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My friend Years have gone past since I have seen that face of my friend dear Walt. Whitman.

March 30th 1870 Dear respected friend Feeling assured that any information of my doings and whereabouts

will meet with only the kindest reception from you, I venture once more, after my long silence, to address

If any excuse be neccessary necessary , let my respect and esteem be that excuse.

himself"; but I note telling you facts) and have just entered upon the study of Law; In conseq uence of my

Though we enjoyed our homeless life in Washington I think I have enjoyed my more wandering life since

My employer is at home but a very small portion of his time.

My life since we parted that July day upon the Treasury steps, has been one of hard work and little recreation

I have written so much of myself simply because you asked me of myself— My Dear Friend I hope and believe

Oct 8th 1868 My Dear Friend Walt Whitman Your kind note and paper came duly at hand. Col.

often do in our reading circle there) and to feel that I may claim the honor of his friendship This is my

My studies are History, Grammer Grammar , Theory of Teaching, Algebra, and Latin This school is an institution

with us I love all seasons of the year, but particularly do I fall in love with golden leaved autumn My

and I thought it my Duty to answer it soo soon as possible.

the Compliment hopping hoping that this Letter will find you in the Best of spirits and helth health my

Jany January 22 188 1 Walt Whitman Esq My Dear Sir: I take great pleasure acknowledging the receipt of

My journey home was very pleasant to me & what made it the more so (I suppose) was the anticipation of

once more being with my friends.

I arrived here on the 19th the joy of friends on my arrival I will not attempt to say anything about,

My mind is taken back to when I lay suffering in the Hospital & I have a particular feeling of gratitude

the helpless (when away from home) than to find a friend, one in whom we can confide & trust, as was my

Whitman referred to Rossetti's edition as a "horrible dismemberment of my book" in his August 12, 1871

hitherto published—from the pleasures, profits, conformities, Which too long I was offering to feed to my

Soul Clear to me now, standards not yet published— clear to me that my Soul, That the Soul of the man

substantial life, Bequeathing, hence, types of athletic love, 29* Afternoon, this delicious Ninth Month, in my

forty- first year, I proceed, for all who are, or have been, young men, To tell the secret of my nights

when you refer to me, mind not so much my poems, Nor speak of me that I prophesied of The States, and

I will take you down underneath this impassive exterior—I will tell you what to say of me: Publish my

name and hang up my picture as that of the tenderest lover, The friend, the lover's portrait, of whom

WHEN I heard at the close of the day how my name had been received with plaudits in the capitol, still

it was not a happy night for me that fol- lowed followed ; And else, when I caroused, or when my plans

ing undressing , bathed, laughing with the cool waters, and saw the sun rise, And when I thought how my

all that day my food nourished me more—And the beautiful day passed well, And the next came with equal

joy—And with the next, at evening, came my friend; And that night, while all was still, I heard the

down-balls, nor perfumes, nor the high rain-emitting clouds, are borne through the open air, Any more than my

, from me falling—drip, bleeding drops, From wounds made to free you whence you were prisoned, From my

face—from my forehead and lips, From my breast—from within where I was con- cealed concealed —Press

May-be one is now reading this who knows some wrong-doing of my past life, Or may-be a stranger is reading

this who has secretly loved me, Or may-be one who meets all my grand assumptions and egotisms with derision

in the room where I eat or sleep, I should be satisfied, And if the corpse of any one I love, or if my

CITY of my walks and joys!

nor the bright win- dows windows , with goods in them, Nor to converse with learned persons, or bear my

your fre- quent frequent and swift flash of eyes offering me love, Offering me the response of my own—these

The récherché or ethereal sense, as used in my book, arises probably from it, Calamus presenting the

attachment," concluding "I proceed for all who are or have been young men, / To tell the secret of my

The next poem, "Scented Herbage of My Breast," initially introduces an extraordinarily copious imagery

expose me more than all my other poems."

O pulse of my life! / Need I that you exist and show yourself any more than in these songs."

Behold this swarthy and unrefined face—these gray eyes, This beard—the white wool, unclipt upon my neck

, My brown hands, and the silent manner of me, with- out without charm; Yet comes one, a Manhattanese

SCENTED herbage of my breast, Leaves from you I yield, I write, to be perused best afterwards, Tomb-leaves

O blossoms of my blood!

O I think it is not for life I am chanting here my chant of lovers—I think it must be for Death, For

Grow up out of my breast! Spring away from the concealed heart there!

Do not remain down there so ashamed, herbage of my breast!

leaves upon it, and twined around it a little moss, And brought it away—and I have placed it in sight in my

room, It is not needed to remind me as of my own dear friends, (For I believe lately I think of little

or a girl with me, I ate with you, and slept with you—your body has become not yours only, nor left my

body mine only, You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass—you take of my beard,

it seems to me if I could know those men better, I should become attached to them, as I do to men in my

own lands, It seems to me they are as wise, beautiful, benevolent, as any in my own lands; O I know

Who is he that would become my follower?

Who would sign himself a candidate for my affec- tions affections ? Are you he?

doned abandoned ; Therefore release me now, before troubling yourself any further—Let go your hand from my

it, Nor do those know me best who admire me, and vauntingly praise me, Nor will the candidates for my

love, (unless at most a very few,) prove victorious, Nor will my poems do good only—they will do just

WHAT think you I take my pen in hand to record?

my likeness!

PRIMEVAL my love for the woman I love, O bride ! O wife !

Then separate, as disembodied, the purest born, The ethereal, the last athletic reality, my consolation

, I ascend—I float in the regions of your love, O man, O sharer of my roving life.

is certain, one way or another, Doubtless I could not have perceived the universe, or written one of my

and then in the silence, Alone I had thought—yet soon a silent troop gathers around me, Some walk by my

side, and some behind, and some embrace my arms or neck, They, the spirits of friends, dead or alive—thicker

lilac, with a branch of pine, Here, out of my pocket, some moss which I pulled off a live-oak in Florida

THAT shadow, my likeness, that goes to and fro, seek- ing seeking a livelihood, chattering, chaffering

it where it flits, How often I question and doubt whether that is really me; But in these, and among my

lovers, and carolling my songs, O I never doubt whether that is really me.

I meant that you should discover me so, by my faint indirections, And I, when I meet you, mean to discover

HERE my last words, and the most baffling, Here the frailest leaves of me, and yet my strongest- lasting

, Here I shade down and hide my thoughts—I do not expose them, And yet they expose me more than all my

you read these, I, that was visible, am become invisible; Now it is you, compact, visible, realizing my

There shall from me be a new friendship—It shall be called after my name, It shall circulate through

other shall be invincible, They shall finally make America completely victo- rious victorious , in my

NOT heaving from my ribbed breast only, Not in sighs at night, in rage, dissatisfied with myself, Not

in those long-drawn, ill-suppressed sighs, Not in many an oath and promise broken, Not in my wilful

savage soul's volition, Not in the subtle nourishment of the air, Not in this beating and pounding at my

sleep, Nor the other murmurs of these incredible dreams of every day, Nor in the limbs and senses of my

O pulse of my life! Need I that you exist and show yourself, any more than in these songs.

aught of them;) May-be they only seem to me what they are, (as doubtless they indeed but seem,) as from my

from entirely changed points of view; To me, these, and the like of these, are curiously answered by my

lovers, my dear friends; When he whom I love travels with me, or sits a long while holding me by the

appearances, or that of identity beyond the grave, But I walk or sit indifferent—I am satisfied, He ahold of my

Then my lands engrossed me—Lands of the prairies, Ohio's land, the southern savannas, engrossed me—For

to enclose all, it came to me to strike up the songs of the New World—And then I be- lieved believed my

knowledge, and the grandeur of The States, and the example of heroes, no more, I am indifferent to my

heavy-hearted, Hours of the dusk, when I withdraw to a lonesome and unfrequented spot, seating myself, leaning my

face in my hands; Hours sleepless, deep in the night, when I go forth, speeding swiftly the country

(I am ashamed—but it is useless—I am what I am;) Hours of my torment—I wonder if other men ever have

I do not know but you think me rather neglectful in my writing to you but if you knew the pain that I

have in my head, the whole of the time you would not think hard of me.

Walt—I am sorry that I am as feeble, and that my friends and likewise my Doctor think that I never shall

lying in my pathway and I can not seem to remove them nor hide them from my mind, I have tried to look

I feel she has saved me, in the worst of my sickness she hardly left my room how often have I thought

Dear Walt I am going to try and write you a few lines this morning, but you must overlook my poor composition

also my writing, for I am very weak and my mind is not as it was before I was sun stroke .

My Sister and also my friends are very anxious to see and to read your Leaves of Grass and I hope they

able to be proped up in bed and able to write to my true friend and comrade.

My Sister Mary says when I go back to war she shall write to you.

Philadelphia, May 12 189 1 Dear Walt Whitman, I hand you my check for the precious book into which you

to the President at the levee, And he says Good-day, my brother!

Not in this beating & pounding at my temples & wrists, O pulse of my life!

See the pastures and forests in my poems.

My children and grand-children—my white hair and beard, My largeness, calmness, majesty, out of the long

stretch of my life.— I will duly pass the day, O my mother!

included Two Rivulets, a collection of prose and poetry that Whitman hoped would "set the key-stone to my

gossiping in the candle light" that resonates with the beginning of the second paragraph of the article My

Was born May 31, 1819, in my father'sfarm-house, atWest Hills,L. I., sailor— on my New York State.

My parents' folks mostly farmers and father'sside, of English — on my mother's,.

hands,my limbsgrow nerveless, My brainfeelrack'd,bewilder'd.

It was for this and for no lesserreason that he was, able to hail Lincoln as "My Captain."

In the " presence of calamity he sobs, as a child, Oh my Captain my Father !"

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" (1855, p. 33).; 22; Transcribed from digital images of the original.;

May 7, '90 Walt Whitman My dear Friend How best can I introduce myself to you?

And then I read the Leaves of Grass and met my dearest friend!

I will write again if my disjointed rhapsodies are bearable and I hope to come down and see you very

A carol closing sixty-nine—a résumé—a repetition, My lines in joy and hope continuing on the same, Of

ye, O God, Life, Nature, Freedom, Poetry; Of you, my Land—your rivers, prairies, States—you, mottled

entire—Of north, south, east and west, your items all; Of me myself—the jocund heart yet beating in my

, old, poor and paralyzed—the strange inertia falling pall-like round me, The burning fires down in my

CAROL OF OCCUPATIONS. 1 COME closer to me; Push close, my lovers, and take the best I possess!

Neither a servant nor a master am I; I take no sooner a large price than a small price—I will have my

become so for your sake; If you remember your foolish and outlaw'd deeds, do you think I cannot remember my

are; I am this day just as much in love with them as you; Then I am in love with you, and with all my

List close, my scholars dear!

shame or the need of shame. 2 Air, soil, water, fire—these are words; I myself am a word with them—my

qualities interpene- trate interpenetrate with theirs—my name is nothing to them; Though it were told

in the three thousand languages, what would air, soil, water, fire, know of my name?

When I undertake to tell the best, I find I cannot, My tongue is ineffectual on its pivots, My breath