Content:
This manuscript contains notes for poetry, including phrases which appear in
section 6 of the final version of"Starting from Paumanok" and in "Mediums." The published version of
"Mediums,"
originally "Chants
Democratic No. 16" in the 1860–1861 edition of
Leaves of Grass
, later
appeared as part of "Passage to
India" (1871–1872), and finally in the 1881–1882 edition of
Leaves of Grass
.
"Starting from Paumanok"
was published first in the 1860–1861 edition of
Leaves of Grass
as "Proto-Leaf." The reverse is a prose fragment dealing with political independence that contains phrases and ideas similar to those found in Whitman's complete but unpublished essay "The Eighteenth Presidency!"
Content:
This manuscript draft became section 16 of "Chants Democratic" in 1860, with Leaf 1
corresponding to verses 1-6 and Leaf 2 ("They shall train themselves/ to go in
public,...") to verses 7-11. In 1867 Whitman restored the title "Mediums"; in 1871, the poem was
transferred to
Passage to India
,
and in 1881 took its final position in the cluster "From Noon to Starry Night."
