Physical Description: number of leaves unknown, handwritten
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Content:
A brief note of twenty-seven words, sketching the idea for a poem "that shall be alive with the stirring and beating of a drum." The current location of this manuscript is unknown, and its contents are attested only by a transcription published by Richard Maurice Bucke in
Notes and Fragments
(London, Ontario: A. Talbot & Co., printers, 1899), 179. Whitman's poetry contains many references to the beating of drums, so one cannot be certain which, if any, of the poems is related to this manuscript. The most likely candidate, however, is "Beat! Beat! Drums!" Whitman's only poem that not only mentions drums but treats them as its central subject. First published simultaneously in the 28 September 1861 issues of
Harper's Weekly
and the
New York Leader,
it later appeared in
Drum-Taps
(1865) and in subsequent editions of
Leaves of Grass.