The Walt Whitman Archive
In Whitman's Hand
Manuscripts
About this Item
Title: are you and me
Creator: Walt Whitman
Date: 1855 or 1856
Whitman Archive ID: upa.00221
Source: Walt Whitman Collection, 1842–1957, Rare Book & Manuscript Library, University of Pennsylvania. 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: Most of the lines in this manuscript amount to a poetic rendering of sentences and phrases drawn from the prose preface to the 1855 Leaves of Grass and constitute a partial draft of the 1856 poem "Poem of Many In One," which eventually became "By Blue Ontario's Shore." The line at the bottom of this manuscript, partially cut away, was also drawn from the 1855 preface but was used in the 1856 poem "Liberty Poem for Asia, Africa, Europe, America, Australia, Cuba, and the Archipelagoes of The Sea," which Whitman titled, in its final version, "To a Foil'd European Revolutionaire."
Related item: Draft lines on the back of this manuscript also relate to the preface to the 1855 Leaves of Grass. See upa.00005.
Contributors to digital file: Brett Barney, Caitlin Henry, Nicole Gray, John Owen Havard, Chris Forster, and Kristen Taylor
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[cut away][, the ^[cut away] compact, peace,?] [cut away]
are you and me,
The perpetual arrivals of immigrants are you and me,
The Its young men's manner's, speech, dress, friendships
are you and me,
^ The Its Crimes, enormities lies, defections, slavery, are you and me,
The Its Congress is you and me—the officers, capitols, armies,
ships, are you and me,
The Its inventions, science, shchools, are you and me,
The Its deserts, forests, clearings, settlements, log houses, hunters, are you and me,
Its ships, fisheries, whaling, gold‑digging are you and me,
The Its paved cities, wharves, wealth, avenues, dwellings,
are you and me.
The perpetual arrivals of immigrants are you and me.
The north, south, east, west, are you and me,
Natural and artificial are you and me,
Liberty, language, poems, employments, are you and me,
Failures, successes, births, deaths, are you and me,
Past, presteent, future, are ^only you and me.—
I swear I will am cannot ^ to evade any part of myself,
Not America, nor any attribute of America,
Not my body—not friendship, hospitality, procreation,
Not my soul—not the last explanation of prudence,
Not faith, sin, defiance, nor any of the dispositions or duties of myself,
Not liberty—not to cheer up slaves and horrify
despots,
[cut away] the show of the tushes of power and [illegible]
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