Content:
This manuscript was probably written between 1850 and 1860. The lines are similar in subject to lines in the poem "To One Shortly To Die," first published in the 1860 edition of
Leaves of Grass
. The use of ellipses within poetic lines was characteristic of Whitman's first (1855) edition of
Leaves of Grass
, however, and lines in this manuscript also resemble lines that appeared in the first poem in that edition, eventually titled "Song of Myself." On the upper right corner of the manuscript appear the words "note last page of 'Ghost-seers'" in Whitman's hand, which may be a reference to one of the two volumes of
The Night Side of Nature, Or, Ghosts and Ghost-Seers
, by Catherine Crowe (London: T. C. Newby, 1848; G. Routledge & Co., 1852). Whitman mentioned the book in a conversation with Horace Traubel on December 9, 1889 (
With Walt Whitman in Camden
, 6:180–2). The phrase "Ghost-seers" also recalls a statement regarding Emerson in "Leaves-Droppings," a section of correspondence and commentary Whitman appended to the 1856 edition: "[Emerson] sees the future of truths as our Spirit-seers discern the future of man..." Fragmentary lines written on the back of this manuscript leaf (uva.00561) were used in the poem eventually titled "Song of Myself."
Content:
This manuscript was probably written between 1850 and 1860. The lines were used in the poem "To One Shortly to Die," first published in the 1860 edition of
Leaves of Grass
. Draft lines on the back of this leaf (uva.00280) appeared with revisions in the first poem of the 1855 edition of
Leaves of Grass
, eventually titled "Song of Myself."
Content:
A notebook Whitman used for various purposes in the mid-1850s. Edward F.
Grier, in his edition of Whitman's
Notebooks and Unpublished Prose
Manuscripts,
6 vols. (New York: New York University Press, 1984), 1:226–243, noted that the notebook contains lines and phrases that relate to
several poems: "Song of the
Broad-Axe,"
"Crossing Brooklyn
Ferry,"
"I Sing the Body
Electric,"
"Starting from
Paumanok,"
"A Song for
Occupations,"
"By Blue Ontario's
Shore,"
"Salut au Monde!,"
"To One Shortly to
Die," and "A
Woman Waits for Me."
Content:
Originally numbered 95 and then changed to 96. This poem was published under the
title "To One Shortly to Die,"
with only minor revisions, in the 1860
"Messenger Leaves" cluster. In
1871, Whitman made small but significant additions to the poem and transferred it
to the supplement "Passage to
India." In 1881 it was finally moved to the cluster "Whispers of Heavenly Death."
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."
