Content:
This manuscript contains a rough draft of the poem "Song of the Redwood-Tree" written, according to a note
intialed by Whitman, during October and November 1873 prior to its first
publication in the February 1874 issue of
Harper's Magazine
. In 1876 the poem was published in
the group "Centennial Songs"
and annexed to
Two Rivulets
. The
poem appears ungrouped again in
Leaves of
Grass
(1881). Several leaves contain deleted and undeleted titles or
variant verse references to other published poems: "Eidólons", "Waves in the Vessel's Wake", "(a sonnet)" written "for
Century Verses," which appears from a Library of Congress manuscript to have been
a working title of the group that became "Centennial Verses" and "A California song".
Content:
Heavily revised draft of a poem that, after extensive further revision, was
first published in the December 1874 issue of the New York
Daily Graphic
as "In the Wake Following."
The poem first appeared under its final title, "After the Sea-Ship," in the
"Sea-Drift" group of
Two Rivulets
(1876).
