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I ask nobody's faith

About This Item

  • Title: I ask nobody's faith
  • Date: Between 1850 and 1855
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00102
  • Source: The Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, New York Public Library. Transcribed from digital images of the original. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the manuscripts, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Editorial note: Whitman probably drafted this manuscript in the early 1850s as he was composing the first (1855) edition of Leaves of Grass. The paper and ink are similar to that used for other early poetry manuscripts. In his transcription of this manuscript, Richard Maurice Bucke combines it with "Do I not prove myself," but the manuscripts do not appear to be continuous (Notes and Fragments [London, Ontario: A. Talbot & Co., printers, 1899], 25).
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "I ask nobody's faith." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 08 May 2025. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: nyp.00102.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] ? I ask nobody's faith . . . . . I am very little concerned about that When Do yYou doubt ^not the east and the west, When Do yYou doubt ^not your desires and or your finger‑nails, When Do yYou doubt not iron metal water or acid or steam,
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