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America to Old-World Bards

About This Item

  • Title: America to Old-World Bards
  • Date: 1890 or 1891
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.00047
  • Source: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Transcribed from a digital image of the original manuscript. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the manuscripts, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Editorial note: This manuscript was probably composed in autumn, 1890, as is suggested by the postmarks on the envelopes on which it is written. The poem was revised and published under the title "Old Chants," first in the New York Truth, March 19, 1891. The order of the manuscript leaves has been derived from the published poem. The leaves that comprise this manuscript are five opened-up envelopes and one cancelled letter written to Whitman from J. Harry Schneller, Jr. The verso envelopes and letter are all dated September through October, 1890.
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "America to Old-World Bards." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 25 April 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: loc.00047.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]

America to Old-World Bards

A reminiscence from reading Walter Scott

  [begin leaf 1 verso]   [begin leaf 2 recto] The The Am qu imported ancient ballad reciting, ending Once, America, gazing I gazing toward thee, ^Mother of all, Musing, seeking as ever the themes of thee, Thank ^well for me, thou saidst, before thou goest  
  the old bards Speak Name out the word for me acknowledging each  
  ancient past gone singers.r. I too receive them with perfect hospitality. Well-pleased, accepting all, ^curiously prepared for,   [begin leaf 2 verso]   [begin leaf 3 recto] (Of many depbts incalculable Haply the ^New World's chiefest debts debt  
 is to past poets ? poems.)   [begin leaf 3 verso]   [begin leaf 4 recto] Unwittingly for thee ^Far back Preluding thee, ^America America, First Egyp chants, Egyptian priests and those of  
 Ethiopia The Hindu epics, the Grecian, the Chinese, and the  
 Persian, The Biblic books and prophets, the beauteous  
 deep idylls of the Nazarene, The Iliad, Odyssey, ^plots, doings, wanderings of Eneas, Hesiod Eschylus, Sophocles, Merlin, Arthur,   [begin leaf 4 verso]   [begin leaf 5 recto] These as a mighty great As some great shadowy group, ^gathering around Launching, long-darting, Darting m a their mighty  
  many crowding masterful eyes ^forward at thee Thee Thou, with ^as now thy ben thy thy bending head an  
 neck and head  
 with courteous hand & workd word  
  paus  
  pausing Thee Thou, as pausing for a moment, ^ bending thine drop'st thine eyes  
  observing on them, ^the past enteresting at  
 thy entrance-porch. Preluding thee America   [begin leaf 5 verso]
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