[I saw in Louisiana a] | Whitman Archive

Whitman Archive Title: [I saw in Louisiana a]
Whitman Archive ID: uva.00316
Repository: Catalog of the Walt Whitman Literary Manuscripts at the Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia
Folder: 50-51
Date: 1857-1859
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: 2 leaves, 15 x 9.5 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2
Content: On two leaves of white wove paper, both 15 x 9.5 cm, in black ink, with extensive revisions in the same ink, in light brown ink, and in pencil. Pinholes mostly at top and in center of both pages. Whitman numbered the pages 2 and 3 in pencil. This was originally the second section of the sequence "Live Oak, with Moss" (one of the deleted lines reads "I write/ these pieces, and name/ them after it [the Louisiana live-oak];"), with ornamental Roman numeral. It became section 20 of "Calamus" in 1860; the lines on the first manuscript page correspond to verses 1-7, and those on the second ("It is not needed to remind/ me...") to verses 8-13. The poem was retitled "I saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing" in 1867.