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Notebooks and Unpublished Prose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: 246–280, noted that the
notebook contains lines and phrases that relate to several poems: "Song of the
Broad-Axe,"
"To a Common
Prostitute,"
"You Felons on Trial in
Courts,"
"Starting from
Paumanok,"
"Trickle Drops,"
"I Was Looking for a Long
While,"
"Poem of Joys,"
"Facing West from
California's Shores,"
"To the States,"
"A Song of the Rolling
Earth,"
"On the Beach a Night
Alone,"
"Full of Life Now,"
and "With
Antecedents."
Content:
The number 80 appears above the deleted 79 above the title, along with a pencil
question mark in parentheses. This poem was revised to form main section 10 of
"Enfans d'Adam" in 1860, and
in 1867 was given two new opening lines and retitled "Facing West from California's Shores."