Content:
Originally numbered 95 and then changed to 96. This poem was published under the
title "To One Shortly to Die,"
with only minor revisions, in the 1860
"Messenger Leaves" cluster. In
1871, Whitman made small but significant additions to the poem and transferred it
to the supplement "Passage to
India." In 1881 it was finally moved to the cluster "Whispers of Heavenly Death."