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Had I the Choice

About This Item

  • Title: Had I the Choice
  • Date: About 1885
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: yal.00040
  • Source: Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Transcribed from digital images of the original. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the manuscripts, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Editorial note: "Had I the Choice" was first published in the "Fancies at Navesink" sequence in the August 1885 issue of Nineteenth Century. This manuscript was likely written in 1885, shortly before the poem's publication.
  • Notes written on manuscript: On leaf 1 verso, in unknown hand: "Inlay as it is"
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "Had I the Choice." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 25 April 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: yal.00040.xml (TEI)

Key

Textual Feature Appearance
Overwritten brown with strikethrough
Added inline purple with double underline
Uncertain gray with wavy underline
Supplied from another source turquoise with brackets
Metamark green with triple underline
Long deletion gray background with top and bottom border
  [begin leaf 1 recto] last revise To limn the stately and the 
  beautiful—to emulate at will 6

Had I the Choice

Had I the choice to tally greatest bards To limn the their portraits stately, and the beautiful—^—the power to  
 emulate at will [cut away] Homer with all his wars and loftiest 6  
 warriors—Hector, Achilles, Ajax, Or Shakspere's woe‐envelop'd entangled Hamlet,  
 Lear, Othello—Tennyson's fair  
 ladies; Metre, or wit the best, or choice con- 
 ceit ^to wield, or fin perfect rhyme, triumph delight  
 of singers Had I ^indeed the choice These, these, O sea, all these of living winds.  
  all, all theose I'd gladly barter Could Would you the undulation of your one wave, its trick to me transfer WCould Could you but breathe one one breath upon  
  my this verse, And leave its odor there.   [begin leaf 1 verso] Inlay as it is
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