Remember that the clock and

Whitman Archive Title: Remember that the clock and
Whitman Archive ID: duk.00298
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
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Content: A prose manuscript dealing mainly with conceptions of time and which may have contributed to the following line in the first poem of the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass (eventually titled "Song of Myself"): "The clock indicates the moment . . . . but what does eternity indicate?" The last few lines of the manuscript contain ideas and phrases similar to another passage of the same poem. The manuscript's likening of "God" or "the soul" to an "Elder Brother" is reminescent of lines "And I know that the hand of God is the elderhand of my own, / And I know that the spirit of God is the eldest brother of my own." These correspondences suggest a date of before or early in 1855.