The most superb beauties | Whitman Archive

Whitman Archive Title: The most superb beauties
Whitman Archive ID: duk.00304
Repository ID: MS q 33
Repository: Catalog of the Walt Whitman Literary Manuscripts in the Trent Collection of Whitmaniana, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
Date: Before or early in 1855
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content: Notes, or possibly trial lines, expressing the idea that the highest beauty is found in what is "cheapest" and "commonest," probably connected to a line in the first poem of the 1855 Leaves of Grass , ultimately titled "Song of Myself". In the final version of the poem, the line appears in section 14. This scrap has been attached by a collector or archivist to a backing sheet, together with "It seems to me," "What shall the great poet be then?" and "Make no quotations."