In Whitman's Hand

Manuscripts

About this Item

Title: Loveblows

Creator: Walt Whitman

Date: Between 1850 and 1855

Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00122

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: Several words from this manuscript ("loveroot," "silkthread," "crotch," and "vine") were used in the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass, in the poem that would later be titled "Song of Myself." Other lines and words became part of the opening lines of "Broad-Axe Poem" and "Bunch Poem" in the 1856 edition (later titled "Song of the Broad-Axe" and "Spontaneous Me"). The date of the manuscript is therefore probably before or early in 1855. This manuscript is pasted down, so an image of the back of the leaf is currently unavailable.

Contributors to digital file: Farrah Lehman, Kirsten Clawson, Janel Cayer, Kevin McMullen, Nicole Gray, and Kenneth M. Price



[begin leaf 1 recto] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Page image: https://whitmanarchive.org/manuscripts/figures/nyp.00122.001.jpg]

Loveblows
Loveblowsssows
Loveapples
Loveleaves)
Loveclaimbers
Loveverdure
A Lovevines
Lovebranches Loveroot.
Loveroot Seedling Climber-blossom—-mine.—
Bloss Branched LeVerdure, blossom branch, fruit and vine

The irregular tapping of rain off the my house eaves at night when after the storm has lulled.

Broadaxe

The iron leaf all gray-blue spirit so hardened

The hHandle that [came?] produced grown from a little seed sown

Head from the mother's bowels come drawn

Body as shapely and naked and wan

Fibre produced from a little seed sown

Loveroot,

juicy reacher climber-blossomer-mine

Verdure, crotch, branch, crotch fruit bulb and vine

Silk           

Juicy climber mine

Bulb, silkthread, crotch and f




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