Title: I am not content now
Creator: Walt Whitman
Date: Between 1850 and 1855
Whitman Archive ID: duk.00026
Source: Trent Collection of Whitmaniana, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University. Transcribed from digital images of the original. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of manuscripts, see our statement of editorial policy.
Editorial note: This manuscript was probably written in the early 1850s, as Whitman was composing the first (1855) edition of Leaves of Grass. The ideas and phrasing of the manuscript are similar to those used in the first poem of that edition, eventually titled "Song of Myself." The manuscript has been mounted and framed with a portrait, so an image of the back of the leaf is not currently available.
Contributors to digital file: Brett Barney, Nicole Gray, Kenneth M. Price, Andrew Jewell, and Kristen Taylor
I am not content now with a mere
majority . . . . I must have the
love of all men and all women,
If there be one left in any country who has
no faith in me, I will travel
to that country, and go to that
one, and stand upright before
him,—