Content:
A heavily revised draft of "A Happy Hour's Command,"
Specimen Days & Collect
(1882–1883), which later appeared in
Complete Prose Works
(1892). The verso of this manuscript contains two cancelled lines: "In highest Noon I sing & Starry Night" and "with other Pieces & Specimen Days." Though "From Noon to Starry Night" is an 1881 cluster in
Leaves of Grass
, there is no other connection between this manuscript and Whitman's published work.
Content:
Notes intended for a prefatory passage that bear a loose resemblance to ideas and themes presented in "A Happy Hour's Command,"
Specimen Days & Collect
(1882–1883), which later appeared in
Complete Prose Works
(1892). A comment at the top of the page indicates that Whitman considered using these lines in a footnote at the beginning of
Specimen Days
. Whitman made a similar notation on "I have jotted down these memoranda" (described above), portions of which were used as a footnote to "New Themes Entered Upon."
