Title: Merely What I tell is
Creator: Walt Whitman
Date: Between 1850 and 1860
Whitman Archive ID: uva.00271
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: These manuscript lines were probably written in the 1850s. They bear a strong resemblance to ideas expressed in the opening lines of poem #14 of "Chants Democratic and Native American," which first appeared in the 1860 Leaves of Grass. The lines eventually became part of the independent poem "Poets to Come."
Related item: A series of draft lines are written on the back of this manuscript leaf. See uva.00272.
Notes written on manuscript: On leaf 1 recto, in unknown hand: "21"
Contributors to digital file: Nicole Gray, Leslie Ianno, and Ken Price
^Merely What I tell is not to justify me,
What I provoke from you, and from the
times ensuing times, is to justify me.—