About this Item

Title: I cannot guess what the

Creator: Walt Whitman

Date: Between 1850 and 1855

Whitman Archive ID: tex.00079

Source: The Walt Whitman Collection, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin. Transcribed from a digital image of the original manuscript. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of 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 lines do not have any known direct relation to Whitman's published poetry. At one point, however, the manuscript was almost certainly part of "The Great Laws do not," which includes draft lines that appeared in that edition.

Related items: On the back of this leaf is a partial draft of the poem eventually titled "Faces." Both manuscript drafts were probably originally continuous with manuscript drafts on another leaf, from which this leaf was cut. See tex.00321, duk.00264, and duk.00905.