ground where you may rest | Whitman Archive

Whitman Archive Title: ground where you may rest
Whitman Archive ID: rut.00025
Repository ID: Ac.605
Repository: Catalog of the Walt Whitman Literary Manuscripts in the Special Collections and University Archives, Rutgers University Libraries, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Date: Between 1850 and 1855
Genre: poetry, prose
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content: This manuscript fragment includes several lines of prose that became, after slight revision, lines of poetry in the initial poem of the 1855 Leaves of Grass (ultimately titled "Song of Myself"). The lines that appear in the poem begin with "Sit awhile wayfarer" and continue through the end of the manuscript, ending with "and open the gate for your egress hence." These lines remained, with minor revisions, through all the various versions of "Song of Myself." The manuscript is held at Rutgers University Library along with several similar manuscripts that are numbered sequentially and probably date from around or before 1855: see "American literature must become distinct" (rut.00010), "dithyrambic trochee" (rut.00022), and "The only way in which" (rut.00023).