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The Johns Hopkins University holds one Whitman poetry manuscript (a handwritten version of O Captain!

My Captain!)

is as untenable as our own famous saying—"A little more grape, Captain Bragg!"

nature shrinking from thy rough embrace, Than summer, with her rustling robe of green, Cool blowing in my

delight; Even the saint that stands Tending the gate of heaven, involved in beams Of rarest glory, to my

No mesh of flowers is bound about my brow; From life's fair summer I am hastening now.

And as I sink my knee, Dimpling the beauty of thy bed of snow, Dowerless, I can but say, O, cast me not

Layard, " was the extent of my discoveries at Koyunjik.

No matter what length of time I spent in proving my case, I generally found my eloquence was expended

I had but time to throw up my right arm, when the avalanche descended.

I await my turn. In due time it comes.

My warriors fell around me. It began to look dismal. I saw my evil day at hand.

Given under my hand and seal at Fort James, in New Yorke, on the Island of Manhattat, this 18th day of

clearing, ffencing and manuring their land, as well as building ffor their conveniency have requested my

Given under my hand and seal at ffort James, in New York, the ffirst day of May. in the 22nd year of

House, and the question that is now put is, whether this 53 bill should pass, I must beg leave to give my

Witness My Hand, LEFFERT LEFFERTS."

I hope to be able to announce in my next the commencement of our agricultural operations.

aim'd at me—like flash of flame Right to my very soul it came.

An infant at that dreary hour, Comes weeping to my silent bower, And wakes me with a piteous prayer,

I, starting, cry, That mak'st my blissful dreams to fly?"

I know him by his bow and dart; (I know him by my fluttering heart:) I take him in—I quickly raise The

(My bosom trembled as he smiled,) I pray thee let me try my bow, For through the rain I've wandered

—have been out in my wheel chair for a 40 minute open air jaunt (propell'd by WF. my sailor boy nurse

) —& now 4pm Nov. 14 '89 waiting for my supper to be bro't— Transcribed from digital images of the original

the case, I examined the accounts given on this subject, by the four Evangelists, and according to my

scripture evidence for his being the son of Joseph than otherwise ; although it has not yet changed my

mighty bulwark, not easily removed, yet it has had this salutary effect, to deliver me from judging my

they were in the same belief with myself; neither would I dare to say, positively, that it would be my

how often has my poor soul been brought to this point, when temptations have arisen, 'Get thee behind

I have foreknown Clearly all things that should be; nothing done Comes sudden to my soul; and I must

Southey thus records his own birth:— "My birthday was Friday, 12th August, 1774; the time, half-past

According to my astrological friend Gilbert, it was a few minutes before the half hour, 161 pleasure.

There is an image in Kehama, drawn from my recollection of the devilish malignity which used sometimes

Meantime Madoc sleeps, and my lucre of-gain-compilation (specimens of English Poets) goes on at night

, when I am fairly obliged to lay history aside, because it perplexes me in my dreams.

"She was a phantom of delight When first she gleamed upon my sight; A lovely apparition, sent To be a

position for the present, I will ask leave to begin these Notes with such hints of the character of my

father and mother and of my own childhood as may at least help "The Fair Pilot of Loch Uribol" one of

my favorite stories WW WALT WHITMAN CAMDEN, NEW JERSEY. 32 Transcribed from our digital image of the

Think, oh my soul, devoutly think, How, with affrighted eyes, Thou saw'st the wide-extended deep In all

Yet then from all my griefs, on lord!

Thy mercy set me free; Whilst in the confidence of prayer My soul took hold on thee.

My life, if thou preserv'st my life, Thy sacrifice shall be, And death, if death must be my doom Shall

join my soul to thee.

.— (He could say) I know well enough the perpetual myself in my poems—but it is because the universe

—What seek you do you want among my haughty and jealous democracies of the north?

woman, or my flesh and blood.

—There are my officers and my courts.—At the Capitol is my Legislature.

—It is foreign to my usages, as to my eyes and ears.—Go back to the power that sent you.

free cities, or my teeming country towns, or along my rivers, or sea shore.— 19 But why do I babble

O Captain! my Captain! O Captain! my Captain!

my Captain!

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse

My Captain!," which was published first in 1865.

O Captain! my Captain!

This manuscript is a signed, dated, handwritten copy of "O Captain! My Captain!

of the verso of this manuscript is currently unavailable.; A signed, dated, handwritten copy of "O Captain

My Captain!," which was published first in 1865.; Transcribed from digital images of the original.

thousands, each one with his entry to himself; They are always watching with their little eyes, from my

head to my feet.

lift put the girder of the earth a globe the house away if it lay between me and whatever I wanted.— My

These words are for the five or six grand poets, too; and the masters of artists: — I waste no ink, nor my

receive you, and attach and clasp hands with you, / The facts are useful and real . . . . they are not my

Bibles i are divine revelations of God But I know say that any each leaf of grass and every hair of my

compiled composed is not august enough to dent endow answer tally a leaf of grass the partition of in my

. / I intend to reach them my hand and make as much of them as I do of men and women" (1855, p. 64).;

am that foolish half grown angry boy, fallen asleep, The tears of foolish passion yet undried upon my

204 My tongue must can never be content with pap harness from this after this, It c will not talk m in

My tongue can never be

harness," "traces," "the bit"—may relate to the extended metaphor developed in following lines: "Deluding my

bribed to swap off with touch, and go and graze at the edges of me, / No consideration, no regard for my

draining strength or my anger, / Fetching the rest of the herd around to enjoy them awhile, / Then all

Such boundless and affluent souls. . . . . . . bend your head in reverence, my man!

Henceforth After this day, A touch shall henceforth be small Little things is shall be are henceforth my

my tongue proof and argument It They shall tell s for me that people In them, the smallest least of

over all, and what we thought death is but life brought to a finer parturition.— An inch's contact My

The clearest relation is to the line: "A minute and a drop of me settle my brain" (1855, p. 33), but

to speed take me truly really on to deep waters Now, now to thy divinest venture (I will not call it my

Good bye My Fancy | Sail out for Good Etc | Page 7—Good Bye My Fancy This manuscript is a draft of "Sail

"; Good bye My Fancy | Sail out for Good Etc | Page 7—Good Bye My Fancy; Transcribed from digital images

In the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass , Whitman included the lines: "Who learns my lesson complete?

My Lesson Have you learned my lesson complete: It is well—it is but the gate to a larger lesson—and And

mother generations guided me, / My embryo has never been torpid . . . . nothing could overlay it; /

All forces have been steadily employed to complete and delight me, / Now I stand on this spot with my

White noted a relationship between these pages and the poems "Who Learns My Lesson Complete?

White noted a relationship between these pages and the poems "Who Learns My Lesson Complete?

. * shall uncage in my breast a thousand armed great winged broad‑ wide‑winged strengths and unknown

I want that untied tenor, clean and fresh as the Creation, whose vast pure volume floods my soul.

paces and powers, uncage in my heart a thousand new strengths, and unknown ardors and terrible —making

furious than hail hail and lightning. that leap lulling me drowsily with honeyed uncaging waking in my

likely relates to the following lines, from the poem that would be titled "Song of Myself": "I open my

to the President at his levee, / And he says Good day my brother, to Cudge that hoes in the sugarfield

of the poem (not including this line) were revised and published in The American in October 1880 as "My

as two—as my soul and I; and I gu reckon it is the same with all oth men and women.— I know that my

trousers around my boots, and my cuffs back from my wrists and go among the rough drivers and boatmen

I tell you just as beautiful to die; For I take my death with the dying And my birth with the new-born

lips, to the palms of my hands, and whatever my hands hold.

hands, and my head my head mocked with a prickly I am here after I remember crucifixion and bloody coronation

See particularly the following lines (from the 1891–2 edition): "O the old manhood of me, my noblest

/ My children and grand-children, my white hair and beard, / My largeness, calmness, majesty, out of

the long stretch of my life" (145).

His blood My gore presently oozes from trickles down from a score of thinned with the plentiful sweat

salt ooze of my skin , And See how it as trickles down the black skin I slowly fall s on the reddened

Grier notes that a portion of this notebook (beginning "How spied the captain and sailors") describes

O my body, that gives me identity! O my organs !

Underfoot, the divine soil— Overhead, the sun.— Afford foothold to my poems, you Nourish my poems, Earth

In Poem The earth, that is my model of poems model ?

The body of a man, is my model—I do not reject what I find in my body—I am not ashamed—Why should I be

My Darling (Now I am maternal— a child bearer— bea have from my womb borne a child, and observe it For

though I lie so sleepy and sluggish, my tap is death" (1855, p. 74).

man who claims or takes the power to own another man as his property, stabs me in that the heart of my

own The one scratches me a little on the cheek forehead , the other draws his murderous razor through my

t T hat black and huge lethargic mass, my sportsmen, dull and sleepy as it seems, has holds the lightning

eventually titled "Song of Myself": "Buying drafts of Osiris and Isis and Belus and Brahma and Adonai, / In my

/ Why are there men and women that while they are nigh me the sun-light expands my blood?

/ Why when they leave me do my pennants of joy sink flat and lank?

blood—that if I walk with an arm of theirs around my neck, my soul leaps and laughs like a new-waked

—(Am I loved by them boundlessly because my love for them is more boundless?

truth, my sympathy, and my dignity.

": "My tread scares the wood-drake and wood-duck on my distant and day-long ramble, / They rise together

these lines may relate to the following line in the poem ultimately titled "Song of Myself": "I take my

To the Poor— I have my place among you Is it nothing that I have preferred to be poor, rather than to

remembrance the love of man, I will employ myself on the means of effecting good for him, and build my

Then, turning to the Genius, I exclaimed: O Genius, despair hath settled on my soul.

justified in the profound contempt which they have entertained for the mass of historical works. ' Give me my

I initiated you into Milton nearly thirty years ago, my dear Seward; and I rejoice to find that you still

Often—often—often, my dear sir. VOL.

originality is the difference between the Bible and Paradise Lost. 766 Seldom—seldom—seldom if ever, my

nations in Asia or Africa not Christian, would see any great point in his poem, if read to th It is, my

Edition This little Treatise is extracted from a more extensive work, undertaken without consulting my

—In this research it will be my constant endeavor to ally that which the right perm its , with that which

—When a robber surprises me in a forest, I must surrender my purse to force,—but when I can regain it

—My first question returns. Chapter 4th.

Then said the beautiful Queen Kriemhilde, "My husband i the most noble, and by right this kingdom, and

the queen to Hagen, and, looking upon him with hatred, "Restore," said she, "before it is too late, my

said Kriemhilde, "one useful thing, at any rate, you have restored to me, The sword, the weapon of my

I began to feel very much numbed with the cold, and my eyes suffered a good deal from the glare of the

I was now only able to take three steps at a time without stopping, as my legs began to give way, and

I attribute my being able to reach the top to my wind; I never felt want of breath at any time, while

M., with my hands cut to bits, my nails worn to the quick with holding on, I reached the hut and there

One of my eyes is completely 'bunged up,' the other just enables me to see to write this.

letter to Viscount St Albans calling Bacon saying "the most prodigious wit that ever I knew of any my

latter years, when asked how he could have done so much, he replied, "Have I not spent fifty years at my

fond thoughts my soul beguiled;— It was herself!

I've set my heart upon nothing, you see; Hurrah! And so the world goes well with me.

I set my heart at first upon wealth; And bartered away my peace and health; But, ah!

I set my heart upon sounding fame; And, lo! I'm eclipsed by some upstart's And, ah!

And then I set my heart upon war. We gained some battles with eclat.

My life, 358 96 Birth of Alexander the Great. Small show, 356 PERIOD VIII.

See in particular the opening line: "I WANDER all night in my vision," (1855, p. 70).; There is also

I fling out my fancies toward them;" (1855, p. 38).; 2; 3

My own opinion guess is that myriads of superior works have been lost—superior to existing works in every

waste of ignorance, and the calamities of war, our treasures rather than our losses are the object of my

luxurious and delightful moments of life; which have often enticed me to pass fourteen hours a day at my

desk, in a state of transport; this gratification, more than glory, is my reward.'

What was learned man's compliment, may serve for my confession and conclusion.

to one of his mystical treatises (De Cœlo et Inferno) he says:— "I was dining very late one day at my

London (this was in seventeen hundred and forty-three)—and was eating heartily.— When I was finishing my

That night the eyes of my inner man were opened, and enabled to look into heaven, the world of spirits

, and hell; and there I saw many persons of my acquaintance, some dead long before, and others recently

Instantly there was presented before my eyes a woman exactly resembling the women in that earth.— She

—THE SUN. 1 O THOU that rollest above, round as the shield of my fathers!

And still more strikingly Othello says: "Every puny whipster gets my sword: for why should honor outlive

onward 10 years Goethe —(reading Carlyle's criticisms on Goethe.) over leaf Here is now, (January 1856) my

"So my friends tell me, but I never met him." "Don't you think, Mr.

James Gray, Bookbinder 16 Spruce st. 4th floor, is the custodian of the sheets of my Leaves of Grass,

and think, 'Well, this great thing has been, and all that is now left of it is the feeble print upon my

brain, the little th rill which memory will send along my nerves, mine and my neighbours'; as we live

reading them, can be attached to their opinion at page 8 of the report R OBERT S PENCER OBINSON In my

radiation, &c. as to its fitness, appropriateness, advantage (or disadvantage) with reference to me , to my

This have I thought good to deliver thee, my dearest partner of greatness, that thou mightest not lose