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Whitman Archive Title: [Breast Sorrel]
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Whitman Archive ID: med.00775
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Repository: Catalog of Unlocated Walt Whitman Manuscripts
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Date: before 1859
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Genre: poetry
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Physical Description: number of leaves unknown, handwritten
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View Images: currently unavailable
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Content:
A brief list, which Grier suggests could be trial titles for "Calamus.". However, this manuscript is specifically suggestive of "Roots and Leaves Themselves Alone," in which Whitman writes about "Breast-sorrel and pinks of love"—both phrases which can be linked to this manuscript. First published as "Calamus. 13" in
Leaves of Grass
(1860), this poem appeared in later editions of
Leaves of Grass
as "Roots and Leaves Themselves Alone", and with slight changes in the text. This manuscript is known only from a transcription published by Richard Maurice Bucke in
Notes and Fragments
(London, Ontario: A. Talbot & Co., printers, 1899), 164.
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