Thou West that gave'st him to us

Whitman Archive Title: Thou West that gave'st him to us
Whitman Archive ID: loc.07461
Repository: Catalog of the Walt Whitman Literary Manuscripts in The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
Box: 26
Folder: Beat! Beat! Drums! (1861). A. MS. draft.
Series: Literary File
Date: 1865
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2
Content: This manuscript consists of poetic lines on the death of Abraham Lincoln, lines that begin with the words "Thou West that gave'st him to us." The lines were not published during Whitman's lifetime, and although they focus on Lincoln's death, do not share direct similarities with "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" or other poems in the "Memories of President Lincoln" cluster. The lines were posthumously published in a Facsimile Edition of Drum-Taps in 1959. On the reverse of this leaf (loc.00051) is a draft of the first stanza of the poem "Beat! Beat! Drums!"