Skip to main content

As I Sit Writing Here

per.00121.004per.00121.004_cropped

As I Sit Writing Here.1

[WRITTEN FOR THE HERALD.] As I sit writing here, sick and grown old, Not my least burden is that dulness of the 
  years, querilities,2
Ungracious glooms, aches, lethargy, constipa- 
  tion, whimpering ennui,
May filter in my daily songs. WALT WHITMAN.

Notes

1. Reprinted in the "Sands at Seventy" annex to Leaves of Grass (1888). [back]

2. As noted in Leaves of Grass, Comprehensive Reader's Edition, ed. Harold W. Blodgett and Sculley Bradley (New York: New York University Press, 1965), "querilities" should read "querulities." The word is misspelled in both the Herald and "Sands at Seventy" printings of the poem. [back]

Back to top