Content:
At the top of this manuscript, Whitman has written "for droppings." "Leaves-Droppings" was the name given to a section of correspondence and reviews that Whitman included in the back of the 1856 edition of
Leaves of Grass
. It seems he also considered giving that title to the cluster of poems in the 1860 edition that was eventually titled "Enfans d'Adam." Given that this manuscript contains a proposal for a poem, it's possible that Whitman envisioned it being included in the "Enfans d'Adam" cluster, suggesting a composition date in the late 1850s. However, as the "Leaves-Droppings" title had been on his mind as early as 1855 or 1856, it's also possible that this scrap was written earlier. On the verso (loc.00013) are early lines that contributed to the second poem in the 1855 edition of
Leaves
, eventually titled "A Song for Occupations."
