by noon." In left hand corner (in pencil) is the name "Horace Traubel." The poem was first published in 1889.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Title: "A Christmas Greeting"
Date: about 1889
Physical Description: 4 leaves, 13.5 x 18.5 cm, handwritten
Images: forthcoming

Content:

Written in ink on first proof of "A Christmas Greeting,"are several corrections. Proofs two and three have a notation by Traubel: "See notes 1/29/90." The third proof has three emendations. A fourth proof is unmarked.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

City of Orgies

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00023
Title: [City of my walks and joys]
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 8.5 x 10 cm pasted to 20 x 16 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

On a composite leaf consisting of two pieces of white wove paper. The smaller section is pasted over some lines in the top-left corner of the larger piece, from the top of which other lines were cut off. On the verso of the larger piece appears an extensively revised pencil draft of the first poem in "Enfans d'Adam". The group first appeard in print in 1860 with this poem as section 1. The poem was permanently titled "To the Garden of the World" in 1867. The verses on the current recto of the composite leaf became section 18 of "Calamus" in 1860; the poem was permanently titled "City of Orgies" in 1867.

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00292
Title: A City Walk
Date: about 1855
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 4.5 x 12 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

A faint horizontal line beneath part of "A City Walk," along with the words' capitalization and central position on the page, indicate that Whitman may have contemplated using the words as the title of an independent poem. The closest he came to this title was "City of Walks and Joys," the name he originally assigned to "Calamus" 18 in his "Blue Book" revisions of the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass. This title was changed in the "Blue Book" to "City of orgies, walks and joys" and finally became "City of Orgies" in the 1867 edition. The manuscript also suggests making a list of things seen while "crossing the ferry" an idea later developed and published in the poem "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry", 1860.

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00293
Title: Original. Walks Down This Street;
Date: about 1856
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 7 x 16 cm paster to 4 x 15.5 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

Both parts of the title are underlined. A wavy line appears at the foot of that section. The word "Original" at the head of the upper section suggests that Whitman was sketching out a new poem for a revised edition of Leaves of Grass. If it was the 1860 edition, as his style of inscription here appears to indicate, it is possible that this leaf could represent an early stage of the poem that would eventually become "City of Orgies", 1867.

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

City of Ships

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00276
Title: [Ships sail upon the waters]
Date: 1856-1860
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 15.5 x 14.5 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

Part of the word "Leaves" appears in the lower right corner of the verso. On the verso, in blue pencil, appears a note, reading "Drum Taps—City of Ships" which appears to be in Whitman's hand. This may indeed have been a draft of the poem "City of Ships," which first appeared in 1865 as part of the independent publication Drum-Taps, but the similarities to the lines on another manuscript in the University of Virginia collection and lack of references to the Civil War indicate that it was inscribed prior to the publication of the the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass.

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Clear Midnight, A

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00062
Title: A Clear Midnight
Date: about 1880
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 19.5 x 14.5 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

A draft of "A Clear Midnight", written on the reverse of a letter from "A. Williams" dated December 2, 1880. The poem was first published in 1881.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00083
Title: A starry midnight
Date: about 1881
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 21 x 13 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

A draft of a poem entitled "A starry midnight," published as "A Clear Midnight" in 1881. At the top is a note in blue pencil that reads "?for end of poems"

Repository: The Thomas Biggs Harned Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman: A Register of His Papers in the Library of Congress, 1842-1937

Come, said my Soul

Whitman Archive ID: hun.00021
Title: Come said my soul . . .
Date: ca. 1874
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

A draft of "Come, said my Soul," a poem first published in 1874 and later used as the title-page epigraph for Leaves of Grass.

Repository: The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens

Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00013
Title: Go, said his Soul to a Poet.
Date:
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

A rough draft, heavily revised, of a poem titled "Go, said his Soul to a Poet," which was first published as "Come, said my Soul" in 1874 and later used as the title-page epigraph for Leaves of Grass.

Repository: The Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library

Content:

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Title: To the Soul
Date: about 1874
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 19.5 x 12.5 cm, handwritten
Images: forthcoming

Content:

Rough draft of a poem entitled "To the Soul". These lines appear to be very early ideas connected with the poem first published as "Come, said my Soul" in the Christmas number of the New York Daily Graphic, December 1874, then in the New York Tribune, February 19, 1876. This poem, signed by Whitman, became the title-page epigraph of Leaves of Grass, 1876 and 1891-2. The verso is blank.

Repository: George S. Hellman Collection, The Library of Congress

Commonplace, The

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00076
Title: The Commonplace
Date: about 1890
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 27 x 19 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

On one side is a draft of "The Commonplace", which was first published in manuscript facsimile in 1891. On the other side is a cancelled early draft of "Osceola," a poem first published in 1890.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Title: "The Commonplace"
Date: March, 1891

Content:

A copy of the March, 1891, issue of Munson's Magazine, which includes, in manuscript facsimile, "The Commonplace."

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Continuities

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00159
Title: [No birth-identity]
Date: around 1888
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 25.5 cm x 19.5 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

This manuscript contains a draft of the poem first published in the New York Herald, March 20, 1888 with the title "Continuities". A note at the bottom of the page states "Sent to H March 17" indicating the draft was likely completed near the time of publication.

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00075
Title: Certainties, Faith, Counterbalances, Alternation
Date: between 1882-1888
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 25 x 20 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

Written in ink on the verso of a discarded letter (cancelled by a diagonal strike) from Talcott Williams, this draft appears to be trial lines for the poem later published as "Continuities" in the New York Herald, March 20, 1888.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00051
Title: Embers of Ending Day
Date: between 1880 and 1888
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 9.5 cm x 11 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

The manuscript appears to be a draft of a title or titles. The lines on the manuscript—"Embers of Ending Day," "Embers of day-fires mouldering"—are echoed in the partial line "the embers left from earlier fires" in the 1888 poem, "Continuities." On the verso is a note, dated December 28, 1880, confirming a request for a set of Whitmans's books: "Dear Sir, I shall be glad to supply you with a set (Two Volumes) of my books—There is only one kind of binding—Walt Whitman."

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Crossing Brooklyn Ferry

Title: "[George Walker]"
Date: between 1855-1856
Physical Description: handwritten
Images: forthcoming

Content:

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00292
Title: A City Walk
Date: about 1855
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 4.5 x 12 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Dalliance of the Eagles, The

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00132
Title: [Skirting the river]
Date: 1880
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 12.5 x 19 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

Lines later revised and published as "The Dalliance of the Eagles" in 1880.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00092
Title: The dalliance of the eagles
Date: about 1880
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 12 x 19 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

The poem was first published in the November 1880 issue of Cope's Tobacco Plant and became one of the new poems in the 1881 edition of Leaves of Grass, where it appeared in the cluster "By the Roadside." At some point this leaf was pasted to a cardboard print of a photograph of Whitman stamped "Thomas C. Watkins" on the verso, but almost identical to one attributed by Henry Scholey Saunders, author of 100 Walt Whitman Photographs, to the studio of Frederick Gutekunst in Philadelphia, and reproduced in the 1889 pocket edition of Leaves of Grass.

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00023
Title: The Dalliance of the Eagles
Date: about 1880
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 21.5 x 20 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8

Content:

Made by pasting together six scraps of paper (back of a discarded envelope from Geo. S. Woodhull and Son, Law Offices, Camden, postmarked Apr 6; back of a discarded letter, dated New York, March 29, 1880, and other scraps), a late draft of the poem, "The Dalliance of the Eagles," about 120 words, showing a few minor variations from the published version. The poem was published first in 1880.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Title: "The Dalliance of the Eagles"
Date: about 1880
Physical Description: 3 leaves
Images: forthcoming

Content:

Three proofs, two of which also have "Ah, little knows the Laborer"(later appearing in a revised form as the first three lines of "Song of the Exposition"), and one of which also contains a proof of the poem "Hast never come to thee an hour?"

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Title: "The Dalliance of the Eagles"
Date: about 1880
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 25.8 x 18.6 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1

Content:

Written in ink on a proof of "The Dalliance of the Eagles," "Ah, little knows the Laborer," "Hast never come to thee an hour?,"and "My Picture-Gallery," are 14 words of notations in Whitman's hand. The proof has been pasted to a heavy piece of paper, on the verso of which is "A Riddle Song," part of "Italian Music in Dakota," and a clipped headline reading "The Society Articles Save Labor. Lighten the Labor for Mother."

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Darest Thou Now O Soul

Title: "Whispers of Heavenly Death"
Date: about 1870
Physical Description: 15 leaves, 20 x 13 cm, handwritten
Images: forthcoming

Content:

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Dead Emperor, The

Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00006
Title: The Dead Emperor
Date: about 1888
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

Printer's copy of the poem "The Dead Emperor," which was first published in the New York Herald on 10 March 1888 and later reprinted in the "Sands at Seventy" annex to Leaves of Grass (1888). The poem mourns the death of Emperor William I of Germany on 9 March 1888, and the Herald of 10 March contained details of his final hours as well as Whitman's poem.

Repository: The Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00160
Title: The Dead Emperor
Date: 1888
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 11 cm x 21 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

This manuscript contains a draft of a poem first published in the New York Herald, March 10, 1888 entitled "The Dead Emperor". A note at top of the page states "sent Herald March 8" indicating that the draft was likely composed around the time of publication. On the verso appears part of a letter with Houghton Mifflin Publishers letterhead.

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Dead Tenor, The

Title: "The Dead Tenor"
Date: about 1884
Physical Description: 2 leaves, 24 x 15 cm, 10.5 x 16.5 cm, handwritten
Images: forthcoming

Content:

Written in pencil on a small page from a notebook, on which is pasted a clipping from a newspaper about the funeral of Signor Brignoli and the reaction of Patti, pinned to an unmarked proof of "The Dead Tenor," thirty words: "I heard the earliest singing of Patti, (in 1860 if I remember right)—heard her many times, Brignoli sang with her at her first appearance in NY in 1859." The poem was first published in 1884.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Title: "The Dead Tenor"
Date: about 1884
Physical Description: 4 leaves, 21 x 15 cm, 20.5 x 15.25 cm, 24.25 x 15 cm, handwritten
Images: forthcoming

Content:

Four proofs of "The Dead Tenor," two with notations and corrections in Whitman's hand. The other two have no annotations. The poem was first published in 1884.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Whitman Archive ID: tex.00016
Title: The Dead Tenor
Date: 1884
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

Signed draft of "The Dead Tenor," approximately 14 lines and written on several scraps pasted together. There is a newspaper clipping with the death notice of Pasquale Brignoli in the bottom lefthand corner. The poem was first published on 8 November 1884 in the Critic. Whitman was inspired to write the poem by the death of Pasquale (or Pasqualino) Brignoli (1824–1884), a tenor who made his New York debut in 1854 and remained a popular favorite for twenty years. According to Horace Traubel, Whitman appears to have known Brignoli.

Repository: The Walt Whitman Collection, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin

Death's Valley

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00107
Title: [Aye, well I know 'tis ghastly to descend]
Date: about 1889
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

Eight lines evidently written originally as part of "Death's Valley," which was published first in Harper's New Monthly Magazine in 1892. The stanza later was slightly revised and published as "On the Same Picture" (the title was probably supplied by Traubel) in 1897.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00321
Title: Up, Lurid Stars!
Date: about 1865
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 16 x 20 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1

Content:

Draft of a poem entitled "Up, Lurid Stars!" which was never published in Whitman's lifetime. It is related to the poem "World Take Good Notice," which was first published in 1865.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Death-Bouquet, A

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00187
Title: A Death-Bouquet
Date: about 1890
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 25 x 19.5 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

A five-line draft of a poem, entitled "A Death-Bouquet," which was never published and has an unknown relationship to Whitman's published work. A subtitle reads "Fresh pick'd noon time early January, 1890, By Walt Whitman." These lines bear some relation to Whitman's brief essay of the same name.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Death of General Grant

Whitman Archive ID: tex.00007
Title: As one by one withdraw the lofty actors
Date: 1885
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

Printer's copy, annotated and lightly corrected, of the poem first published under the title "As One by One Withdraw the Lofty Actors" in Harper's Weekly, 16 May 1885. The poem was reprinted as "Grant" in the Critic, 15 August 1885 and revised as "Death of General Grant" in the "Sands at Seventy" annex to Leaves of Grass (1888).

Repository: The Walt Whitman Collection, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin

Title: "As One by One Withdraw the Lofty Actors"
Date: May 15, 1885
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 54.5 x 36 cm, handwritten
Images: forthcoming

Content:

A page of The Post, Camden, N.J., 15 May 1885. Written in pencil in the margin at the top of front page are five words in Whitman's hand: "As one by one Withdraw." The Library of Congress's description of the item mentions that page three of the newspaper includes a reprint from Harper's Weekly of "As One by One Withdraw the Lofty Actors"; however, only one leaf is currently in the folder. "As One by One Withdraw the Lofty Actors" was later published as "Death of General Grant."

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Title: "As One by One Withdraw the Lofty Actors"
Date: about 1885
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 16.5 x 15 cm, handwritten
Images: forthcoming

Content:

Written in pencil at the bottom of a proof of "As One by One Withdraw the Lofty Actors," a thirteen-line poem on President Grant's death, with a printed signature, four words: "Harper's Weekly, May 16." On the verso in another hand is "tr Nov 20 1885." Pasted on the verso is a small piece of paper, 5.25 x 10.75 cm, on which is written: "This fragment of Whitman's, Mr. (John) Burroughs sent me recently, with a lot of old papers & letters. As it has a memorandum in WW's hand, I know you will like to have it. C(lara).B(arrus)." This poem, published first in 1885, was also published as "Death of General Grant."

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Title: "As One by One Withdraw the Lofty Actors"
Date: about 1885
Physical Description: 4 leaves, handwritten
Images: forthcoming

Content:

Four proofs of the thirteen-line poem, "As One by One Withdraw the Lofty Actors,"first published in 1885, later published as "Death of General Grant": 1) without printed signature; 2) with signature written in Whitman's hand; 3) with printed signature; and 4) with notation beside printed signature that it was to be moved to the left and, to be inserted, three words: "in Harper's Weekly."

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00089
Title: Death of Gen. Grant
Date: ca. 1885
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

A draft of the poem "Death of General Grant" first published August 15, 1885 and later published with the same title in 1888.

Repository: Walt Whitman Collection, The Library of Congress

Debris (Cluster)

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00251
Title: [Do I not prove myself]
Date: about 1855
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 8 x 18.5 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

On the verso appear two undeleted lines beginning "Whatever I say of myself, you shall apply to yourself..." that eventually formed part of section 20 of "Song of Myself." The deleted pencil lines beginning "I think there will never be any more heaven or hell / than there is now," were revised to form what would eventually become the second verse paragraph of section 3 of "Song of Myself." After heavy revision the lines appearing on the recto of the manuscript were used in what would be section 41 of "Song of Myself." These lines also bear relation to the untitled 14th poem of the "Debris" cluster (1860). The lines were not among the various passages of "Debris" that survived in the final poems of Leaves of Grass.

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Democratic Vistas

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00144
Title: [To What You Said]
Date: about 1860
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

Cancelled draft written in pencil on the verso of page 30 (Whitman's numbering) of a sixty-three page rough draft of Democratic Vistas. "[To What You Said]" bears a strong relationship to the "Calamus" poems that were composed between 1857-1860.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Dismantled Ship, The

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00191
Title: The Dismantled Ship
Date: about 1888
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

A draft of "The Dismantled Ship," first published in 1888, written on the inside of an opened envelope (postmark date unclear). At the bottom of the page in a note in Whitman's hand: "probably printed in Herald 19th Feb. '88."

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Drum-Taps

Whitman Archive ID: amh.00004
Title: [Drum-Taps]
Date: undated; between 1865-1892
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

Note indicating the proper location for the Drum-Taps poems in the page sequence of what was apparently a manuscript or some other pre-publication form of Whitman's poems. Whitman first used the title Drum-Taps for a volume of poems published in 1865. The title was also applied to clusters of poems within later editions of Leaves of Grass.

Repository: Amherst College Archives and Special Collections

Dying Veteran, The

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00193
Title: The Dying Veteran
Date: June 23, 1887
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 28 x 21.5 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

A dated, signed draft of "The Dying Veteran," first published in 1887. A note at end reads: "Given to Thomas Mosher by Horace Traubel, 1900." On verso of the page is a note by Whitman to "Mr. Curtz" (type setter) asking for a finished proof by the middle of the afternoon, Wednesday.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Title: "The Dying Veteran"
Date: about 1887
Physical Description: 1 leaf
Images: forthcoming

Content:

A proof of "The Dying Veteran," first published in 1887, with a note by Traubel.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Earth, My Likeness

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00312
Title: [Earth]
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 14.5 x 9.5 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00225
Title: [O Earth, my likeness]
Date: 1860
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 20.5 x 16 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

A draft of the poem first published as "Calamus, No. 36" in 1860 ("Earth, My Likeness" in the so-called Deathbed Edition of Leaves of Grass). A number 8 and a roman number VI are at the top of the page. This manuscript has a vertical line drawn straight through the middle. On the verso is a page of prose in Whitman's hand with "Rel." at the top.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Eidlons

Whitman Archive ID: bpl.00007
Title: Eidólons
Date: ca. 1876
Physical Description: 5 leaves, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

Content:

Several pages of a draft of "Eidólons," first published in 1876.

Repository: The Walt Whitman Collection, Boston Public Library

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00078
Title: Leave-taking Words
Date: undated
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 23.5 x 13.5 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

The page appears to be a draft of a title page for a manuscript titled "Leave-taking Words" or "Last Ripples (A Prelude to Passage to India)." At the bottom of the page are four lines from the end of "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking," first published as "A Child's Reminiscence" in 1859. The lines from the poem are cleanly written, suggesting that they were meant to serve as an epigraph for Whitman's manuscript. "Passage to India" was published first in 1871. On the verso is a draft of a stanza of "Eidólons," first published in 1876.

Repository: The Thomas Biggs Harned Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman: A Register of His Papers in the Library of Congress, 1842-1937

Content:

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Election Day, November, 1884

Title: "[to go in Sunday's paper Oct 26]"
Date: October 25, 1884
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 6.5 x 16 cm, handwritten
Images: forthcoming

Content:

A small note accompanying a manuscript of "If I Should Need to Name, O Western World" with printing instructions probably for the Philadelphia Press, who published the poem on October 26, 1884.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Title: "If I Should Need To Name, O Western World"
Date: October 28, 1884
Physical Description: # leaves, handwritten
Images: forthcoming

Content:

Clipped copy of "If I Should Need to Name, O Western World" from the Camden, New Jersey, Post, October 28, 1884, with a note in Whitman's hand. This poem was later published with the title "Election Day, November, 1884."

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00203
Title: If I should need to name, O Western World!
Date: October 25, 1884
Physical Description: 2 leaves, 26 x 20.5 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

Content:

Draft of "If I Should Need to Name, O Western World!", first published in the Philadelphia Press on October 26, 1884 and later published with the title "Election Day, November, 1884."

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Ethiopia Saluting the Colors

Whitman Archive ID: pml.00004
Title: Ethiopia saluting the colors
Date: about 1881
Physical Description: 2 leaves, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2 | 3

Content:

A two-page draft of "Ethiopia Saluting the Colors," which was published first in 1871. This draft reflects a later version of the poem, published first in 1881. The second page of the draft shows two versions of stanza four (Whitman's number), one written on the page and another on a separate slip of paper that he pasted over the first as a revision.

Repository: The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York

Europe, The 72d and 73d Years of These States

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00289
Title: Resurgemus
Date: about 1884
Physical Description: 2 leaves, 24.5 x 14.5 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2 | 3

Content:

A clipping from the September, 1884 issue of the London magazine To-Day. Printed in the issue is Whitman's poem "Resurgemus," and in Whitman's hand are some corrections and a bibliographic notation. The publication history of this poem is unusual: it was published first as "Resurgemus" in 1850, then untitled in the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass, then as "Poem of The Dead Young Men of Europe, the 72nd and 73rd Years of These States" in the 1856 edition, and as "Europe, The 72nd and 73rd Years of These States" in the 1860 and subsequent editions. Therefore, its appearance in an 1884 periodical under an old title seems highly unusual.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Evening Lull, An

Whitman Archive ID: unc.00009
Title: an evening lull
Date: about 1888
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1

Content:

Manuscript draft of poem, four lines, with revisions. The poem was first published in November Boughs in 1888.

Repository: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Excelsior

Title: "Excelsior"
Date: about 1881
Physical Description: 3 leaves
Images: forthcoming

Content:

Three proof sheets of "Excelsior" with no annotations on them. This poem was first published in 1856 under the title "Poem of the Heart of The Son of Manhattan Island." In 1860 it appeared as "Chants Democratic No. 15." It did not have the title "Excelsior" until 1867. The proofs show a version of the poem that was not published until the 1881-82 edition of Leaves of Grass.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Faces

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00273
Title: [Can ? make me so exuberant yet so faintish]
Date: about 1855
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 6 x 19.5 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

The recto verses bear some similarity to what would eventually form section 28 of "Song of Myself," while the deleted lines on the verso (beginning "This mouth is pulled by some sexton for his dismalest fee,") represent a fragment of draft lines eventually incorporated in the sixth poem of the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass, a poem permanently retitled "Faces" in the 1872 edition.

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Whitman Archive ID: duk.00264
Title: [The Great Laws do not treasure chips]
Date: about 1855
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

This manuscript contains lines which, after revision, appeared in the eleventh poem in the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass, later titled "Who Learns My Lesson Complete?" On the verso are cancelled lines, beginning "hands are cut," which later appeared, in a revised form, in "Faces," which was originally published as the sixth poem of the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass.

Repository: The Trent Collection of Walt Whitman Manuscripts, Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00258
Title: [Topple down upon him]
Date: about 1855
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 15.5 x 19 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

This leaf, a reworking of the lines beginning "I am a Curse" in Library of Congress notebook #80, with verses added from the manuscript also in the University of Virgina collection that begins "I am a curse", appears to have come later in the revision process. The only line specifically linking the poem to the theme of slavery ("I look off the river with my bloodshot eyes, after / the steamboat that carries away my woman.—"), adapted from the "I am a curse" leaf, is deleted, and Whitman apparently rejected these lines and the "curse" theme in general as he moved toward the draft on the leaf in the Virgina collection that begins "I am a hell-name and a Curse...", which would eventuate in the 1855 published version. On the verso appear two sets of trial verses for what would eventually become the second verse paragraph of section 4 of the poem "Faces," which in 1855 was published as the sixth of twelve poems in the first edition of Leaves of Grass.

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Facing West from California's Shores

Title: "[(illeg.) Dick Hunt]"
Date: 1856-1857
Physical Description: handwritten
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Content:

A notebook Whitman used for various purposes in the mid-1850s. Edward F. Grier, in his edition of Whitman's Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts (New York: New York University Press, 1984. 6 vols.), noted that the notebook contains lines and phrases that relate to several poems: "Song of the Broad-Axe," "To a Common Prostitute," "You Felons on Trial in Courts," "Starting from Paumanok," "Trickle Drops," "I Was Looking for a Long While," "Poem of Joys," "Facing West from California's Shores," "To the States," "A Song of the Rolling Earth," "On the Beach a Night Alone," "Full of Life Now," and "With Antecedents."

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00184
Title: Hindustan
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 21 x 12.5 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

The number 80 appears above the deleted 79 above the title, along with a pencil question mark in parentheses. This poem was revised to form main section 10 of "Enfans d'Adam" in 1860, and in 1867 was given two new opening lines and retitled "Facing West from California's Shores."

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Fancies at Navesink

Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00043
Title: [or, Halcyon Days] | Fancies at Navesink
Date: around 1888
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

Draft for a title page beginning, "or Halycon days," with a note at the head "for title page to supplement of L of G not Nove. Boughs." The verso appears to have been a previous title page draft for "Fancies at Navesink." "Halcyon Days" first appeared in the New York Herald on 29 January 1888, and was reprinted in the "Sands at Seventy Annex" to Leaves of Grass (1888).

Repository: The Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library

Whitman Archive ID: amh.00003
Title: Fancies at Navesink
Date: May 1885
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1

Content:

A galley proof of four poems from "Fancies of Navesink," a group of poems first published in 1885: "The Pilot in the Mist," "Had I the Choice," "You Tides With Ceaseless Swell," and "Last of Ebb, and Daylight Waning." Signed, dated, and heavily annotated by Whitman.

Repository: Amherst College Archives and Special Collections

Title: "Fancies at Navesink"
Date: August, 1885

Content:

A copy of the periodical Nineteenth Century, No. 102, August, 1885, containing Whitman's group of eight poems "Fancies at Navesink." The poems in this cluster are: "The Pilot in the Mist," "Had I the Choice," "You Tides with Ceaseless Swell," "Last of Ebb, and Daylight Waning," "Proudly the Flood Comes In," "By That Long Scan of Waves," and "Then Last of All." In this publication, the poems "Last of Ebb, and Daylight Waning" and "And Yet Not You Alone" are not separated, and "And Yet Not You Alone" appears as the final stanza of the first poem.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Title: "Fancies at Navesink"
Date: about 1885
Physical Description: 3 leaves, 48 x 15 cm, handwritten
Images: forthcoming

Content:

Three copies of an oversized proof of "Fancies at Navesink," a group of poems first published in 1885. The poems in this cluster are: "The Pilot in the Mist," "Had I the Choice," "You Tides with Ceaseless Swell," "Last of Ebb, and Daylight Waning," "Proudly the Flood Comes In," "By That Long Scan of Waves," and "Then Last of All." In these proofs, the poems "Last of Ebb, and Daylight Waning" and "And Yet Not You Alone" are not separated, and "And Yet Not You Alone" appears as the final stanza of the first poem. The proofs have no editorial corrections, but one is signed by Whitman and another contains a note in another hand reading, "from the papers of Walt Whitman given to Mosher by Traubel 1906."

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Whitman Archive ID: yal.00039
Title: Fancies at Navesink
Date: 1885
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1

Content:

This manuscript appears to concern the possible arrangement of the eight-poem cycle, "Fancies at Navesink," which was published in the magazine, Nineteenth Century, in August 1885. The titles of three poems not included in "Fancies at Navesink"—"After the Supper and Talk," "You Lingering Sparse Leaves of Me," and "Ah, Not This Granite Dead and Cold"—are also mentioned. This manuscript is bound with others under the title, "Fancies at Navesink."

Repository: Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Whitman Archive ID: yal.00072
Title: Fancies at Navesink
Date: about 1885
Physical Description: 5 leaves, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

Content:

These five leaves remain from what was originally a six-leaf manuscript (a note at the top of the first leaf reads, in Whitman's hand, "these six pages all one piece") of "Fancies at Navesink," an eight-poem cycle which was first published in the magazine, Nineteenth Century, in August 1885. The poems included are "The Pilot in the Mist," "Had I the Choice," "Last of Ebb, and Daylight Waning," "Proudly the Flood Comes In," "By That Long Scan of Waves," and "Then Last of All." These leaves are bound with others under the title, "Fancies at Navesink."

Repository: Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Whitman Archive ID: hun.00014
Title: Fancies at Navesink, the Pilot in the Mist
Date: ca. 1884
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

A draft of "Pilot in the Mist," a poem that is part of the eight-poem sequence "Fancies at Navesink," first published in 1885.

Repository: The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens

Farm Picture, A

Title: "A Farm Picture"
Date: about 1871
Physical Description: 1 leaf
Images: forthcoming

Content:

A proof of "A Farm Picture," first published in this form in 1871. No annotations on the sheet.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Fast Anchor'd Eternal O Love!

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00313
Title: [Here the frailest leaves of me]
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 15 x 9.5 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

First Annex: Sands at Seventy

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00168
Title: [With every heaving wave]
Date: 1880s
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 24 cm x 14.5 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

This manuscript contains a draft version of the poem "By That Long Scan of Waves" included in the group of poems "Fancies at Navesink". The group was first published in Nineteenth Century, August, 1885.

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Whitman Archive ID: duk.00056
Title: Carols Closing Sixty-Nine
Date: about 1888
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

A manuscript of suggestions for the title of a collection of poetry which eventually appeared under the heading "Sands at Seventy" in the 1888 volume of poetry and prose entitled November Boughs. The title "Carols Closing Sixty-Nine" appears here as one of the possible names for this collection. The verso of this document contains the underlined words "Sands at Seventy" and a cancelled note reading "for annex to the preced," which corresponds to ideas expressed on the recto.

Repository: The Trent Collection of Walt Whitman Manuscripts, Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library

Whitman Archive ID: yal.00020
Title: Sands at Seventy
Date: about 1884
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

This is a note written on the verso of a postmarked envelope that offers the title, "Sands on the Shores of Seventy &c &c for Annex to the preceding," as an alternative to the title, "Sands at Seventy," which was first used for a cluster of poems in November Boughs, published in 1888.

Repository: Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

First Dandelion, The

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00162
Title: [Simple and Fresh]
Date: around 1888
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 26 cm x 20 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

This manuscript contains a draft of a poem first published in the New York Herald, March 12, 1888 entitled "The First Dandelion". A note on the bottom of the page states "sent to Herald March 11" indicating the draft was likely composed around the time of publication. On the verso appears a letter to Whitman from Witcraft dated 3/8/88.

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Font of Type, A

Whitman Archive ID: unc.00003
Title: A font of type
Date: about 1888
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1

Content:

Manuscript draft of poem, approximately six lines, heavily revised. This poem was first published in November Boughs in 1888.

Repository: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

For Queen Victoria's Birthday

Title: "For Queen Victoria's Birthday"
Date: about 1890
Physical Description: 2 leaves, 24 x 15 cm, handwritten
Images: forthcoming

Content:

Two copies of proofs of "For Queen Victoria's Birthday," one with correction and note in Whitman's hand, the other with no annotations in Whitman's hand but with a notation by Horace Traubel at the bottom.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00198
Title: For Queen Victoria's Birthday
Date: May 24, 1890
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1

Content:

A copy of The Critic (May 24, 1890) containing Whitman's poem "For Queen Victoria's Birthday" on page 262.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Whitman Archive ID: yal.00032
Title: For Queen Victoria's Birthday
Date: about 1890
Physical Description: 1 leaf, printed draft with handwriting
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

This is a typed and corrected proof of "For Queen Victoria's Birthday," first published in the Philadelphia Public Ledger on May 24, 1890. Whitman later included this poem in the 1891 edition of Good-Bye My Fancy.

Repository: Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Whitman Archive ID: tex.00020
Title: For Queen Victoria's Birth-Day
Date: about 1891
Physical Description: 2 leaves, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

Lightly revised printer's copy of "For Queen Victoria's Birthday," which was published in Good-Bye My Fancy in 1891. Also included are an uncorrected proof sheet and an envelope, which is inscribed with a note in Whitman's hand, indicating that he presented them together as a gift to an unknown recipient.

Repository: The Walt Whitman Collection, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin

Title: "Ship Ahoy!"
Date: between 1891-1892
Physical Description: 1 leaf
Images: forthcoming

Content:

Two proof pages, with several notes by Traubel in the margins. The poems included on the pages are: "Ship Ahoy!","Death's Valley," "For us two, reader dear," and "For Queen Victoria's Birthday." "Death's Valley" was first published in 1892; the other poems were published first in 1891.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

For Us Two, Reader Dear

Title: "An Old Man's Recitatives"
Date: about 1890
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 36.5 x 19.5 cm, handwritten
Images: forthcoming

Content:

Proofs of four poems pasted together and collected under the main handwritten title "An Old Man's Recitatives." The poems included are: "Ancient songs reciting" (published as "Old Chants" in 1891), "Grand is the seen" (first published in 1891), "Death dogs my steps" (published as part of "L. of G.'s Purport" in 1891), and "For us two, reader dear," first published in 1891. A note in Whitman's hand in the right margin details failed attempts to publish this grouping in Scribner's.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00362
Title: For us two, reader dear
Date: about 1890
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 22.5 x 17.5 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

A draft of the poem "For Us Two, Reader Dear," first published in 1891. Also on the leaf is a letter to Whitman dated June 4, 1890 from Mrs. Noble T. Biddle.

Repository: The Thomas Biggs Harned Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman: A Register of His Papers in the Library of Congress, 1842-1937

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00219
Title: My Task
Date: about 1891
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 28 x 22 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

Manuscripts of the following four poems, written neatly with slight corrections: "My task," "L of G's Purport," "Death dogs my steps," and "For us two, reader dear." All of the verses except "For us two, reader dear" were fused together and published as one poem entitled "L. of G.'s Purport" in 1891.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Title: "Old-Age Recitatives"
Date: between 1890-1891
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 30.5 x 16 cm, handwritten
Images: forthcoming

Content:

A galley proof of a group of six poems titled "Old-Age Recitatives." The poems included are: "Sail out for good, Eidolon yacht!" (first published in 1891), "My task" (published as part of "L. of G.'s Purport" in 1891), "L. of G.'s Purport" (only the first two lines of the poem of the same title published in 1891), "Death dogs my steps" (published as part of "L. of G.'s Purport" in 1891), "For us two, reader dear" (first published in 1891), and "Grand is the seen" (first published in 1891). On the verso is a note to printer.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Title: "Old-Age Recitatives"
Date: about 1891
Physical Description: 2 leaves, 28 x 21 cm, handwritten
Images: forthcoming

Content:

Proof pages of six poems collected under the general title "Old-Age Recitatives." The poems included are: "Old Chants" (first published in 1891), "On, On the Same,Ye Jocund Twain!" (first published in 1891), "Sail Out for Good, Eidólon Yacht!" (first published in 1891), "L. of G.'s Purport" (only two lines of the twelve-line poem of the same title first published in 1891), "My task" (published as part of "L. of G.'s Purport" in 1891), and "For us two, reader dear" (first published in 1891). At the top of the first page is a note to the printer in Whitman's hand.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Title: "Old-Age Recitatives"
Date: about 1891
Physical Description: 2 leaves
Images: forthcoming

Content:

Two proofs of a group of six poems titled "Old-Age Recitatives." The poems included are: "Sail Out for Good, Eidólon yacht!" (first published in 1891), "My task" (published as part of "L. of G.'s Purport" in 1891), "L. of G.'s Purport" (only the first two lines of the poem of the same title published in 1891), "Death dogs my steps" (published as part of "L. of G.'s Purport" in 1891), "For us two, reader dear" (first published in 1891), and "Grand is the seen" (first published in 1891).

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Title: "Ship Ahoy!"
Date: between 1891-1892
Physical Description: 1 leaf
Images: forthcoming

Content:

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

France, the 18th Year of These States

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00221
Title: France, the 18th Year of These States
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 5 leaves, 21 x 13 cm to 22.5 x 13.5 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

Content:

Originally numbered 86 and revised by overwriting to 87; Whitman also numbered the leaves 1-5 (in pencil, lower left corner), with the 1 replacing a 6 and the 2 written over what looks like a 7. The leaves correspond to various verses in the 1860 published version "France, The 18th Year of These States". Although Whitman never changed the title, and did not revise the poem much, he did transfer it twice, grouping it in the cluster "Songs of Insurrection" within the main body of Leaves of Grass in 1871 and 1876, and in 1881 finally transferring it to the new cluster "Birds of Passage" within Leaves of Grass.

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

From Far Dakota's Caons

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00121
Title: [There in the far northwest]
Date: 1876
Physical Description: 10 p., 20 x 12 cm, 11.5 x 18.5 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12

Content:

Apparently, two versions of a poem about the death of Custer. On the verso of one of the pages is "A Death Sonnet," and on another is "A Death Sonnet for Custer." The poem was published in June 10, 1876 as "A Death Sonnet for Custer."

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00007
Title: A Death-Sonnet for Custer
Date: about 1876
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

Printer's copy of the poem "A Death-Sonnet for Custer" with instructions to preserve the manuscipt in its current form for Bayard Taylor. "A Death-Sonnet for Custer" first appeared in the New York Daily Tribune on 10 July 1876. It was then reprinted as "From Far Dakotas Cañon" in Leaves of Grass (1881-82).

Repository: The Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library

Title: "Far From Dakota's Cañons"
Date: about 1881
Physical Description: 1 leaf
Images: forthcoming

Content:

A proof with no annotations. "From Far Dakota's Cañons" was published first as "A Death Sonnet for Custer" in 1876. It was given the new title in 1881.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

From My Last Years

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00199
Title: From My Last Years
Date: about 1876
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 23.75 x 13.75 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

A draft of "From My Last Years" written in ink on a sheet of stationery, with three lines crossed out with a blue pencil and one of the correctons in blue pencil. "From My Last Years" was published only once, in Two Rivulets, 1876.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Title: "From My Last Years"
Date: about 1876
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 5 x 13.25 cm, handwritten
Images: forthcoming

Content:

Written in pencil on a scrap of paper cut from the bottom of a larger sheet to which has been attached a clipping of the poem, "From My Last Years," with corrections in the margin. The poem was published only in Two Rivulets, 1876, without these corrections.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

From Noon to Starry Night

Whitman Archive ID: tex.00004
Title: [Among the many]
Date: about 1881
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

On one side of the leaf, Whitman explores the idea that life, with its petty concerns, is "an exercise, a training & development" for an afterlife. A note at the top suggests that the poet considered developing this thought in conjunction with "From Noon to Starry Night," a cluster that first appeared in the 1881–1882 edition of Leaves of Grass. The writing on the reverse side of the leaf appears to reflect Whitman's disillusionment with the current political situation and puts forward various suggestions for reform.

Repository: The Walt Whitman Collection, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin

Whitman Archive ID: tex.00081
Title: [Now, trumpeter]
Date: about 1872
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

Nine draft lines, uncorrected, of section 8 of "The Mystic Trumpeter," a poem first published in The Kansas Magazine in February 1872. The verso features references to the poems "From Noon to Starry Night" and "The Mystic Trumpeter," as well as to a "vol. II."

Repository: The Walt Whitman Collection, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin

Whitman Archive ID: tex.00079
Title: I cannot guess waited their due time
Date:
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

Three lines on a scrap of paper that seem to suggest that Whitman is musing on how "generous" some upcoming "entertainment" will be. The scrap appears to be torn from a draft of "From Noon to Starry Night", since there are about three lines from the poem on the reverse, with revisions.

Repository: The Walt Whitman Collection, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin

Full of Life now

Content:

A notebook Whitman used for various purposes in the mid-1850s. Edward F. Grier, in his edition of Whitman's Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts (New York: New York University Press, 1984. 6 vols.), noted that the notebook contains lines and phrases that relate to several poems: "Song of the Broad-Axe," "To a Common Prostitute," "You Felons on Trial in Courts," "Starting from Paumanok," "Trickle Drops," "I Was Looking for a Long While," "Poem of Joys," "Facing West from California's Shores," "To the States," "A Song of the Rolling Earth," "On the Beach a Night Alone," "Full of Life Now," and "With Antecedents."

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Content:

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Germs

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00208
Title: As of Origins
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 1 leaf, three pasted sections of 6.5 x 13 cm, 8 x 13 cm, and 12.5 x 13 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

This poem became section 19 of the cluster "Leaves of Grass" in the 1860 edition. In 1867 Whitman moved it to a different "Leaves of Grass" group in the "Songs Before Parting" annex. In 1872 it was retitled "Germs" and was ultimately transferred, in 1881, to the cluster "By the Roadside."

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Going Somewhere

Whitman Archive ID: upa.00003
Title: 'Going Somewhere.'
Date: about 1887
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

Manuscript of poem first published in Lippincott's Magazine, November 1887.

Whitman Archive ID: pru.00003
Title: 'Going Somewhere'
Date: ca. 1887
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

Draft of "'Going Somewhere,'" which was published first in 1887. Also has instructions to the printer in Whitman's hand.

Repository: Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library

Title: "Going Somewhere"
Date: about 1887
Physical Description: 3 leaves, 15 x 16 cm, 15.5 x 15 cm, handwritten
Images: forthcoming

Content:

Three proofs of "'Going Somewhere,'" first published in 1887. One of the proofs has corrections and a note in Whitman's hand.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Title: "November Boughs"
Date: 1887
Physical Description: handwritten
Images: forthcoming

Content:

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Title: "November Boughs"
Date: about 1887
Physical Description: 3 leaves, handwritten
Images: forthcoming

Content:

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Good-Bye my Fancy! (Good-bye my Fancy!)

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00073
Title: Death's Valley
Date: about 1889
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 35.5 x 21.5 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

Content:

Whitman's correspondence indicates that the poem was written and sold to Harper's New Monthly Magazine in 1889, although it did not appear there until April 1892, after the poet's death. Whitman originally included the poem in his 1891 manuscript for the "Second Annex" "Good-Bye My Fancy," and Traubel grouped it in the cluster "Old Age Echoes," which he added to Leaves of Grass in 1897. The Harper's printing included an engraving, "The Valley of the Shadow of Death," by American painter George Inness, which appeared facing the poem. On the verso appear the notes "Death's Valley" (twice) and "Magazine/ April, 1892" in, possibly, Whitman executor Horace Traubel's hand.

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Grand is the Seen

Title: "An Old Man's Recitatives"
Date: about 1890
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 36.5 x 19.5 cm, handwritten
Images: forthcoming

Content:

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Whitman Archive ID: har.00001
Title: Grand is the seen
Date: about 1891
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

An unsigned draft of "Grand Is the Seen," a poem first published in 1891. Accompanying this manuscript is an autographed photograph of Whitman dated 1886.

Repository: Manuscripts Department, Houghton Library, Harvard University

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00363
Title: Grand is the seen
Date: about 1891
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 12.5 x 20.5 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

A draft of the poem "Grand is the Seen," first published in 1891. On the verso is the end of a letter from R. Rooke Morgau.

Repository: The Thomas Biggs Harned Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman: A Register of His Papers in the Library of Congress, 1842-1937

Title: "Old-Age Recitatives"
Date: between 1890-1891
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 30.5 x 16 cm, handwritten
Images: forthcoming

Content:

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Title: "Old-Age Recitatives"
Date: about 1891
Physical Description: 2 leaves
Images: forthcoming

Content:

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Great Are the Myths

Whitman Archive ID: duk.00259
Title: [Great are the myths]
Date: about 1855
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

This manuscript has a partially cancelled draft of the first lines of "Great Are the Myths." The poem "Great Are the Myths" was published first, untitled, in the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass as the concluding poem, and again in the 1856 edition as "Poem of a Few Greatnesses." The poem went through many revisions through the different editions of Leaves of Grass, then was permanently dropped in 1881, except the two couplets that became the poem "Youth, Day, Old Age, and Night." The verso of the manuscript has cancelled prose beginning "The true friends of the Sabbath."

Repository: The Trent Collection of Walt Whitman Manuscripts, Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library

Whitman Archive ID: duk.00104
Title: [poet of Materialism]
Date: 1855 or before
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content:

Manuscript expressing a belief in the continuing "amelioration" of the earth and humankind, written on a scrap of wallpaper. Although it is cast in prose, this is probably an early draft of a group of lines, expressing similar thoughts, in "Great Are the Myths," which was first published as the final, untitled, poem of the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass.

Repository: The Trent Collection of Walt Whitman Manuscripts, Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library

Whitman Archive ID: duk.00032
Title: [You lusty and graceflu youth!]
Date: between 1850 and 1855
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content:

An early version of a part of "Great Are the Myths," a poem published first, untitled, in the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass as the concluding poem, and again in the 1856 edition as "Poem of a Few Greatnesses." The poem went through many revisions through the different editions of Leaves of Grass, then was permanently dropped in 1881, except the two couplets that became the poem "Youth, Day, Old Age, and Night." On the verso is partially cancelled verse beginning "Are the prostitutes nothing?" which is a draft of lines from the third poem in the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass, ultimately called "To Think of Time."

Repository: The Trent Collection of Walt Whitman Manuscripts, Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library

Had I the Choice

Whitman Archive ID: yal.00073
Title: Had I the Choice
Date: about 1885
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1

Content:

This manuscript is an early draft of the poem, "Had I the Choice," published as part of "Fancies at Navesink" in the magazine, Nineteenth Century, in August 1885. This manuscript is bound with others under the title, "Fancies at Navesink."

Repository: Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Whitman Archive ID: yal.00040
Title: Had I the Choice
Date: about 1885
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1

Content:

This is a draft of the poem, "Had I the Choice," published as part of "Fancies at Navesink" in the magazine, Nineteenth Century, in August 1885. The leaf is bound with others under the title, "Fancies at Navesink."

Repository: Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Halcyon Days

Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00043
Title: [or, Halcyon Days] | Fancies at Navesink
Date: around 1888
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

Repository: The Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library

Title: "Halcyon Days"
Date: about 1888
Physical Description: 4 leaves, 17.5 x 15 cm
Images: forthcoming

Content:

Four copies of a proof of "Halcyon Days," first published in 1888. No annotations on the sheets.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Whitman Archive ID: tex.00072
Title: Halcyon Days
Date: about 1888
Physical Description: 1 leaf,
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Content:

Heavily revised draft, approximately eleven lines, of "Halcyon Days," which was first published in the 29 January 1888 issue of the New York Herald. Written on the reverse of a letter from Fred W. Waggert, dated "4th June 1887."

Repository: The Walt Whitman Collection, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin

Hand-Mirror, A

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00225
Title: A hand-mirror
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 21 x 13 cm, handwritten
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Content:

Originally titled "Looking-Glass" and numbered 82 and revised by overwriting to 83. The poem remained unchanged and with the same title since its first appearance in the 1860 edition. This poem was titled but ungrouped until 1881, when Whitman finally placed it in the cluster "By the Roadside."

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Hands Round

Whitman Archive ID: duk.00024
Title: Hands Ro[und]
Date: between 1865 and 1881
Physical Description: 2 leaves, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

A manuscript poem with a patriotic theme left unpublished in Whitman's lifetime.

Repository: The Trent Collection of Walt Whitman Manuscripts, Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library

Whitman Archive ID: tex.00110
Title: Starry Union
Date: undated
Physical Description: 2 leaves, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

Content:

On the front of the first leaf are three handwritten lines of a poem titled "Starry Union", the reverse is blank. The second leaf seems to have originally been attached to the first one, featuring more drafted lines of the poem with annotations and revisions. "Starry Union" was never published in Whitman's lifetime, though several different draft forms exist.

Repository: The Walt Whitman Collection, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin

Whitman Archive ID: pml.00007
Title: Starry Union
Date: about 1876
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

A draft of a poem unpublished in Whitman's lifetime but existing in various draft states, including one with the same title in the T. E. Hanley Collection at the University of Texas and another, titled "Hands Ro[und]," in the Trent Collection, Duke University. The precise date of composition is unknown, but Whitman very possibly wrote this piece for the Centennial Celebration of 1876, as the date of the letter on the reverse ("Feb 11/76") suggests.

Repository: The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York

Hast Never Come to Thee an Hour

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00058
Title: Hast never come to thee an hour
Date: about 1881
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 14 x 22 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1

Content:

This manuscript contains two drafts of the poem "Hast Never Come to Thee an Hour," the first draft having been deleted with two horizontal and two diagonal pencil lines. The partly erased word "Interp[ellation?]" appears in the lower left corner. After further revision the poem appeared for the first time in the 1881 Leaves of Grass, in the cluster "By the Roadside." Since the poetry manuscript has been pasted onto a piece of cardboard, the verso is not visible.

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Title: "The Dalliance of the Eagles"
Date: about 1880
Physical Description: 3 leaves
Images: forthcoming

Content:

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Title: "The Dalliance of the Eagles"
Date: about 1880
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 25.8 x 18.6 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1

Content:

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Here the Frailest Leaves of Me

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00313
Title: [Here the frailest leaves of me]
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 15 x 9.5 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Hours continuing long

Whitman Archive ID: duk.00282
Title: Religious Canticles
Date: about 1860
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1

Content:

On one side are notes regarding a projected group of religious poems and their significance to other Leaves of Grass poems. On the reverse is a partial draft of the 1860 poem "Calamus 9," which was dropped from subsequent editions of Leaves of Grass. This scrap has been attached by a collector or archivist to a backing sheet, together with "Secrets.—Secreta."

Repository: The Trent Collection of Walt Whitman Manuscripts, Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library

Hush'd be the Camps To-day

Whitman Archive ID: rut.00001
Title: Hush'd be the camps to-day
Date: about 1865
Physical Description: 4 leaves, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

Content:

Draft of "Hush'd Be the Camps To-day," first published in 1865, on four leaves. Three of the scraps are smaller and were formerly pasted to the larger leaf.

Repository: Special Collections and University Archives, Rutgers University Libraries, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

I do not expect to see myself

Whitman Archive ID: tex.00023
Title: [I do not expect to see myself]
Date: undated
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1

Content:

Lightly revised manuscript fragment of approximately 42 words, written with hanging indentation and expressing a confidence in future popular acceptance. Connection with Whitman's published work is uncertain. Christopher Morley suggests that it was written on a piece scissored from left-over stock of the green wrappers and end-papers of the 1855 Leaves. The date of this manuscript is unknown, though it seems likely that it is from the 1870s based on the handwriting. In addition, in the 1870s, Whitman repeatedly complained about how he was treated by American magazines.

Repository: The Walt Whitman Collection, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin

I Dream'd in a Dream

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00315
Title: [I dreamed in a dream of a]
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 9.5 x 9 cm, handwritten
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Content:

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

I Hear America Singing

Whitman Archive ID: duk.00272
Title: [(written for the voice)]
Date: about 1860
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1

Content:

Manuscript note apparently recording the poet's early idea for the poem first published as "Chants Democratic 20" in 1860, later as "I Hear America Singing." This scrap has been attached by a collector or archivist to a backing sheet, together with "[And there a hunter's camp]," "[Poem of "(the Devil]," and "Poem of Sadness."

Repository: The Trent Collection of Walt Whitman Manuscripts, Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00201
Title: Mouth-Songs
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 2 leaves, 21.5 x 13 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

Content:

Originally numbered 54 and titled "Leaf.—". The title was next "Songs—always wanted" and then "Mouth-Songs." This poem became section 20 of "Chants Democratic" in 1860, with leaf 1 corresponding to verses 1-6 and leaf 2 ("The delicious singing of the/ mother...") to verses 8-10. In 1867 Whitman revised the first line and permanently retitled the poem "I Hear America Singing"; in 1881 it achieved its final position in the cluster "Inscriptions."

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

In Paths Untrodden

Whitman Archive ID: duk.00031
Title: [And now I care not to]
Date: about 1860
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

This manuscript is an early draft of a portion of the poem that became "In Paths Untrodden," which was published first in the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass. The verso contains a list of thirteen suggestions for titles or groups of poems, including "The States," "Prairies," "Prairie Spaces" and "Prairie Babes." "In Paths Untrodden" opens the "Calamus" group in all editions of Leaves of Grass, taking the title in 1867.

Repository: The Trent Collection of Walt Whitman Manuscripts, Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00244
Title: Calamus—1st draft p. 341 [Long I was held]
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 16 x 10 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

This manuscript became section 1 of "Calamus" in 1860, and was retitled "In Paths Untrodden" in the 1867 Leaves of Grass.

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Inscriptions

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00320
Title: Leaf [What place is besieged]
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 21.5 x 13 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

Interpolation Sounds

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00200
Title: [Funeral Sounds]
Date: about 1888
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

Early draft of a poem that was first published as "Over and Through the Burial Chant" in 1888. It was later published with the title "Interpolation Sounds." The poem was written on the occassion of General Philip Sheridan's death in 1888.

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Whitman Archive ID: yal.00013
Title: Funeral Interpolations
Date: 1888
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

This is a signed draft of "Funeral Interpolations," a poem published first as "Over and Through the Burial Chant" in the New York Herald on August 12, 1888, on the occasion of General Philip K. Sheridan's death, and later as "Interpolation Sounds" in the 1891 edition of Good-Bye My Fancy.

Repository: Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00090
Title: Interpolation Sounds
Date: ca. 1888
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 28 x 21.5 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

An early draft of the poem "Interpolation Sounds" first published August 12, 1888 under the title "Over and Through the Burial Chant" and later published with the new title in 1891.

Repository: Walt Whitman Collection, The Library of Congress

Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00059
Title: Interpolation Sounds
Date: about 1891
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

Fair copy draft of the poem "Interpolation Sounds". This poem first appeared without a title in the New York Herald four days after Whitman's short prose tribute to General Philip K. Sheridan, a Union general during the Civil War. It was reprinted in "Good-Bye My Fancy" in 1891, with the additional note: "General Sheridan was buried at the Cathedral, Washington, D.C. August, 1888, with all the pomp, music and ceremonies of the Roman Catholic service."

Repository: The Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00253
Title: Over and through the burial chant
Date: 1888
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

Clipped-out copy of "Over and Through the Burial Chant" from the August 12, 1888 issue of the New York Herald, with notations in Whitman's hand. The poem was later published as "Interpolation Sounds."

Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing

Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00014
Title: [growing] | Poems
Date: about 1859
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

Five lines of the poem "I Saw in Louisiana a Live Oak Growing." This poem is part of the "Calamus" cluster, which Whitman began assembling in the summer of 1859. The reverse features a note by the poet to himself, describing the poems as "A Cluster of Poems, Sonnets expressing the thoughts, pictures, aspirations &c Fit to be perused during the days of the approach of Death."

Repository: The Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00316
Title: [I saw in Louisiana a]
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 2 leaves, 15 x 9.5 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2

Content:

On two leaves of white wove paper, both 15 x 9.5 cm, in black ink, with