Title: of these poems
Creator: Walt Whitman
Date: Between 1845 and 1860
Whitman Archive ID: loc.04600
Source: The Thomas Biggs Harned Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1842–1937, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 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Editorial note: Based on the handwriting, Edward Grier dates this manuscript to the 1850s or earlier (Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts [New York: New York University Press, 1984], 4:1429).
Related item: Whitman transcribed part of William Collins's "Ode on the Passions" on the back of this leaf.
Contributors to digital file: Janel Cayer, Jeannette Schollaert, Kevin McMullen, Nicole Gray, and Kenneth M. Price
[cut away] of these poems [cut away] drawn to [of?] the element of sympathy [we?] [cut away] should say it was sympathy.—if to pride [cut away] [shou?]ld say it was pride.—If to their love of the [cut away] we should say it was the love of the body.—If to their spiritualism we say it is their spiritualism.—Not one instant is the soul forgotten, nor immortality forgotten, nor eternity forgotten.—
Who is there that is not touched on the lips with a kiss?
He demands a reality of literature.—He will have nothing splendid or pretty or startling or new or talented, but honest truths.—If they are at the roots, he says, there is a live growth; but all else all is of no avail.—There must can be no romances or fancy works, no grotesque ornament, no put on politeness