Content:
This scrap reads, in its entirety, "A string of Poems (short, etc.), embodying the amative love of
woman—the same as Live Oak Leaves do the passion of friendship for
man." Since, as Fredson Bowers points out in his introduction to
Whitman's Manuscripts: "Leaves of Grass" (1860): A Parallel Text
(lxxiii-lxxiv), Whitman dropped the
title "Live Oak Leaves" in late spring, 1859, and adopted calamus as his
symbol of manly love, the date must be earlier.
