I tell you greedy smoucher | Whitman Archive

Whitman Archive Title: I tell you greedy smoucher
Whitman Archive ID: med.00903
Repository: Catalog of Unlocated Walt Whitman Manuscripts
Date: Between 1850 and 1855
Genre: poetry, prose
Physical Description: number of leaves unknown, handwritten
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Content: The language in this manuscript is similar to the following line from the poem that would eventually be titled "Song of Myself": "By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their counterpart of on the same terms" (1855, p. 29). Ideas and words from this manuscript are also similar to ideas and words that appeared in the preface to the 1855 Leaves of Grass . See, for instance, the line: "the melancholy prudence of the abandonment of such a great being as a man is to the toss and pallor of years of moneymaking with all their scorching days and icy nights and all their stifling deceits and underhanded dodgings, or infinitessimals of parlors, or shameless stuffing while others starve . . " (1855, p. x). Because the manuscript has not been located it is difficult to speculate on the circumstances of its composition, but it is possible that it was written in the early 1850s as Whitman was preparing materials for the first (1855) edition of Leaves of Grass . In his transcription of the manuscript, Richard Maurice Bucke paired it with another manuscript, "Remember that the clock and" (duk.00298).