Content:
The phrase "content to the ground," which is visually distinct from the other words on this leaf, appears in the poem eventually titled "Spontaneous Me." Some of the terms in the list at the bottom of the scrap were added to the poem eventually titled "A Song for Occupations" in 1856. In 1867, "blacksmithing" was also added, but two of the terms that are struck through on this manuscrpit ("saltmaking" and "arsenal") were dropped.
Whitman Archive Title: The most perfect wonders of
Content:
Edward Grier writes of this manuscript that "[t]he sentiments and the handwriting are those of 1855 or earlier" (
Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts
[New York: New York University Press, 1984], 1:186). Some of the language is similar to wording in the poems that would be titled "Song of Myself" and "A Song for Occupations." At some point, this manuscript formed part of Whitman's cultural geography scrapbook (owu.00090).
Content:
Whitman probably drafted this manuscript in the early 1850s as he was preparing materials for the first (1855) edition of
Leaves of Grass
. The manuscript includes lines that relate to the prose preface and to several of the poems in that edition, including the poems eventually titled "Song of Myself," "To Think of Time," and "A Song for Occupations." The manuscript also includes lines that relate to the manuscript poem "Pictures,"" which probably dates to the mid- to late 1850s. Notes about the arrangement and production of the 1855 edition of
Leaves of Grass
are written on the back of this manuscript.
Content:
Because it comprises material that Whitman used in the first edition of
Leaves of Grass
, this notebook must date to sometime before mid-1855.Emory Holloway has posited several connections between passages in this notebook and specific lines in the 1855 edition. Although some of these connections are dubious, the notebook's series of drafts about the effects of music are clearly related to what ultimately became section 26 of "Song of Myself." See Emory Holloway, ed.,
The Uncollected Poetry and Prose of Walt Whitman
(Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1921), 2:83–86.
Content:
The handwriting and Whitman's use of the long "s" in several of the words suggest that this is an early manuscript. It is possible that these lines are early notes for the second poem in the 1855 edition of
Leaves of Grass
, eventually titled "A Song for Occupations." This manuscript may also relate to yal.00081 ("Pictures"), a lengthy manuscript poem held at the Beinecke Library at Yale University that was probably written in the mid- to late-1850s. On the back of this leaf (uva.00086) is a list, almost certainly written later than the prose on the front, of subjects on which to write "a cluster of poems."
Content:
Early discussions of this notebook dated it in the 1840s, and the date associated with it in the Library of Congress finding aid is 1847. The cover of the notebook features a note calling it the "Earliest and Most Important Notebook of Walt Whitman." A note on leaf 27 recto includes the date April 19, 1847, and the year 1847 is listed again as part of a payment note on leaf 43 recto. More recently, however, scholars have argued that Whitman repurposed this notebook, and that most of the writing was more likely from 1853 to 1854, just before the publication of
Leaves of Grass
. Almost certainly Whitman began the notebook by keeping accounts, producing the figures that are still visible on some of the page stubs, and later returned to it to write the poetry and prose drafts. For further discussion of dating and the fascinating history of this notebook into the twentieth century, see Matt Miller,
Collage of Myself: Walt Whitman and the Making of Leaves of Grass
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2010), 2–8. See also Andrew C. Higgins, "Wage Slavery and the Composition of
Leaves of Grass
: The
Talbot Wilson
Notebook,"
Walt Whitman Quarterly Review
20:2 (Fall 2002), 53–77. Scholars have noted a relationship between this notebook and much of the prose and poetry that appeared in the 1855 edition of
Leaves of Grass
. See, for instance, Edward Grier,
Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts
(New York: New York University Press, 1984), 1:53–82. The notebook was lost when Grier published his transcription (based on microfilm). The notebook features an early (if not the earliest) example of Whitman using his characteristic long poetic lines, as well as the "generic or cosmic or transcendental 'I'" that appears in
Leaves of Grass
(Grier, 1:55).
Content:
Whitman probably drafted this manuscript in the early 1850s as he was composing the first (1855) edition of
Leaves of Grass
. The general theme of this manuscript, as well as the specific wording of one of the lines, resembles a portion of the second poem in that edition, eventually entitled "A Song for Occupations": "When the sacred vessels or the bits of the eucharist, or the lath and plast, procreate as effectually as the young silvermiths or bakers, or the masons in their overalls / ... / I intend to reach them my hand and make as much of them as I do of men and women" (1855, p. 64). Language and ideas from this manuscript appear in other manuscripts that relate to the first poem in the 1855 edition of
Leaves of Grass
, ultimately titled "Song of Myself." See in particular the lines: "The supernatural of no account . . . . myself waiting my time to be one of the supremes, / The day getting ready for me when I shall do as much good as the best, and be as prodigious, / Guessing when I am it will not tickle me much to receive puffs out of pulpit or print" (1855, p. 46). Based on its similarity to other manuscripts, this manuscript may also relate to lines 39-43 in "Debris," a cluster published in the 1860 edition of
Leaves of Grass
: "I WILL take an egg out of the robin's nest in the orchard, / I will take a branch of gooseberries from the old bush in the garden, and go and preach to the world; / You shall see I will not meet a single heretic or scorner, / You shall see how I stump clergymen, and confound them, / You shall see me showing a scarlet tomato, and a white pebble from the beach" (1860, p. 424). On the verso (loc.07512) is a proposition for a poem "embodying the sentiment of perfect happiness." Pin marks and leftover bits of glue near the bottom of the leaf suggest it was at one point attached to something else.
Content:
The imagery of this manuscript is echoed in several other manuscripts, as well as in a line of the opening poem of the first (1855) edition of
Leaves of Grass
—the poem eventually titled "Song of Myself" (see "you know how" [loc.00142], "I know a rich capitalist" [nyp.00129], and "the crowds naked in the" [nyp.00733]). These relationships suggest that this manuscript dates to early in 1855 or before. Edward Grier has observed that "the writing suggests a date in the 1850s" (see
Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts
[New York: New York University Press, 1984], 1:136).
Content:
Whitman probably drafted this manuscript between 1850 and 1855, as he was composing the first (1855) edition of
Leaves of Grass
. The phrase "attraction of gravity," used in this manuscript, was used twice in that edition, including in a line in the poem eventually titled "A Song for Occupations." The last line of the manuscript, about the mouse staggering infidels, appeared in a slightly revised form in the first poem of that edition, eventually titled "Song of Myself." On the reverse (nyp.00078) are lines also used in that poem.
Content:
This manuscript was probably written between 1850 and 1855, when Whitman was preparing material for his first (1855) edition of
Leaves of Grass
. A portion of the first paragraph of the manuscript, dealing with music and its relationship to the soul, is similar to a passage in the poem eventually titled "A Song For Occupations." Other language in the manuscript is similar to the prose preface to the 1855
Leaves of Grass
and to lines from the poems that would eventually be titled "Song of Myself" and "I Sing the Body Electric."
Content:
This manuscript was probably written in about 1855. The proposed poem about "a perfect school" is not known to have been published, although words and sentiments that appear in this manuscript also appeared in the poem that was eventually titled "Song of Myself." This manuscript's reference to "manly exercises" may also relate to a line in the poem eventually titled "A Song for Occupations."" On the back of this leaf (tul.00002) are draft lines that were used in the third poem in the first (1855) edition of
Leaves of Grass
, eventually titled "To Think of Time."
Whitman Archive Title: The Great Laws do not treasure chips
Content:
This manuscript includes language similar to lines that appeared in two of the poems in the 1855 edition of
Leaves of Grass
, later titled "A Song for Occupations" and "Who Learns My Lesson Complete?" On the reverse (duk.00905) are cancelled lines, beginning "hands are cut," which later appeared, in a revised form, in "Faces," which was originally published as the sixth untitled poem of the 1855 edition of
Leaves of Grass.
Content:
A manuscript draft treating ideas about divine revelation. Lines from this manuscript appear in the first poem in the first (1855) edition of
Leaves of Grass.
In its final version the poem was titled "Song of Myself," and the relevant lines appeared in section 41. The ideas and some of the language are also similar to other early manuscripts that relate to the second poem in the 1855 edition of
Leaves
, ultimately titled "A Song for Occupations," and part of a cluster titled "Debris" that appeared in the 1860 edition of
Leaves of Grass
(see loc.00013, uva.00251, and duk.00261). The reverse (duk.00887) contains notes, dated March 20th '54, about the characters and physical traits of several men that Whitman met in his travels.
Content:
The ideas and language in this manuscript relate to the first poem in 1855 edition of
Leaves of Grass
, eventually titled "Song of Myself." This connection is reinforced by the supplied first line, added to a transcription of the manuscript that appears in
Notes and Fragments
, ed. Richard Maurice Bucke (London, Ontario: A. Talbot & Co., printers, 1899): "foot to fee lawyers for his brother and sit by him while he was tried for forgery" (47). This line, which matches a line in the 1855 version of "Song of Myself," is not currently written on the manuscript. In language, ideas, and structure, the last few lines of this manuscript also resemble lines 39–43 in the untitled fourteenth poem of the "Debris" cluster of the 1860–1861 edition of
Leaves of Grass
. The manuscript is also similar to other early manuscripts that relate to these poems and to the second poem in the 1855 edition of
Leaves
, eventually titled "A Song for Occupations" (see loc.00013 ["Priests"], uva.00251 ["Do I not prove myself"], and duk.00051 ["I know as well as"]). The reverse (duk.00800) contains unrelated prose writing, including a line similar to one found in "Song of Myself."
Content:
Some of the words and phrases in this manuscript appear in the first poem of the 1855 edition of
Leaves of Grass
, eventually titled "Song of Myself." The manuscript also bears some resemblance to a line in the 1855 poem eventually titled "A Song for Occupations." The combination of "Love" and "Dilation or Pride" is also articulated in "Chants Democratic" (No. 4) in the 1860–1861
Leaves of Grass
, later titled "Our Old Feuillage." The reverse contains one cancelled line: "Not one of the heroic guests."
Content:
Draft lines, cancelled with a vertical strike, that appeared in the second poem of the 1855
Leaves of Grass,
eventually titled "A Song for Occupations." The phrase "driver(s) of horses," a version of which appears in text added to a transcription of this manuscript in
Notes and Fragments
, ed. Richard Maurice Bucke (London, Ontario: A. Talbot & Co., printers, 1899), 31, appears in both the preface to the 1855
Leaves of Grass
and appears in its first poem, eventually titled "Song of Myself." On the reverse is one heavily corrected line whose relationship to the recto material or to any other published poem is uncertain.
Content:
This manuscript contains notes and draft lines that are related to a poem published first as "Poem of Salutation" in the 1856 edition of
Leaves of Grass
and later as "Salut Au Monde!" Whitman's use of the word "tabounshic" in this manuscript is unusual. He used it (spelled "tabounschik") only in the 1855 and 1856 editions of
Leaves of Grass
in the poem eventually titled "A Song for Occupations." In other respects, however, that poem does not appear to be related to these notes. The reverse side of the leaf (duk.00030) contains draft lines of the poem that was eventually titled "By Blue Ontario's Shore."
Content:
Whitman probably drafted this manuscript in the early 1850s as he was composing the first (1855) edition of
Leaves of Grass
. In language, ideas, and structure, the manuscript most closely resembles lines 39–43 in "Debris," a poem published in the 1860 edition of
Leaves of Grass
. However, the ideas and some of the language are also similar to other early manuscripts that relate to the first and second poems in the 1855 edition of
Leaves
, ultimately titled "Song of Myself" and "A Song for Occupations" (see "Priests" [loc.00013], "I know as well as" [duk.00051], and "[Fa]bles, traditions" [duk.00261]). In his transcription of this manuscript, Richard Maurice Bucke combines it with "I ask nobody's faith" (nyp.00102), but the manuscripts do not appear to be continuous (
Notes and Fragments
[London, Ontario: A. Talbot & Co., printers, 1899], 25). Poetic lines written on the back of this manuscript leaf (uva.00568) appeared in the poem eventually titled ""Song of Myself."
Content:
Whitman likely wrote the building specifications on what is presented here as the last leaf of this notebook first, and then flipped the notebook over and wrote notes from the other direction. References to the
San Francisco
can be dated to sometime after January 1854. The cover of the notebook is labeled "Note Book Walt Whitman" in a hand that is not Whitman's. Selections and subjects from this notebook were used in the 1855 edition of
Leaves of Grass
, including phrases from the poems that would later be titled "Song of Myself" and "Song of the Answerer." See Edward Grier,
Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts
(New York: New York University Press, 1984), 1:113–117. Lines in this manuscript correspond to a line from the manuscript poem, unpublished in Whitman's lifetime, titled "Pictures": "And now a merry recruiter passes, with fife and drum, seeking who will join his troop." The first several lines of the poem (not including this line) were revised and published in
The American
in October 1880 as "My Picture-Gallery," a poem later included in
Leaves of Grass
as part of the "Autumn Rivulets" cluster (1881, p. 310).
Content:
Emory Holloway has pointed out that Whitman's reference to the sinking of the
San Francisco
indicates that this notebook, "or at least part of it, is later than 1853." He writes that "it was probably begun in 1854" because the "marble church" in the first passage presumably refers to the Marble Collegiate Church in Manhattan, "which was not completed until then." See Holloway, "A Whitman Manuscript,"
American Mercury
3 (December 1924), 475–480. See also Andrew C. Higgins, "Art and Argument: The Rise of Walt Whitman's Rhetorical Poetics, 1838-1855," PhD diss., University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1999; and Edward F. Grier,
Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts
(New York: New York University Press, 1984), 1:128–135. Of the notebook passages that can be identified with published works, most represent early versions of images and phrases from the 1855 poem eventually titled "Song of Myself." One passage clearly contributed to the 1856 poem later titled "Song of the Open Road." Others are possibly connected to the poems eventually titled "A Song for Occupations" and "Great Are the Myths," both first published in the 1855 edition of
Leaves of Grass,
and to the preface for that volume. One passage seems to have contributed to the 1860–1861 poem that Whitman later titled "Our Old Feuillage." One passage is similar to a line in a long manuscript poem unpublished in Whitman's lifetime, titled "Pictures". The first several lines of that poem (not including the line in question) were revised and published as "My Picture-Gallery" in
The American
in October 1880 and then in
Leaves of Grass
as part of the "Autumn Rivulets" cluster (1881–1882, p. 310). No image of the outside back cover of the notebook is available because it has been stitched into a larger volume.
Content:
This notebook, now lost, contains much draft material used in the 1855 edition of
Leaves of Grass
, in addition to a few images and phrasings that Whitman used in the second (1856) and third (1860) editions. As the folder title indicates, the notebook is currently represented by photocopied images of each page derived, apparently, from a microfilm of the original that was made in the 1930s prior to the notebook's disappearance from the collection during World War II. As Floyd Stovall has noted, the few datable references in this notebook (e.g., the fighting at Sebastopol during the Crimean War) are to events from about 1853 to late 1854, shortly before the first publication of
Leaves of Grass
. See Stovall, "Dating Whitman's Early Notebooks,"
Studies in Bibliography
24 (1971), 197–204. See also Edward Grier,
Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts
(New York: New York University Press, 1984), 1:138–155. Surfaces 9, 10, 54, and 55 bear passages that probably contributed to the first poem of the 1855 edition, eventually titled "Song of Myself," and other material, on surfaces 26, 46, 51, 54, and 58, is clearly linked to the evolution of that poem. A passage on surface 23 is also perhaps related to its development. Surfaces 11 and 12 both have material probably used as fodder for the poem "Song of the Answerer," first published as the seventh poem in the 1855
Leaves.
A brief passage on surface 12 possibly contributed to the poem first published in 1860 as the fourth of the "Chants Democratic" and later retitled "Our Old Feuillage." Surfaces 13 and 46 contain drafts of passages used in the second poem of 1855, later titled "A Song for Occupations." Material on surfaces 24 and 47 probably also contributed to this poem. Passages on surfaces 17, 18, 40, 42, and 45 are likely early drafts toward lines used in "Poem of the Sayers of the Words of the Earth" (1856), which later became "A Song of the Rolling Earth." Surface 18 also bears writing probably related to the twelfth and final poem of the 1855
Leaves,
later titled "Faces." On surfaces 18, 24, and 51 are lines that might represent draft material toward "I Sing the Body Electric" (first published as the fifth poem of the 1855
Leaves
). Other passages, on surfaces 47 and 55, are likely related to that poem; those on surfaces 36, 37, 44, 45, and 47 are certainly related. Ideas and images written on surfaces 20 and 46 are likely related to the poem "Song of the Open Road," which first appeared as "Poem of the Road," and a passage on surface 24 may also be related. Two passages on surface 21 were used in the tenth poem of the 1855
Leaves of Grass,
later titled "There Was a Child Went Forth." Surface 22 contains writing probably used in "Sun-Down Poem" (1856), titled "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" in later editions. Some of the writing on surface 24 might also have contributed to the development of that poem. Another passage on surface 22, as well as passages on surfaces 26, 47, and 60, are possibly related to the 1855 Preface. A different passage on surface 60 is clearly related to the Preface, and a passage on surface 45 is likely related to it. Two of the draft lines of poetry on surface 31 were used in the untitled third poem of the "Debris" cluster in the 1860 edition of
Leaves of Grass.
This poem was retitled "Leaflets" in 1867 and dropped from subsequent editions. The writing on surface 41 contributed to the 1856 "Poem of Salutation," which was eventually titled "Salut au Monde!" The jotting at the top of surface 43 is also likely connected to this poem.
Content:
This manuscript contains notes for a cluster of poems that Whitman characterizes as being "in the
same way as 'Calamus Leaves' expressing the idea and sentiment of Happiness . . . " Whitman's use of the title "Calamus Leaves" on the opposite side, as in some very similar notes currently housed at Duke University, point toward the 1860 cluster "Enfans d'Adam" and dates the notes to some point in the late spring of 1859. On the reverse side of the leaf (uva.00516) are lines that perhaps constitute early notes for the second poem in the 1855 edition of
Leaves of Grass
, a poem that would eventually be titled "A Song for Occupations."
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,
6 vols. (New York: New York University Press, 1984), 1:226–243, 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."
Content:
Prose notes and poetic lines that relate to "A Song for Occupations," which first appeared in the 1856 edition of
Leaves of Grass
, under the title "Poem of the Daily Work of the Workmen and Workwomen of These States." The title of this poem shifted throughout the editions of
Leaves of Grass
, and included the following variants: "Chants Democratic,"
"The Workingmen," and "Carol of Occupations." Whitman finally settled on the title, "A Song for Occupations," in the 1881–1882 edition. The line, "The forge-fires in the mountains...the men around, feeling the melt with huge crowbars" appeared slightly revised in both early and late versions of this poem. Other ideas detailed in the prose portion of this manuscript can be found in this poem; however, the connection of this manuscript to Whitman's published prose work is unclear.
Content:
Whitman probably drafted this manuscript in the early 1850s as he was composing the first (1855) edition of
Leaves of Grass
. The lines do not have any known direct relation to Whitman's published poetry. At one point, however, the manuscript was almost certainly part of "The Great Laws do not" (duk.00264), which includes draft lines that appeared in that edition. On the back of this leaf (tex.00321) is a partial draft of the poem eventually titled "Faces." Both manuscript drafts were probably originally continuous with manuscript drafts on the leaf from which this leaf was cut.
