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Notebooks and Unpublished Prose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:
A manuscript that contains a list of trial titles, probably for the poem first published
as "Calamus 15" in
Leaves of Grass
(1860) and
eventually titled "Trickle
Drops." On the reverse (duk.00890) is a fragment of about two and a half
lines of poetry, heavily corrected, whose relationship to Whitman's published writing
is unknown. This scrap has been attached by a collector or archivist to a
backing sheet, together with "And there,"
"'The Scout'," and "In a poem make the."
Content:
Written on a light blue Williamsburgh tax blank, this poem became section 15 of
"Calamus" in 1860,
and, with the addition of a new first line, was retitled "Trickle, Drops" in 1867.
