In the course of the | Whitman Archive

Whitman Archive Title: In the course of the
Whitman Archive ID: duk.00942
Repository ID: MS q 1
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: 2 leaves, handwritten
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Content: Whitman probably drafted this manuscript in the early 1850s as he was composing the first (1855) edition of Leaves of Grass . Several of the lines of poetry in this manuscript are drafts of lines used in the opening poem of that edition, eventually titled "Song of Myself." The lines match the section of the poem that runs from "And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves" through "I pass death with the dying, and birth with the new-washed babe . . . . and am not contained between my hat and boots" (1855, pp. 16-17). The reverse sides of the leaves, together with several other leaves, constitute a draft essay that perhaps contributed to the 1860–1861 poem Unnamed Lands (see duk.00003).