Leaf [What place is besieged]

Whitman Archive Title: Leaf [What place is besieged]
Whitman Archive ID: uva.00320
Repository: Catalog of the Walt Whitman Literary Manuscripts at the Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia
Folder: 50-51
Date: 1857-1859
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 21.5 x 13 cm, handwritten
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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."