Content:
On two pink leaves (21 x 13 cm), in black ink, with revisions in the same ink and
in light ink. Pinholes in center, at top, and in top-left corner. This poem was
originally titled "Leaf" and
apparently numbered 78; Whitman inscribed its new title, "Poemet," in light ink. It became
number 17 of the "Calamus" cluster in
1860, with the lines on the first leaf corresponding to verses 1-7 and those on
the second ("And what I dreamed I will/ henceforth tell...") to verses 8-13 of the
first published version. Retitled "Of
Him I Love Day and Night" in 1867, it was transferred to the "Whispers of Heavenly Death"
cluster in
Passage to India
in
1871. In 1881 Whitman incorporated it, with the rest of the cluster, in the main
body of
Leaves
.
Content:
Mostly mounted clippings of poems taken from
Leaves of Grass
, stitched and tied with
ribbon by Walt Whitman. An autograph title page is followed by pages
numbered in red pencil 469-484. One poem, "Joy, Shipmate, Joy!," on p. 481 is written
entirely in Walt Whitman's hand (see image 23), and other corrections
and additions are in Whitman's hand throughout. The poems included are:
"Whispers of Heavenly
Death,"
"Yet, Yet Ye Downcast
Hours,"
"As Nearing
Departure" (later published, in a different form, as "As the Time Draws
Nigh"), "Darest
Thou Now O Soul,"
"Of Him I Love Day and
Night,"
"Quicksand Years That Whirl
Me I Know Not Whither" (later published as "Quicksand Years"),
"That Music Always
Round Me,"
"As If a Phantom Caress'd
Me,"
"O Living Always, Always
Dying,"
"Here, Sailor!"
(later published as "What
Ship Puzzled at Sea"), "A Noiseless Patient Spider,"
"To One Shortly to
Die,"
"Joy, Shipmate,
Joy!,"
"This Day, O Soul,"
"What Place is
Besieged?,"
"The Last
Invocation," and "Pensive and Faltering."
