Content:
Note suggesting a piece of writing to span "the whole range of recorded
time," possibly related to "With Antecedents," which was first published in the
New-York Saturday Press
(1860) as "You and Me and To-day." The poem was revised as "Chants Democratic. 7" in
Leaves of Grass
(1860–1861) and took its final title, "With Antecedents," in the 1867
Leaves
. This scrap has been attached by a collector or archivist to a backing sheet,
together with "Remember in
Scientific."
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Notebooks and Unpublished Prose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:
On six leaves of pink paper. The deleted title is "Poemet—."
"Evolutions.—" is written in
light ink, and the number "41—" in a darker ink than the text. Whitman numbered
each leaf in pencil in the upper right corner. This poem was first published in
the January 14, 1860 issue of the
New York Saturday Press
under the title "You and Me and To-day," after which it became section
7 of "Chants Democratic" in
the 1860
Leaves of Grass
. In
1867 Whitman ungrouped it and permanently retitled it "With Antecedents"; in 1881 it was
permanently transferred to the new cluster "Birds of Passage." The manuscript leaves correspond to
the published verses in the 1860
Leaves
of Grass
.
