Content:
This manuscript seems to comprise notes and draft lines for two poems: "[One?] Song—Come Philander" and "Three verses." The poems were apparently never further developed and
were never published. The leaf has been folded in half, and the verso contains two
independent texts. One is a list of names and addresses including family members,
friends, and supporters. The other seems to be notes for a newspaper announcement,
beginning "Walt Whitman, after an absence of almost three years, appeared again on
Pennsylvania Avenue this forenoon." Based on this date it can be speculated that
the notes were written late in 1875 (a possibility corroborated by the list of
names), but the poem(s) may have been inscribed in the late 1860s or earlier.
Content:
Draft lines, heavily revised, for a poem
titled "Starry
Union." Originally a single leaf, the top third has become detached. "Starry Union" was never published in
Whitman's lifetime, though several different draft forms exist.
Whitman Archive Title: What the word of power unbroken
Content:
This manuscript contains lines of an unpublished poem celebrating the Union, a theme
also found in the poetry manuscripts titled "Hands Round" and "Starry Union." The lines were probably drafted for
the Centennial of 1876.
Content:
A draft of a poem unpublished in Whitman's lifetime but existing in various
draft states, including one with the same title in the T. E. Hanley
Collection at the University of Texas and another,
titled "Hands Ro[und],"
in the Trent Collection at Duke University. The precise
date of composition is unknown, but Whitman very possibly wrote this piece
for the Centennial Celebration of 1876, as the date of the letter on the reverse ("Feb 11/76")
suggests.
Content:
Experimental lines and phrases for a poem, beginning "Union Union!" and bearing
an unknown relationship to Whitman's published work. On the verso is a title
reading "Old Time
Gleanings" with the subtitle "Reminiscences, Gossip, Traditions,
&c. of the Delaware river, Camden, and New Jersey generally."
