Content:
This manuscript contains notes for a proposed poem offering a vision of the future of the American west. The style of title that Whitman proposes ("Poem of...") resembles that employed in the 1856 edition of
Leaves of Grass
, suggesting a composition date around that time. This estimate is in line with that of Edward Grier, who dates the manuscript to "before 1860" (
Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts
[New York: New York University Press, 1984], 4:1323).
