About this Item

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.