Content:
A manuscript of the poem "Penitenzia," unpublished in Whitman's
lifetime. The poem is apparently based on a photograph of Whitman possibly
taken by the photographer, William Kurtz, in the 1860s.
A note at the top of the manuscript, in Whitman's hand, reads, "p. 10
Passage to India," indicating that the poem might have been intended for
inclusion in the volume of that name (
Passage to India
) published in 1870. An earlier draft of this poem appears in a notebook now in the Feinberg Collection at the Library of Congress and was the basis for a version titled "Mask with Their Lids," published in Clifton J. Furness's
Walt Whitman's Workshop
and Harold W. Blodgett and Scully Bradley's
Leaves of Grass: Comprehensive Reader's Edition
.
The lines seem to anticipate the poem, "Out from Behind This Mask," first published in
the
New York Tribune
on
February 19,
1876.
Whitman Archive Title: Returning to my pages' front once
Content:
Draft of the poem "Out From
Behind This Mask," first published in 1876, written on two leaves. On the verso is a draft of a letter Whitman sent to Webster Elmes on 14 August 1873, arranging for a substitute, following his stroke, to cover his work as a clerk in Washington, D. C.
Content:
Notes and trial lines for the poem "Out From Behind This Mask," first published
in 1876, written on the verso of a letter to Whitman from
Minnie Vincent, dated Utica, New York, December 11, 1873, asking for
an autograph).
Content:
This is a signed draft of "Out from Behind This Mask," first published in the
New York Daily Tribune
(19 February 1876), which contains only a version of Part 1 of the poem.