About this Item

Title: I am that half grown

Creator: Walt Whitman

Date: Before 1855

Whitman Archive ID: duk.00027

Source: Trent Collection of Whitmaniana, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University. Transcribed from digital images of the original item. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of manuscripts, see our statement of editorial policy.

Editorial note: This manuscript was probably composed before 1855. The poem is not known to have been published in Whitman's lifetime. A transcription of the manuscript was first published in Notes and Fragments (1899), edited by Richard Maurice Bucke. The lines are a direct echo of another Whitman manuscript, a draft piece of short fiction: "Of a summer evening."

Related item: On the back of this manuscript is a prose draft about municipal legislation. See duk.00885.