Content:
On two leaves of white wove paper, both measuring 15 x 9.5 cm; the lower half of
the second page is pasted over with a section of white paper (8 x 9 cm) containing
four revised verses. In black ink, with revisions in the same ink and in pencil.
Pinholes mostly at top of both pages. Whitman numbered the pages 4 and 5, in
pencil, in their lower-left corners. The third section of "Live Oak, with Moss" (with
ornamental Roman numeral), this poem became section 11 of "Calamus" in 1860 and was
permanently retitled "When I Heard at
the Close of the Day" in 1867. For an earlier draft of the poem numbered
V please see the verso of leaves 15-16 of "Premonition" (1:1:15-16). Bowers (p. 88) supplies the
three earlier lines concealed by the paste-on revision to the second leaf. The
lines on the first page correspond to verses 1-5 of the 1860 version, and those on
the second page ("And when I thought how/ my friend,...") to lines 6-13.
