The Sobbing
of the Bells
|
| Midnight Sept 19‑20 1881 |
|
———
|
| The sobbing of the bells, |
| The sudden death‑news everywhere, |
| The slumberers rouse, |
| The rapport of the people, |
| (Full well they know that |
| message in the darkness, |
| Full well return, respond |
| within their breasts, their |
| brains, the sad reverberations,) |
| The passionate toll and clang, |
| City to city joining, sounding |
| passing, |
| Those heart‑beats of a Nation |
| in the Night. |
|
-
Date
- This poem was composed sometime between September 19, 1881, when President James Garfield died and September 27, 1881, when the poem was initially published.
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Editorial note
-
This manuscript is a draft of "The Sobbing of the Bells," first published in the Boston Daily Globe on September 27, 1881.
This manuscript leaf is held with several other scraps of paper, including a newspaper clipping of the poem, in a large sheet of mylar at the Library of Congress.
The
verso
of
the
manuscript
leaf
is
blank.
-
Location
- The Sobbing of the Bells | The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
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