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America to Old-World Bards

About This Item

  • Title: America to Old-World Bards
  • Date: 1890 or 1891
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.00047
  • Source: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Transcribed from a digital image of the original manuscript. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the manuscripts, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Editorial note: This manuscript was probably composed in autumn, 1890, as is suggested by the postmarks on the envelopes on which it is written. The poem was revised and published under the title "Old Chants," first in the New York Truth, March 19, 1891. The order of the manuscript leaves has been derived from the published poem. The leaves that comprise this manuscript are five opened-up envelopes and one cancelled letter written to Whitman from J. Harry Schneller, Jr. The verso envelopes and letter are all dated September through October, 1890.
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "America to Old-World Bards." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 05 March 2026. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: loc.00047.xml (TEI)

Key

Textual Feature Appearance
Overwritten brown with strikethrough
Added inline purple with double underline
Uncertain gray with wavy underline
Supplied from another source turquoise with brackets
Metamark green with triple underline
Long deletion gray background with top and bottom border
  [begin leaf 1 recto]

America to Old-World Bards

A reminiscence from reading Walter Scott

  [begin leaf 1 verso]   [begin leaf 2 recto] TheThe Am quimportedancient ballad reciting, ending Once, America, gazingI gazing toward thee, ^Mother of all, Musing, seeking as ever the themes of thee, Thank ^well for me, thou saidst, before thou goest 
  the old bards SpeakName out the word for me acknowledging each 
  ancientpast gone singers.r. I too receive them with perfect hospitality. Well-pleased, accepting all, ^curiously prepared for,   [begin leaf 2 verso]   [begin leaf 3 recto] (Of many depbts incalculable Haply the ^New World's chiefest debtsdebt 
  is to past poets? poems.)   [begin leaf 3 verso]   [begin leaf 4 recto] Unwittingly for thee^Far back Preluding thee, ^America America, First Egyp chants, Egyptian priests and those of 
  Ethiopia The Hindu epics, the Grecian, the Chinese, and the 
  Persian, The Biblic books and prophets, the beauteous 
  deep idylls of the Nazarene, The Iliad, Odyssey, ^plots, doings, wanderings of Eneas, Hesiod Eschylus, Sophocles, Merlin, Arthur,   [begin leaf 4 verso]   [begin leaf 5 recto] These as a mightygreatAs some great shadowy group, ^gathering around Launching, long-darting,Darting m atheirmighty 
  many crowding masterful eyes ^forward at thee TheeThou, with ^as now thy ben thythybending head an 
  neck and head 
  with courteous hand & workd word  
  paus 
  pausing TheeThou, as pausing for a moment, ^ bending thinedrop'st thine eyes 
  observingon them, ^the past enteresting at 
  thy entrance-porch. Preluding thee America   [begin leaf 5 verso]
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