Leaf [O dying! Always dying!]

Whitman Archive Title: Leaf [O dying! Always dying!]
Whitman Archive ID: uva.00319
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: 1 leaf, 21.5 x 12 cm, handwritten
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Content: On one light blue Williamsburgh tax blank (21.5 x 12 cm), in dark brown ink, with revisions in fine pen and pencil. Whitman penciled in a question mark, in parentheses, next to the title. With the addition of the new first line "O love!" this became section 27 of "Calamus" in 1860. In the 1867 Leaves it was retitled "O Living Always—Always Dying!" Whitman next transferred it to the "Passage to India" supplement bound in with Leaves , where it reappeared in 1876; in the 1881 Leaves Whitman permanently added it to the cluster "Whispers of Heavenly Death."