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Poetry Manuscripts
Much of the work of the Whitman Archive is currently focused on editing of his poetry manuscripts, crucial documents that have never before been systematically collected, transcribed, and presented. We have chosen to define "poetry manuscript" broadly, since it is often hard to determine the boundary between prose and verse in Whitman's manuscripts—especially in the pre-war years, Whitman habitually migrated his writing from prose to verse. For the purposes of this project, we consider as a poetry manuscript any writing in Whitman's hand that either is written as verse, contains a key image or language that eventually made its way into a recognized Whitman poem, or discusses the making of a poem. We are adding new content on a regular basis, so please check back to get the most recent updates. Users of the Whitman Archive familiar with our earlier work on manuscripts can still access that material by clicking here.
- After certain disastrous campaigns
- After the Argument
- after the dazzle of Day
- After death
- After the Supper and Talk
- Ah, not this granite dead and cold
- All Thine!
- America
- America to Old-World Bards
- Are the prostitutes nothing?
- armies & navies pass on the surface
- As in a Swoon
- Ashes of heroes
- Ashes of Roses
- Asia
- As of Forms
- Aye, well I know 'tis ghastly to descend
- Beat! beat! drums!
- Behold America
- Behold thy hunters
- By day the distant
- By thine own lips, O Sea
- Certainties, Faith Counterbalances, Alternation
- chorus of, a
- City of My Walks and Joys
- dalliance of the eagles, The
- Does not To-Day Time's
- Eidólons
- Fancies at Navesink
- Funeral Interpolations
- Great Laws do not treasure chips, The
- greatest thing is to make a, The
- Had I the Choice
- Hands Round
- Hast never come to thee an hour
- I cross'd the Nevadas
- I do not expect to see myself
- If I should need to name, O Western World!
- I have all lives
- incidents for (Soldier in the Ranks)
- idea of the necessity of, the
- In remarks on myself
- Inscription
- In the garden
- Italian Music in Dakota
- Last of ebb
- Last of ebb, and daylight waning
- Life and Death
- Locust whirring they come in July
- man-of-war.-Bird, The
- Mother of all, The
- nation announcing itself, A
- Nor you alone
- Notes as the wild Bees hum
- Notes where the wild bees flitting hum
- O Captain! my Captain!
- Of Ownership
- Of visible forms and
- Old Salt Kossabone
- Osceola
- Others may praise what they like
- Out from Behind this Mask
- Passing to years to come
- Patrol at Barnegat, The
- Paumanok
- Poem—a perfect school
- Prayer
- Prairie sunset, A
- procession without halt, A
- Proudly the flood comes in
- Proud music of the Storm
- Returning to my pages' front once
- Sail out for good for aye, O mystic yacht!
- Sands at Seventy
- Silent in far-off Egypt the broken-lipp'd
- Sobbing of the Bells
- some threading Ohio's
- Song of the Universal
- sorrow
- Starry Union
- This is the Earths word
- Thou shamest all the
- Thou, the round
- Thou West that gave'st him to us
- three or four poets are well, The
- To limn the stately and the
- To the year 1889
- Unexpress'd, The
- A Voice from Death
- Walt Whitman's Caution
- Waves in the Vessel's wake
- what means it?
- What the word of power unbroken
- with husky-haughty lips, O sea!
- Yet far sweeps your road
- You lusty and graceflu youth
- your needed blending discord‑parts
page last updated: 4/28/2006