Content:
The poem was originally numbered 67, and the partly erased pencil note "Needs to
be/ re-written/ or excluded" appears in the upper-right corner of the first leaf.
Whitman also numbered the leaves in pencil in their lower-left corners. The leaves
correspond to verses in section 12 of "Chants Democratic" in the 1860
Leaves of Grass
. After excising
and altering numerous verses of the poem and numbering different verse paragraphs
for the "Chants Democratic"
version, Whitman next made the poem the second numbered section of the last "Leaves of Grass" cluster in the
1867 edition. From 1872 to 1876 it bore the title "To Oratists." Then, in 1881, Whitman deleted several
lines, joining this poem with a previously unconnected poem known as "Voices" to form "Vocalism" in the cluster "Autumn Rivulets," a position and
identity the now-composite poem retained from that point on.
Content:
This poem became section 21 of the cluster "Leaves of Grass" in the 1860 edition. In 1867
Whitman placed it after what would eventually become "All is Truth" and "Germs" as section 3 of a "Leaves of Grass" group in the annex "Songs Before Parting." In 1872
Whitman restored the title "Voices." In 1881 he dropped the first two verses and added "Voices" (as verse paragraph 2) to
the previously unrelated poem "To
Oratists" to form "Vocalism" in the cluster "Autumn Rivulets".
