Content:
This note for a poem about the devil is possibly related to the poem "Chanting the Square
Deific," which was first published in 1865. The scrap has been attached
by a collector or archivist to a backing sheet, together with "And there a hunter's
camp,"
"(written for the
voice)," and "Poem
of Sadness."
Whitman Archive Title: [Once I passed through a populous]
Content:
The recto verses appearing on this manuscript became the main section 9 of "Enfans d'Adam" in 1860 and
were retitled "Once I Pass'd Through
a Populous City" in 1867. On the verso appear two fragments: an
undeleted verse that would be used in Satan's section of "Chanting the Square Deific" in
"Sequel to Drum-Taps"
(1865-66); and what would become section 23 of "Proto-Leaf", which becomes "Starting from Paumanok" in 1867.
The undeleted verse is upside-down relative to the deleted section.
Whitman Archive Title: [I for the old round earth]
Content:
Although the repository labels this manuscript as a draft of the Preface to the 1855
Leaves of Grass
, it appears to have been written in the mid-1860s and was potentially intended as the opening inscription to the 1867 edition of
Leaves
(Whitman has written "Inscription, to precede Leaves of Grass, when finished" at the top of the first leaf). While the poem in this form was never published, the line describing the Greek god Kronos as "brown-skinned" may have led to a similar description in "Chanting the Square Deific," which first appeared in
Sequel to Drum-Taps
in 1865.