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Notebooks and Unpublished Prose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:
After undergoing substantial deletions and revisions this poem became section 13
of the cluster "Leaves of
Grass" in 1860, with the manuscript leaves corresponding to
the published version as follows: leaf 1 to numbered verse paragraphs 1 (now
beginning "O bitter sprig! Confession sprig!") through 3 and 5; leaf 2 ("You
felons on trial in courts,") to 4 and most of 6; and leaf 3 ("And I say I am of
them—") to the rest of 6. In 1867 Whitman permanently retitled the poem "You Felons on Trial in Courts"
and further shortened it by removing the first three verse paragraphs. The poem's
final position, in 1881, was in the cluster "Autumn Rivulets."
Content:
The verses on the recto, while not published word-for-word until 1897,
seem to represent an early draft of the poem first published as number 13 of the
cluster "Leaves of Grass" in
the 1860
Leaves of Grass
, and
eventually titled "You Felons on
Trial in Courts." Whitman's careful script and verse forms here also
resemble the methods of inscription used for the "Live Oak, with Moss" poems dated to the post-1856,
pre-1860 period. The undeleted notes on the back are titled "Poems". A cartoon hand in the
left margin points to the phrase "religious emotions." Whitman's use of the title
"Calamus Leaves" dates
these notes to the same pre-1860 period as the deleted verses on the recto, since
"Calamus-Leaves" was what
he renamed the cluster "Live Oak,
with Moss" before settling on "Calamus" for the 1860 edition. A section of the notes
below the rest (beginning "spirituality—the unknown,...") is inscribed in verse
form.
