Content:
The verses on the recto became lines 6-40 of section 2 of "Calamus" in the 1860
edition. Section 2 of the Calamus group was permanently retitled "Scented Herbage of my Breast" in
1867. On the verso appears a draft of an editorial, "Important Questions in Brooklyn.—," which Whitman
apparently never published but which seems to have inspired at least two published
editorials on the Brooklyn Water Works and the political quarrels surrounding
control of the project. The editorials appeared in the Brooklyn
Times
of March 15 and 16, 1859.
