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What babble is this about

About This Item

  • Title: What babble is this about
  • Date: Between 1850 and 1855
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: med.00902
  • Source: The transcription presented here is derived from Walt Whitman, Notes and Fragments, ed. Richard Maurice Bucke (London, Ontario: A. Talbot & Co. (printer), 1899), 46. The location of this manuscript is unknown. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the manuscripts, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Editorial note: Because this manuscript has not been located it is difficult to speculate on the circumstances of its composition, but it is possible that it was written in the early 1850s as Whitman was preparing materials for the first (1855) edition of Leaves of Grass. The language in the manuscript is similar to language in the first poem in that edition, eventually titled "Song of Myself."
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "What babble is this about." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 08 May 2025. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: med.00902.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
What babble is this about virtue . . . . . . . . . . . . I tell you I love all—I love what you call vice just the same as I love virtue.
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