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Topple down upon him

About This Item

  • Title: Topple down upon him
  • Date: Between 1850 and 1855
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: uva.00258
  • Source: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia. 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 preparing materials for the first (1855) edition of Leaves of Grass. It is a draft of lines that appear in the fourth poem of that edition, eventually titled "The Sleepers."
  • Related Item(s):
    • Lines on the back of this manuscript leaf relate to the poem eventually titled "Faces." See uva.00566.
    • See wwa.00070.
  • Notes written on manuscript: On leaf 1 recto, in unknown hand: "10"
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "Topple down upon him." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 19 April 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: uva.00258.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] Crash Topple down upon him, Curse! Cursing Light! for I am ^you seem to me all one lurid Curse oath curse; I look down off the river with my bloodshot eyes, after 
  10 I see the steamboat that carries off away my woman.— Damn him! how he does defile me ^This day, or some other, I will have him and the like of him to curse the do my will upon. They shall not hide themselves ^lie at peace even in their graves tombs with pennies on their eyes I will would will break the lids off their coffins but what 
  I will have then I will tear their flesh out from under the 
  grave‑clothes I will not listen—I will not spare—I will 
  am justified of myself:: The I will pursue fFor a million hundred years ^I will pursue those who 
  have injured me so much. Though they cover hide themselves with under the lappets 
  of God I will drag them there pursue them there. I will stop the drag them out—the sweet marches of heaven ^shall be stopped with  
  my maledictions.—   [begin leaf 1 verso]
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