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Notebooks and Unpublished Prose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: 246–280, noted that the
notebook contains lines and phrases that relate to several poems: "Song of the
Broad-Axe,"
"To a Common
Prostitute,"
"You Felons on Trial in
Courts,"
"Starting from
Paumanok,"
"Trickle Drops,"
"I Was Looking for a Long
While,"
"Poem of Joys,"
"Facing West from
California's Shores,"
"To the States,"
"A Song of the Rolling
Earth,"
"On the Beach a Night
Alone,"
"Full of Life Now,"
and "With
Antecedents."
Content:
This is a draft of "Walt Whitman's Caution", a poem first appearing as one of the "Messenger Leaves" in
Leaves of Grass
(1860). The title of the poem was changed to "To the States" in the 1881–1882 edition of
Leaves
.