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O joy of my spirit

About This Item

  • Title: O joy of my spirit
  • Date: Between 1850 and 1867
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: med.00904
  • 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 the manuscript has not been located it is difficult to speculate on the circumstances of its composition. The phrase "path worn in the grass" appears in the 1855 poem eventually titled "Song of Myself." Language in the manuscript is also similar to language that appears in the poem "Poem of Joys" (1860), eventually titled "Song of Joys"; "A Farm Picture" (1867); and the manuscript poem "Pictures." Although Bucke has grouped the lines together in his transcription, there is also a possibility that they represent three separate manuscripts.
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "O joy of my spirit." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 08 May 2025. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: med.00904.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
O joy of my spirit uncaged—it hops like a bird on the grass mounds of earth. A path worn in the grass . . . . . . . . . . Pasture field, where the cattle and horses feed.
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