Title: Describing the death of nine
Creator: Walt Whitman
Date: Between 1850 and 1855
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00113
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 manuscripts, see our statement of editorial policy.
Editorial note: The handwriting and ink of this manuscript are very similar to the handwriting and ink on the back, which features draft lines of the poem that would eventually be titled "Song of Myself." The date of both is therefore likely before or early in 1855.
Related item: On the back of this leaf are poetic lines that were used in revised form in the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass, in the poem that was eventually titled "Song of Myself." See nyp.00511.
Contributors to digital file: Nicole Gray, Kirsten Clawson, Janel Cayer, Kevin McMullen, and Kenneth M. Price
Describing the death of nine seven brothers and their parents——who can say that those who were ^least least most lucky who died the earliest, or under the most appaling circumstances? Or that those were luckiest who made the most wealth, and lived the longest stretch of mortality?
[cut away] [and?] the known