An Integrated Finding Guide to Walt Whitman's Poetry Manuscripts
Original records created or revised by the Walt Whitman Archive and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries. Encoded Archival Description completed through the assistance of the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, the University of Nebraska Research Council, and the Institute for Museum and Library Services.
Title: An Integrated Finding Guide to Walt Whitman's Poetry Manuscripts
Creator:
Whitman, Walt, 1819-1892
Repository:
The Walt Whitman Archive
Abstract:
This integrated electronic guide was created by the Walt Whitman Archive through the work of the EAD Project Team at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The machine-readable finding aid, EAD encoding, and XSLT conflation were completed by Andrew Jewell, Mary Ellen Ducey, Brian Pytlik Zillig, and Brett Barney, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries. Kenneth M. Price, co-editor of the Walt Whitman Archive, and Katherine L. Walter were primary investigators for a grant received from the Institute for Museum and Library Services, which provided major funding for the completion of this project. Additional funding was provided by the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation and the University of Nebraska Research Council. The Integrated Guide to Walt Whitman's Poetry Manuscripts has advanced from a prototype to a relatively mature form, though some work is still underway.
Scope and Content :
This Integrated Guide to Whitman's Poetry Manuscripts arranges by uniform title, and then by item title, all identified poetry manuscripts located in archival repositories throughout the United States and United Kingdom. Each item-level entry provides a title, date, and descriptive information, including physical characteristics when available. The large titles which are listed alphabetically are uniform titles based whenever possible on the final printing of Whitman's writings in Leaves of Grass (1891-92) or Complete Prose Works (1892). A uniform title may reference several distinct items that are associated with that title or work. Works that went through multiple revisions but did not appear in either one of these final collections of Whitman's poetry and prose use the final title as the uniform title. (That is, for example, a poem that appeared in the 1860, 1867, and 1872 editions of Leaves of Grass but then was dropped from future printings would take as its uniform title that given to it in the 1872 edition.) Access to an image of the original item, a transcription of the item, and a link to the repository finding aid are provided where available.
Biographical Information:
For additional biographical information, see
"Walt Whitman," by Ed Folsom and Kenneth M. Price, and the
chronology of Whitman's Life.
Subjects:
Whitman, Walt, 1819-1892
Whitman, Walt, 1819-1892--Manuscripts
Poets, American--19th century
After certain disastrous campaigns
Whitman Archive ID: pml.00006
Title:
After certain disastrous campaigns
Date: about 1862
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
Image 1
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Content:
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A poem unpublished in Whitman's lifetime, "After Certain Distastrous Campaigns" was published first in The Uncollected Poetry and Prose of Walt Whitman (ed. Emory Holloway. Garden City, N.Y., Toronto: Doubleday, Page and Company, 1921). The manuscript shows that Whitman originally considered the title "Answer me, year of repulses," which is also the first line of the poem.
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Repository: The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York
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After the Argument
Whitman Archive ID: loc.00001
Title:
After the Argument
Date: about 1891
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 9.5 x 21.5 cm, handwritten
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Content:
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Written in pencil, with four of the corrections in ink, on a strip of paper torn from a larger sheet, is a draft of "After the Argument." The poem was published first in Lippincott's Magazine, March, 1891.
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Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC
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Title:
Old Age Echoes
Date: about 1891
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 68.5 x 16.5 cm
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Content:
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Galley Proof of four poems under the general title "Old Age Echoes": "Sounds of the Winter,"
"The Unexpress'd,"
"Sail Out for Good, Eidolon Yacht!," and "After the Argument." This grouping was published in March, 1891 in Lippincott's Magazine. A note in Traubel's hand appears at the top of the page.
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Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC
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Title:
Old Age Echoes
Date: about 1891
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 25 x 16.75 cm
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Content:
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Offprint from the March, 1891 issue of Lippincott's Magazine of four poems under the general title "Old Age Echoes": "Sounds of the Winter,"
"The Unexpress'd,"
"Sail Out for Good, Eidolon Yacht!," and "After the Argument."
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Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC
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Title:
Old Age Echoes
Date: March, 1891
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Content:
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Copy of the March, 1891 issue of Lippincott's Magazine with four Whitman poems under the general title "Old Age Echoes": "Sounds of the Winter,"
"The Unexpress'd,"
"Sail Out for Good, Eidolon Yacht!," and "After the Argument." Also published in this issue are a full page portrait of Whitman, Whitman's "Some Personal and Old-Age Memoranda" (later published as "Some Personal and Old Age Jottings"), Traubel's "Walt Whitman: Poet and Philosopher and Man," and a review of Whitman's book, November Boughs.
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Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC
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Title:
Old Age Echoes
Date: about 1891
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 28.5 x 16.5 cm, 6 x 14 cm attached, handwritten
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Content:
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Proof sheet of "Old Age Echoes" with many corrections written in ink, red ink, and pencil. "Old Age Echoes" is a general heading for four poems: "Sounds of the Winter,"
"The Unexpress'd,"
"Sail Out for Good, Eidolon Yacht!," and "After the Argument."
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Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC
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After the Dazzle of Day
Whitman Archive ID: loc.00002
Title:
After the Dazzle of Day
Date: about 1888
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 14 x 14.5 cm, handwritten
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Content:
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Written in ink on one side of a sheet of note paper, this four-line verse was first published in the New York Herald, February 3, 1888. In the lower right-hand corner is the notation: "For Francis Howard Williams, May 1896, Traubel."
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Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC
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After the Sea-Ship
Title:
"Song of the Redwood Tree"
Date: about 1873
Physical Description: 20 leaves, 11 x 12.5 cm to 22.5 x 17.5
cm, handwritten
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Content:
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This manuscript contains a rough draft of the poem "Song of the Redwood-Tree"
written, according to a note intialed by Whitman, during October
and November 1873 prior to its first publication in the February 1874
issue of Harper's Magazine. In
1876 the poem was published in the group "Centennial Songs" and annexed to
Two Rivulets. The poem
appears ungrouped again in Leaves of
Grass (1881). Several leaves contain deleted and
undeleted titles or variant verse references to other published
poems: "Eidólons",
"Waves in the Vessel's
Wake", "(a sonnet)" written "for Century Verses," which
appears from a Library of Congress manuscript to have been a
working title of the group that became "Centennial Verses" and "A California song".
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Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia
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After the Supper and Talk
Title:
November Boughs
Date: 1887
Physical Description: handwritten
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Content:
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Clipping from a newspaper of four Whitman poems: "You Lingering Sparse Leaves of Me,"
"'Going Somewhere,'"
"After the Supper and Talk," and "Not Meagre Latent Boughs Alone." At the top is the title "November Boughs." At the bottom of the clipping is written, in Whitman's hand, "1887." The poems were published first in Lippincott's Magazine, November, 1887.
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Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC
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Title:
November Boughs
Date: about 1887
Physical Description: 3 leaves, handwritten
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Content:
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Three proofs of a collection of four poems ("You Lingering Sparse Leaves of Me,"
"'Going Somewhere,'"
"After the Supper and Talk," and "Not Meagre Latent Boughs Alone") under the general title "November Boughs." The first is made by pasting together proofs of each poem in the order desired; the other two have all four poems printed on one sheet. Two of the proofs have corrections and notations in Whitman's hand.
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Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC
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All is Truth
Title:
"As of the The Truth"
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 4 leaves, leaf 2 19.5 x 13 cm, all
other leaves 21.5 x 13 cm, handwritten
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Content:
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This poem became section 18 of the cluster "Leaves of Grass" in the
1860
edition. In 1872 the poem received the title "All is Truth," and in
1881, after various repositionings, it was finally
transferred to the cluster "From Noon to Starry Night". The second leaf
is a composite formed when Whitman deleted and cut away
the original first two verses on the leaf, flipped the
new small section over and upside-down, pasted it to the
foot of the remaining original verses, and inscribed a
verse in light ink on the newly created blank space.
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Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia
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America
Whitman Archive ID: loc.00006
Title:
America
Date: undated
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 18.5 x 21.5 cm, handwritten
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Content:
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Written in pencil on a sheet torn from the top of a larger sheet, the rough draft of the beginning lines of a poem, 29 words in all. Despite the title, this manuscript does not appear to be a draft of the poem, "America," published in 1888, but it has been published separately and posthumously as "[America]" and begins "No Homer, Shakspere, Voltaire." This manuscript was likely composed in the last two decades of Whitman's career (roughly 1870-1892) when he was more apt to mention other writers explicitly in his poetry.
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Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC
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And Yet Not You Alone
Title:
"[Nor you alone]"
Date: about 1885
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content:
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A draft of the poem "And Yet Not You Alone," published as part of "Fancies at Navesink" in 1885. The draft also has, in the bottom margin, the title of the poem which follows it in "Fancies at Navesink,"
"Proudly the Flood Comes In." This manuscript is bound with others under the title "Fancies at Navesink."
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Repository: Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
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Title:
"[your needed blending]"
Date: about 1885
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content:
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A draft of the poem "And Yet Not You Alone," published as part of "Fancies at Navesink" in 1885. The manuscript is heavily edited and has several smaller pieces of paper glued together to make one leaf. This manuscript is bound with others under the title "Fancies at Navesink."
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Repository: Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
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Ashes of Soldiers (Poem)
Whitman Archive ID: loc.00054
Title:
[Ashes of ?soldiers heroes]
Date: about 1871
Physical Description: 2 leaves, handwritten
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Content:
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Draft of lines which bear a relationship to "Ashes of Soldiers," first published in 1865. On the second leaf is a one line reading "The Soul of their Ashes risen." This manuscript was likely composed around 1870-1871, when Whitman was revising and expanding the poem for republication. This manuscript appears to be a draft of the first two linegroups of "Ashes of Soldiers." These linegroups were added in 1871 to a poem first published as "Hymn of Dead Soldiers" in Drum-Taps (1865). It was only in 1871 that he added the imagery of ashes to this poem.
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Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC
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Whitman Archive ID: loc.00050
Title:
Ashes of Roses
Date: about 1870
Physical Description: 2 leaves, 23.5 x 13.5 and 10 x 13.5 cm, handwritten
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Content:
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A draft of a poem written in ink, with the title in blue pencil, on two strips of paper, one torn off at the bottom. Parts of this manuscript have been printed as "? Ashes of Roses," and the manuscript may bear a relationship to "Ashes of Soldiers," a poem published first in 1865 as "Hymn of Dead Soldiers" in Drum-Taps. It was only in 1871 that he added the imagery of ashes to this poem. The manuscript was likely composed around 1870-1871, when Whitman was revising and expanding the poem for republication. Alternatively, the manuscript may be a draft of a unique poetic work unpublished in Whitman's lifetime.
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Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC
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Title:
Songs of Parting
Date: about 1881
Physical Description: 10 leaves, handwritten
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Content:
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Bound proofs of Whitman's cluster "Songs of Parting," containing 17 poems. Opposite a portrait of Whitman, the title page reads, "Songs of Parting, by Walt Whitman, The Poet's Corrected Proof." These corrections were probably for the 1881 edition of Leaves of Grass. The 17 poems included are: "As the Time Draws Nigh,"
"Ashes of Soldiers,"
"Years of the Modern,"
"Thoughts,"
"Song at Sunset,"
"My Legacy,"
"Pensive on Her Dead Gazing, I Heard the Mother of All,"
"Camps of Green,"
"Bathed in War's Perfume,"
"Now Finalé to the Shore,"
"As they Draw to a Close,"
"The Untold Want,"
"Portals,"
"These Carols,"
"To the Reader at Parting,"
"Joy, Shipmate, Joy!," and "So Long."
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Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC
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As I Ebb'd with the Ocean of Life
Whitman Archive ID: har.00003
Title:
Bardic symbols
Date: about 1860
Physical Description: 3 leaves, handwritten
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Content:
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Partial late draft, with minor revisions, of "Bardic Symbols," first published in the April 1860 issue of the Atlantic Monthly. The poem was later revised and published under the title "As I Ebb'd with the Ocean of Life." Two of the manuscript leaves are stored with a letter to the editor, James Russell Lowell, dated October 2, 1861; the other leaf is stored separately.
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Repository: Manuscripts Department, Houghton Library, Harvard University
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Title:
Bardic Symbols
Date: April, 1860
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Content:
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Portions of two copies of The Atlantic Monthly containing Whitman's poem "Bardic Symbols." The poem appeared in revised forms and with different titles throughout Whitman's career. In the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass, it was known as "Leaves of Grass, Number 1"; in the 1867 edition of Leaves of Grass it was titled "Elemental Drifts"; and, in the 1881-1882 edition, the title was again changed to "As I Ebb'd With the Ocean of Life."
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Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC
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As If a Phantom Caress'd Me
Title:
Whispers of Heavenly Death
Date: about 1870
Physical Description: 15 leaves, 20 x 13 cm, handwritten
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Content:
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Mostly mounted clippings of poems taken from Leaves of Grass, stitched and tied with ribbon by Walt Whitman. An autograph title page is followed by pages numbered in red pencil 469-484. One poem, "Joy, Shipmate, Joy!," on p. 481 is written entirely in Walt Whitman's hand, and other corrections and additions are in Whitman's hand throughout. The poems included are: "Whispers of Heavenly Death,"
"Yet, Yet Ye Downcast Hours,"
"As Nearing Departure" (later published, in a different form, as "As the Time Draws Nigh"), "Darest Thou Now O Soul,"
"Of Him I Love Day and Night,"
"Quicksand Years That Whirl Me I Know Not Whither" (later published as "Quicksand Years"), "That Music Always Round Me,"
"As If a Phantom Caress'd Me,"
"O Living Always, Always Dying,"
"Here, Sailor!" (later published as "What Ship Puzzled at Sea"), "A Noiseless Patient Spider,"
"To One Shortly to Die,"
"Joy, Shipmate, Joy!,"
"This Day, O Soul,"
"What Place is Besieged?,"
"The Last Invocation," and "Pensive and Faltering."
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Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC
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As I Walk These Broad Majestic Days
Whitman Archive ID: duk.00287
Title:
[Poem, as in a rapt and]
Date: before 1860
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
Image 1
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Content:
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A manuscript proposing ideas for a poem in the form of a prophetic vision about the future of America. Possibly related to "As I Walk These Broad Majestic Days," which was first published as "Chants Democratic 21" in 1860. This scrap has been attached by a collector or archivist to a backing sheet, together with "An After Thought or Two," and "[Poem ante-dating]."
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Repository: The Trent Collection of Walt Whitman Manuscripts, Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library
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Assurances
Title:
[the scope of government]
Date: between 1855-1856
Physical Description: handwritten
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Content:
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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 (New York: New York University Press, 1984. 6 vols.), noted that the notebook contains lines and phrases that relate to several poems: "Assurances,"
"This Compost," and an unfinished poem entitled "The Insects."
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Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC
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As the Greek's Signal Flame
Title:
As the Greek's Signal Flame
Date: about 1887
Physical Description: 2 p., 12 x 15.25 cm, handwritten
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Content:
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Written in ink at the top of a proof of "As the Greek's Signal Flame"(subheaded "For Whittier's 80th birth-day, December 17th, 1887"), a seven-line poem, with a printed signature, nine words: "If convenient put in paper of Saturday Dec. 17." Another copy of the same proof, with no annotations.
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Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC
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As the Time Draws Nigh
Title:
Songs of Parting
Date: about 1881
Physical Description: 10 leaves, handwritten
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Content:
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Bound proofs of Whitman's cluster "Songs of Parting," containing 17 poems. Opposite a portrait of Whitman, the title page reads, "Songs of Parting, by Walt Whitman, The Poet's Corrected Proof." These corrections were probably for the 1881 edition of Leaves of Grass. The 17 poems included are: "As the Time Draws Nigh,"
"Ashes of Soldiers,"
"Years of the Modern,"
"Thoughts,"
"Song at Sunset,"
"My Legacy,"
"Pensive on Her Dead Gazing, I Heard the Mother of All,"
"Camps of Green,"
"Bathed in War's Perfume,"
"Now Finalé to the Shore,"
"As they Draw to a Close,"
"The Untold Want,"
"Portals,"
"These Carols,"
"To the Reader at Parting,"
"Joy, Shipmate, Joy!," and "So Long."
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Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC
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Title:
Whispers of Heavenly Death
Date: about 1870
Physical Description: 15 leaves, 20 x 13 cm, handwritten
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Content:
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Mostly mounted clippings of poems taken from Leaves of Grass, stitched and tied with ribbon by Walt Whitman. An autograph title page is followed by pages numbered in red pencil 469-484. One poem, "Joy, Shipmate, Joy!," on p. 481 is written entirely in Walt Whitman's hand, and other corrections and additions are in Whitman's hand throughout. The poems included are: "Whispers of Heavenly Death,"
"Yet, Yet Ye Downcast Hours,"
"As Nearing Departure" (later published, in a different form, as "As the Time Draws Nigh"), "Darest Thou Now O Soul,"
"Of Him I Love Day and Night,"
"Quicksand Years That Whirl Me I Know Not Whither" (later published as "Quicksand Years"), "That Music Always Round Me,"
"As If a Phantom Caress'd Me,"
"O Living Always, Always Dying,"
"Here, Sailor!" (later published as "What Ship Puzzled at Sea"), "A Noiseless Patient Spider,"
"To One Shortly to Die,"
"Joy, Shipmate, Joy!,"
"This Day, O Soul,"
"What Place is Besieged?,"
"The Last Invocation," and "Pensive and Faltering."
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Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC
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As They Draw to a Close
Title:
Songs of Parting
Date: about 1881
Physical Description: 10 leaves, handwritten
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Content:
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Bound proofs of Whitman's cluster "Songs of Parting," containing 17 poems. Opposite a portrait of Whitman, the title page reads, "Songs of Parting, by Walt Whitman, The Poet's Corrected Proof." These corrections were probably for the 1881 edition of Leaves of Grass. The 17 poems included are: "As the Time Draws Nigh,"
"Ashes of Soldiers,"
"Years of the Modern,"
"Thoughts,"
"Song at Sunset,"
"My Legacy,"
"Pensive on Her Dead Gazing, I Heard the Mother of All,"
"Camps of Green,"
"Bathed in War's Perfume,"
"Now Finalé to the Shore,"
"As they Draw to a Close,"
"The Untold Want,"
"Portals,"
"These Carols,"
"To the Reader at Parting,"
"Joy, Shipmate, Joy!," and "So Long."
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Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC
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Autumn Rivulets
Title:
Autumn Rivulets
Date: about 1881
Physical Description: handwritten
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Content:
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Written in ink at the bottom of a proof of "Old War-Dreams," four words: "Walt Whitman's New Book." Accompanying is a collection of proofs of "Autumn Rivulets," with cancelled title "As Consequent, Etc." without any other markings or annotations. The poems included are: "From Far Dakota's Canons,"
"A Farm Picture,"
"What Best I See on Thee" (U.S. Grant), "The Sobbing of the Bells,"
"Italian Music in Dakota,"
"By Broad Potomac's Shore,"
"Excelsior,"
"With All thy Gifts,"
"To Rich Givers"
"The Dalliance of the Eagles,"
"Tears,"
"After the Sea-Ship,"
"Aboard at a Ship's Helm," and "Thick-Sprinkled Bunting."
"Autumn Rivulets" was published first in 1881.
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Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC
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Backward Glance O'er Travel'd Roads, A
Whitman Archive ID: bpl.00005
Title:
Corrections in Plates
Date: ca. 1888
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
Image 1
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Content:
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A list of corrections in Whitman's hand, including page numbers and notes, possibly corresponding to a proof of the 1891-1892 edition of Leaves of Grass and related to "[p 287]" above. The bottom of the page has Whitman's corrections to "A Backward Glance O'er Travel'd Roads" (first published in 1888).
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Repository: The Walt Whitman Collection, Boston Public Library
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Bathed in War's Perfume (Poem)
Title:
Songs of Parting
Date: about 1881
Physical Description: 10 leaves, handwritten
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Content:
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Bound proofs of Whitman's cluster "Songs of Parting," containing 17 poems. Opposite a portrait of Whitman, the title page reads, "Songs of Parting, by Walt Whitman, The Poet's Corrected Proof." These corrections were probably for the 1881 edition of Leaves of Grass. The 17 poems included are: "As the Time Draws Nigh,"
"Ashes of Soldiers,"
"Years of the Modern,"
"Thoughts,"
"Song at Sunset,"
"My Legacy,"
"Pensive on Her Dead Gazing, I Heard the Mother of All,"
"Camps of Green,"
"Bathed in War's Perfume,"
"Now Finalé to the Shore,"
"As they Draw to a Close,"
"The Untold Want,"
"Portals,"
"These Carols,"
"To the Reader at Parting,"
"Joy, Shipmate, Joy!," and "So Long."
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Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC
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Beat! Beat! Drums!
Whitman Archive ID: loc.00051
Title:
[Beat! Beat! Drums!]
Date: 1860-1865
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content:
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One leaf with a draft of the first stanza of "Beat! Beat! Drums!", first published simultaneously in Harper's Weekly and in the New York Leader on September 28, 1861. On the verso are lines on the death of President Lincoln, known as "[Thou West that gave'st him to us]" and first published in a Facsimile Edition of Drum-Taps in 1959. (Note: Early cataloguers incorrectly identified this fragment as part of "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd.")
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Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC
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Bravo, Paris Exposition!
Title:
Bravo, Paris Exhibition!
Date: about 1889
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 21 x 27.5 cm, handwritten
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Content:
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Written in pencil, a signed draft of a poem with a variation in line 1 from the printed version. On the verso, written in pencil: "Can you use this? Put it under the "Personal" head like you did a year ago? "The price is $10, which please send me by mail here." In ink is the start of another sentence: "If you don't want it." The poem was published under the title "Bravo, Paris Exposition!" in 1889.
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Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC
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Title:
Bravo, Paris Exposition!
Date: about 1889
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 11.5 x 15 cm, handwritten
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Content:
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A proof sheet of "Bravo, Paris Exposition!" with corrections in Whitman's hand. At the top is a note reading "See notes, Oct 31, '89." "Bravo, Paris Exposition!" was published in 1889.
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Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC
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By Blue Ontario's Shore
Title:
[George Walker]
Date: between 1855-1856
Physical Description: handwritten
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Content:
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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 (New York: New York University Press, 1984. 6 vols), noted that the notebook contains lines and phrases that relate to several poems: "Song of the Broad-Axe,"
"Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,"
"I Sing the Body Electric,"
"Starting from Paumanok,"
"A Song for Occupations,"
"By Blue Ontario's Shore,"
"Salut au Monde!,"
"To One Shortly to Die," and "A Woman Waits for Me."
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Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC
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Title:
"[Have I]"
Date: about 1856
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 9 x 18 cm, handwritten
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Content:
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The words "Have I" at the beginning are inscribed on a
small scrap of the same paper, which Whitman pasted over
some deleted words in the upper right corner that cannot
be discerned through the paper. Inscribed and
extensively revised in pencil, these verses were part of
a larger set of lines before Whitman cut away the rest.
Although the page number and many words on the left side
of the proof have been cut away, the remaining words
identify it as being from the "Poem of Many in One (1856)," which eventually became "By Blue Ontario's
Shore." These unused but also undeleted lines may
have been intended for that poem or a number of other
poems in Leaves of Grass.
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Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia
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Title:
[med Cophósis]
Date: between 1850-1856
Physical Description: handwritten
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Content:
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A notebook kept by Whitman in the early to mid-1850s. William White, in his edition of Whitman's Daybooks and Notebooks (New York: New York University Press, 1978. 3 vols.), noted a relationship between this notebook and the poems "Who Learns My Lesson Complete?,"
"By Blue Ontario's Shore,"
"Song of the Answerer," and "There Was a Child Went Forth."
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Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC
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Title:
"Europe"
Date: about 1855
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 16 x 14 cm, handwritten
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Content:
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The recto notes represent an early stage of lines partially
incorporated in "Poem of
Salutation," the new third poem in the 1856 edition of
Leaves of Grass, which was
permanently retitled "Salut au
Monde!" in the 1860 edition. If the note or title
"Europe" suggests that Whitman might have first intended to
divide his salutations into discrete sections based on the
different continents, this is a plan he did not follow in the
published version(s). The more polished (but deleted) lines on
the verso represent a recasting in poetic form of several lines
from the 1855
Preface. These were further revised for the 1856 "Poem of Many in One," after
which the first verse drafted on this page (cut off here, and
beginning "over the Texan, Mexican, Florid[ian,]/ Cuban
seas...") was dropped. The two verses below this, however, were
preserved relatively unchanged through the poem's many
transformations until the text was essentially fixed under the
title "By Blue Ontario's
Shore" in 1881.
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Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia
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Title:
"Inscription"
Date: between 1855 and 1867
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 19.5 x 12.5 cm, handwritten
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Content:
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This manuscript entitled "Inscription" appears to be a revision of other "Inscriptions" Whitman gathered in a
notebook, along with prose drafts for a never-finished introduction
to Leaves of Grass, and attached to
his copy of the 1855 paper-bound edition. (The entire collection of
draft "inscription" and introductory material is currently housed at
the New York Public Library.) In the 1867
Leaves of Grass Whitman culled
material from this poem and the other "Inscription" poems to create an italicized "Inscription" that he placed before
"Starting from Paumanok" at
the beginning of the book; in that edition he also transferred part
of verse 2 to "As I Sat Alone by Blue
Ontario's Shore" (later the line was dropped and the
title was revised to "By Blue Ontario's
Shore"). From 1872 onward, this poem, revised and
retitled "One's-Self I Sing," was
printed as the first of several poems in the "Inscriptions" cluster that opened
the book. In the 1888 November
Boughs, however, Whitman reprinted the 1867 version as
"Small the Theme of my Chant."
Note: This manuscript draft may have been written before the Civil
War, since it does not include the 1867 line "My Days I sing, and
the Lands—with interstice I knew / of hapless War."
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Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia
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By That Long Scan of Waves
Title:
Fancies at Navesink
Date: undated
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 48.4 x 15.2 cm
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Content:
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Flysheet or galley of seven poems, "The Pilot in the Mist,"
"Had I the Choice,"
"You Tides with Ceaseless Swell,"
"Last of Ebb, and Daylight Waning,"
"Proudly the Flood Comes In,"
"By That Long Scan of Waves," and "Then Last of All." The sequence "Fancies at Navesink" was published first in 1885.
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Repository: Rare Books and Manuscripts, Special Collections, Temple University Libraries, Temple University
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Calamus
Title:
"[Full of wickedness]"
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 15.5 x 8 cm, handwritten
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Content:
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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.
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Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia
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Camps of Green
Title:
Songs of Parting
Date: about 1881
Physical Description: 10 leaves, handwritten
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Content:
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Bound proofs of Whitman's cluster "Songs of Parting," containing 17 poems. Opposite a portrait of Whitman, the title page reads, "Songs of Parting, by Walt Whitman, The Poet's Corrected Proof." These corrections were probably for the 1881 edition of Leaves of Grass. The 17 poems included are: "As the Time Draws Nigh,"
"Ashes of Soldiers,"
"Years of the Modern,"
"Thoughts,"
"Song at Sunset,"
"My Legacy,"
"Pensive on Her Dead Gazing, I Heard the Mother of All,"
"Camps of Green,"
"Bathed in War's Perfume,"
"Now Finalé to the Shore,"
"As they Draw to a Close,"
"The Untold Want,"
"Portals,"
"These Carols,"
"To the Reader at Parting,"
"Joy, Shipmate, Joy!," and "So Long."
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Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC
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Carol Closing Sixty-Nine, A
Whitman Archive ID: amh.00001
Title:
A Carol Closing Sixty-Nine and To Get the Final Lilt of Songs
Date: 1888
Physical Description: 1 leaf,
Image 1
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Content:
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Uncorrected galley proof of "A Carol Closing Sixty-Nine" and "To Get the Final Lilt of Songs," both of which were first published in separate issues of the New York Herald in 1888. This date is written on the leaf, possibly in Whitman's hand. The first published title of "To Get the Final Lilt of Songs" was "The Final Lilt of Songs."
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Repository: Amherst College Archives and Special Collections
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Title:
Old Age's Lambent Peaks
Date: about 1888
Physical Description: 2 leaves, 33 x 15 cm; envelope 10.5 x 13 cm, handwritten
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Content:
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An edited proof sheet with three poems: "Old Age's Lambent Peaks,"
"A Carol Closing Sixty-Nine,"
"To Get the Final Lilt of Songs," all published first in 1888. In addition to corrections, Whitman has written a note to the printer at the top of the page. Also included is an envelope with "printer's proofs, short poems, Walt Whitman, 1888, (autographic)" written on it.
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Repository: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC
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Centennial Songs---1876
Title:
"Song of the Redwood Tree"
Date: about 1873
Physical Description: 20 leaves, 11 x 12.5 cm to 22.5 x 17.5
cm, handwritten
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Content:
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This manuscript contains a rough draft of the poem "Song of the Redwood-Tree"
written, according to a note intialed by Whitman, during October
and November 1873 prior to its first publication in the February 1874
issue of Harper's Magazine. In
1876 the poem was published in the group "Centennial Songs" and annexed to
Two Rivulets. The poem
appears ungrouped again in Leaves of
Grass (1881). Several leaves contain deleted and
undeleted titles or variant verse references to other published
poems: "Eidólons",
"Waves in the Vessel's
Wake", "(a sonnet)" written "for Century Verses," which
appears from a Library of Congress manuscript to have been a
working title of the group that became "Centennial Verses" and "A California song".
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Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia
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Chanting the Square Deific
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Chants Democratic and Native American
Title:
"To a Literat"
Date: 1857-1859
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content:
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The first two verses, taken more or less directly from a prose
manuscript, "[Of Biography],"
have no revisions, but the remaining three verses represent a
significant expansion of the themes in the prose notes and are
extensively revised. These verses, which precede "[Walt Whitman's law]" in the
composition process, correspond, like "[Of Biography]," to section 13
of the 1860
version of the poem "Chants
Democratic and Native American" which was revised and
permanently retitled "Laws for
Creations" in 1872.
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Repository: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia
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Christmas Greeting From a Northern Star-Group to a Southern, 1889-'90, A
Title:
A Christmas Greeting
Date: about 1889
Physical Description: 1 leaf, 20 x 23.5 cm, handwritten
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Content:
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Written in ink, with note to the printer in red ink, with the title on a sheet pasted to the sheet containing the poem. The manuscript was apparently intended for the printer, and there are few alterations. In right hand corner is notation in red: "if convenient let me have proof by noon." In left hand corner (in pencil) is name "Horace Traubel." The manuscript is signed in full. "A Christmas Greeting" was first published in 1889.
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