Content:
This is an early draft, with revisions, of the paragraph that introduced
"Prayer of Columbus"
when it was first published in the March 1874 issue of
Harper's Monthly Magazine
and
then in
Two Rivulets
(1876). Later printings of the poem deleted the introduction.
Content:
A draft of lines from "Prayer of Columbus," first published in 1874. On the
verso is prose about a "capacious class of mighty ministers of the mind."
Content:
Detached from
Irish
Republic
3, no. 5 (May 1869), 60: "The Last Days of Columbus" [abstract from
Sir Arthur Phelps' book
The
Spanish Conquest in America
, reprinted from
Harper's Magazine
]. Across
left margin in Walt Whitman's hand: "Poems—Columbus—(? that name for
piece)—make the poem an utterance of Columbus—there on Jamaica island
(read first
Ulysses
, by
Tennyson)." Some of the passages in the abstract are marked and
underlined by Whitman. This is assumed to be the original idea of the
poem "Prayer of
Columbus," first published in 1874.
Content:
A draft of lines from "Prayer of Columbus," first published in 1874. The
lines are written on stationery from the Attorney General's office and
on the verso are prose notes, one of which reads "Acknowledge our
obligations to English & other foreign literature."
Whitman Archive Title: [My hand, my limbs grow nerveless]
Content:
A heavily revised draft, written on two scraps pasted together, of lines for "Prayer of Columbus," first published in 1874. On the
verso are prose notes beginning "Idea in each of the three papers." Whitman's intentions for these notes are unclear.
Content:
A draft of lines from "Prayer of Columbus," first published in 1874. On the
verso are prose notes beginning "Idea in each of the three papers."
Content:
A draft of lines from "Prayer of Columbus," first published in 1874. On the
verso is a prose note reading "much of this stuff will come in the
'Notes.'"
Content:
A draft of lines from "Prayer of Columbus," first published in 1874. On the
verso are Whitman's prose notes, now partially torn away, treating "Personal[ism]" and the
Kalev[ala].
Content:
Early draft of lines contributing to "Prayer of Columbus," first published in 1874. On the
verso is a draft of Whitman's prose introduction to the poem.
Content:
Bound corrected proofs of "Prayer of Columbus," which was published first in 1874. The
title page, which follows Whitman's portrait, reads "Prayer of Columbus,
by Walt Whitman, The Poet's Corrected Proof, 1881." The corrections are most
likely for the 1881 edition of
Leaves of Grass
.
