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Remembrances I plant American ground

About This Item

  • Title: Remembrances I plant American ground
  • Date: Between 1850 and 1855
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: duk.00029
  • 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 the manuscripts, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Editorial note: This manuscript was likely written between 1850 and 1855 when Whitman was composing his first (1855) edition of Leaves of Grass. The manuscript includes some language similar to wording in the first and final poems in that edition, eventually titled "Song of Myself" and "Great are the Myths."
  • Related Item(s):
    • Written on the back of this leaf is a list of rivers, lakes, and cities that may have contributed to "Poem of Salutation" in the 1856 edition of Leaves. See duk.00884.
    • See wwa.00046.
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "Remembrances I plant American ground." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 08 May 2025. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: duk.00029.xml (TEI)

Key

Textual Feature Appearance
Overwritten brown with strikethrough
Added inline purple with double underline
Uncertain gray with wavy underline
Supplied from another source turquoise with brackets
Metamark green with triple underline
Long deletion gray background with top and bottom border
  [begin leaf 1 recto] Remembrances I plant American ground with, 
  for ^you young men Lessons to think, I diffuse scatter in the air ^as they come. I behold perceive that myriads of men and women never think I behold perceive that ere visible effects can come, ideas thought must come. ^I perceive that Sages, poets, inventers, benefactors, lawgivers 
  are but only those who think have thought, ^That Maugre all differences of ages and lands they 
  differ not, That What they leave is the common stock of the race   [begin leaf 1 verso]
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