The Walt Whitman Archive
In Whitman's Hand
Manuscripts
About this Item
Title: Whatever I say of myself
Creator: Walt Whitman
Date: Between 1850 and 1855
Whitman Archive ID: uva.00568
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 composing the first (1855) edition of Leaves of Grass. Lines from the manuscript appear in the first poem in that edition, eventually titled "Song of Myself."
Related item: Poetic lines on the back of this manuscript leaf also relate to poems in the 1855 Leaves of Grass. See uva.00251.
Contributors to digital file: Nicole Gray, Chris Forster, and Joshua Ranger
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[cut away]
Whatever I say of myself, you shall apply to yourself
If you do not, it is were [illegible] time lost listening to me.
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I think there will never be any more heaven or hell
than there is now,
TNor any more youth nor age than there is now [cut away]
Nor any more inception than there is now,
Nor any more perfection than there is now.
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![[Page image: https://whitmanarchive.org/manuscripts/figures/uva.00251.001.jpg]](https://whitmanarchive.org/manuscripts/figures/uva.00251.001.jpg)