The Walt Whitman Archive
In Whitman's Hand
Manuscripts
About this Item
Title: This mouth is pulled by
Creator: Walt Whitman
Date: Between 1850 and 1855
Whitman Archive ID: uva.00562
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 creating material for the first (1855) edition of Leaves of Grass. It is a draft of lines that appear in the sixth poem in that edition, eventually titled "Faces."
Related item: Poetic lines on the back of this leaf may relate to the poem eventually titled "Song of Myself." See uva.00273.
Contributors to digital file: Brett Barney, Nicole Gray, and Heather Morton
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This face mouth is the death‑bell pulled by the some sexton for his dismalest fee,
The death‑bell tolls there.—
This face [marches?] with [banners?] banners and champing cha horses
[Th?][cut away] [T?][cut away]
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