About this Item

Title: A City Walk

Creator: Walt Whitman

Date: About 1855

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00292

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: This may have been an early conception of the poem that was eventually titled "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," first published as "Sun-Down Poem" in the 1856 edition of Leaves of Grass. The heading of this manuscript reads "A City Walk," which may be suggestive of the tentative title "City of Walks and Joys," the name Whitman originally assigned to "Calamus" 18 in his "Blue Book" revisions of the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass. This title was changed in the "Blue Book" to "City of orgies, walks and joys" and finally became "City of Orgies" in the 1867 edition. This manuscript was likely written around 1855.