Are the prostitutes nothing

Whitman Archive Title: Are the prostitutes nothing
Whitman Archive ID: duk.00889
Repository ID: MS q 11
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: poetry
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content: This manuscript includes a line beginning "Are the prostitutes nothing?" which is a draft of a line from the third poem in the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass , eventually titled "To Think of Time." The words "attraction of gravity," included in a crossed-out line in this manuscript, appear in two contexts in the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass . The closest in meaning to its use in this manuscript is in the poem later titled "Great Are the Myths": "It cannot be varied by statutes, any more than love, pride, the attraction of gravity, can" (1855, p. 251). "Great Are the Myths" was ultimately shortened to a few lines and published as "Youth, Day, Old Age, and Night" in the 1881 Leaves of Grass . On the reverse (duk.00032) is also an early version of a part of "Great Are the Myths."