How gladly we leave the | Whitman Archive

Whitman Archive Title: How gladly we leave the
Whitman Archive ID: duk.00296
Repository ID: MS q 32
Repository: Catalog of the Walt Whitman Literary Manuscripts in the Trent Collection of Whitmaniana, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
Date: Between 1850 and 1855
Genre: prose, poetry
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2
Content: The description of "boatmen" with "trowsers tucked in their boots" in this manuscript appears to be related to lines in the opening poem of the 1855 Leaves of Grass , eventually titled "Song of Myself": "The boatmen and clamdiggers arose early and stopped for me, / I tucked my trowser-ends in my boots and went and had a good time". The phrase "real men and women refreshing, hearty, and wicked" may relate to the following line, which occurs later in the same poem: "Ever myself and my neighbors, refreshing and wicked and real." These connections suggest a date before or early in 1855. Edward Grier claims that this manuscript was, at one time, pinned together with another manuscript ( Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts [New York: New York University Press, 1984], 1:169; see duk.00297).