The Walt Whitman Archive
In Whitman's Hand
Manuscripts
About this Item
Title: The sores on my shoulders
Creator: Walt Whitman
Date: Between 1850 and 1855
Whitman Archive ID: uva.00260
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 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. The manuscript is a draft of a section of the fourth poem in that edition, eventually titled "The Sleepers."
Related item: Lines on the back of this leaf relate to the manuscript poem "Pictures." See uva.00565.
Notes written on manuscript: On leaf 1 recto, in unknown hand: "11"
Contributors to digital file: Caitlin Henry, Nicole Gray, Leslie Ianno, and Stephanie Blalock
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He [illegible]
The sores on my neck shoulders are from his
iron necklace
I look on the off on the river with
my bloodshot eyes
He stops the steamboat and till she
will paddle off with away take
my woman, and paddle away with her
He treats politicians with what
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