The Walt Whitman Archive
In Whitman's Hand
Manuscripts
About this Item
Title: Health does not tell any
Creator: Walt Whitman
Date: Before or early in 1856
Whitman Archive ID: duk.00789
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 prose manuscript includes the line "Which is the poem or any book that is not diseased?" which appeared in a slightly altered form in "Poem of Many in One" in 1856. The manuscript therefore probably was written before or early in 1856.
Contributors to digital file: Nicole Gray, Kirsten Clawson, Kevin McMullen, Kenneth M. Price, and Brett Barney
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[Of?] [illegible] Health does not tell any more in the body, than it tells does in literature.—Which is the poem, or any book, that is not diseased?—(If perfect health appear in a poem, or any book, it surely propogates itself while many nations rise a great while.) Show perfect health and native qualities, and that which possesses them and you are welcome to all the rest.—
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