[You bards of ages hence] | Whitman Archive

Whitman Archive Title: [You bards of ages hence]
Whitman Archive ID: uva.00340
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, leaf 1 8 x 9 cm; leaf 2 14.5 x 9.5 cm pasted to 5.5 x 9.5 cm, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
Content: On two sections of white wove paper, the first cut down to 8 x 9 cm and the second a composite of two pieces pasted together, the top measuring 14.5 x 9.5 and the bottom 5.5 x 9.5 cm. In black ink, with a few revisions in the same ink. Pinholes at top and in center of both pages. Whitman numbered the first 9 1/2 and the second 10, in pencil, in the lower-left corner of each leaf. The Roman numeral is inscribed in an ornamental style, and the poem terminates with a wavy line. The seventh poem in the sequence "Live Oak, with Moss," became section 10 of "Calamus" in 1860 and was permanently retitled "Recorders Ages Hence" in 1867. The lines on the first page correspond to verses 1-3 of the 1860 version, and those on the second page ("Publish my name and hang up/ my picture...") to lines 4-11.