The Walt Whitman Archive
In Whitman's Hand
Manuscripts
About this Item
Title: were paid for with steamships
Creator: Walt Whitman
Date: Between 1850 and 1855
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00483
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 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: Additional poetic lines are drafted on the back of this manuscript leaf. See yal.00452.
Notes written on manuscript: On leaf 1 recto, in unknown hand: "81."
Contributors to digital file: Brandon James O'Neil, Nicole Gray, and Brett Barney
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were paid for with a steamships or a [illegible], or
would come cheap.—
I am not stuck up for these reasons;
There is plenty of air left while I breathe and afterward.
Because I am in my place what of that?
The perfect male and female are everywhere in their place.
The fly and the leaf of grass are in their place;
The seen and unseen suns are in their place;
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![[Page image: https://whitmanarchive.org/manuscripts/figures/yal.00344.005_large.jpg]](https://whitmanarchive.org/manuscripts/figures/yal.00344.005_large.jpg)