Title: I must not deceive you
Creator: Walt Whitman
Date: Between 1850 and 1860
Whitman Archive ID: uva.00560
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 manuscript was probably written between 1850 and 1860. The lines were used in the poem "To One Shortly to Die," first published in the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass.
Related item: Draft lines on the back of this leaf appeared with revisions in the first poem of the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass, eventually titled "Song of Myself." See uva.00280.
Notes written on manuscript: On leaf 1 recto, in unknown hand: "27"
Contributors to digital file: Nicole Gray, Liz Lorang, and Robert LaCosse
I do ^must not deceive you—you are to die,
I am melancholy and stern, but I love you—
there is no escape for you.—
I do not know your destination, but I know
it is real and perfect.