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I have been tempted to make too much perhaps of my chosen association with our greatest in England this

completed task—3 dramas—that just a faint breath of that larger air that breathes from you has come my

may say that at this meeting I had the pleasure of hearing several warm admirers of yourself discuss my

Perhaps in its printed form my article may stimulate others to enquire.

But you must know that I am an artist, and am able, out of my craftman's knowledge, to separate Art as

letters in the Trent Collection at Duke University as one of the "true treasures [that] helped shape my

"My Boys and Girls," The Rover , April 20, 1844. Reprinted in The Early Poems and Sketches, ed.

ldent shut my hand my finger were so swoln but we got along." March 26–28?

present plan to do the ensuing winter at my leisure in Washington."

All errors I claim as my own.

I am a native Texan, but my father belonged to the Georgia branch of the Whitman family.

last yawp, which (the review) you were frank enough to print in your last issue, emboldens me to speak my

Last Winter I got on skates, my first appearance before an icy audience for fifteen years.

U. is the poet of my concern, her suggestion to that effect was a strong point in favor of Mr.

s fondness for poetry doesn't at all interfere with the clearness of my café noir, the lightness of my

with my lordly prerogative.

I cannot tell how my ankles bend, nor whence the causes of my faintest wish, Nor the cause of the friendship

That I walk up my stoop, I pause to consider if it really be.

A morning glory at my window satisfies me more than the meta- physics metaphysics of books."

I blow through my embouchures my loudest and gayest music to them. Vivas to those who have failed.

In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass.

I spent considerable time in New York and a number of weeks on Long Island, my native place.

So many of my good friends are here that I must call it my home.

There are men and women—not here though—who bear my intuition and understand by their hearts.

in his "den" surrounded by a litter of books and papers: "When Osgood wrote me, offering to publish my

I must overlook the work myself and you must humor me in letting me have things my way.'

It has been my effort not to grow querulous in my old age, but to have more faith and gayety of heart

Several of the poems I wrote there if left out of my works would be like losing an eye.

Sometimes I think my Western experiences a force behind my life work.

I think it due to the fact that my work was divided equally among both opposing forces and my poetic

I think I combine that with the spiritualistic inseparately in my books and theories.

Endlich 1891, im Winter vor seinem Todesjahr, das gleichfalls gemischte Bändchen „Good-bye my Fancy“

die Prosaschriften in dieser Reihenfolge: „Specimen Days“, „Collect“, „November Boughs“ und „Good-bye my

Siebzigjährigen“). 1891, im Dezember, im Winter vor seinem Todesjahr, erschien als Sonderdruck „Good-bye my

friend, my lover, was coming, then o I was happy; each breath tasted sweeter—and all that day my food

The poet’s fluid movement between the singular “my friend, my lover” and the more indefinite “a friend

“I know my words are weapons, full of danger, full of death,” the poet declares in “as I lay with my

“Touch me, touch the palm of your hand to my body as I pass, / Be not afraid of my body,” says the naked

legs and his tongue was in my bellybutton. and then when he was tickling my fundament just behind the

First, I am grateful to my colleagues at Valparaiso University, who encouraged me throughout my work,

lack of the poet’s gift so acutely as when I turn to write of my family.

We closed with him . . . . the yards entangled . . . . the cannon touched, My captain lashed fast with

(For 1863 and ’64, see my Memoranda fol- lowing)” (quoted in Myerson, 191).

regularly performed there, bya substitute, during my illness.

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

From Contemporary Notes by George Joseph Bell." 1878 February 1878 or later "In my reading, elocution

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

marginal note responds to Mazzini's advice about maintaining tranqulity in adversity with "Remember my

My last visit to Camden was early in October, before I went abroad.

An autograph letter of Walt's was sold in this city last Spring for $80 to my knowledge."

though momentary view of them, and then of their course on and on southeast, till gradually fading—(my

Moreover, just as his one successful lyrical poem, "My Captain," is enough to disprove all his theories

language: "As I have looked over the proof-sheets of the preceding pages, I have once or twice feared that my

here—said: "Only that while I can't answer them at all, I feel more settled than ever to adhere to my

past—that I have always invoked that future, and surrounded myself with it, before or while singing my

Poemet [That shadow, my likeness]," New-York Saturday Press 4 February 1860, 2.

"Calamus No. 40," Leaves of Grass (1860); "That Shadow My Likeness," Leaves of Grass (1867); slight changes

O Captain! My Captain!" New-York Saturday Press, 4 November 1865, 218.

my Captain! our fearful trip is done.

Leave you not the little spot Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead. O Captain!

my Captain! rise up and hear the bells! Rise up!

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

But I, with silent trade, Walk the spot my Captain lies, In this and in "President Lincoln's Funeral

.; An earlier version of this poem entitled "My Departure" appeared in the Long Island Democrat, 23 October

Grass (1871-72).; This poem later appeared as "Calamus No. 40," Leaves of Grass (1860); as "That Shadow My

November 1878 and as "To the Man-of-War-Bird" in Leaves of Grass (1881–82).; Reprinted in Good-Bye My

Revised and reprinted in Good-Bye My Fancy (1891).; This poem was reprinted in the Critic, 16 (24 May

"; Reprinted in Good-bye My Fancy (1891).

single line or verse picked out here and there from the midst of his descriptions:— "Evening—me in my

room—the setting sun, The setting summer sun shining in my open windows window , showing the swarm of

take one breath from my tremulous lips; Take one tear, dropped aside as I go, for thought of you, Dead

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

has yet to be known; May-be seeming to me what they are (as doubtless they indeed but seem) as from my

describes himself well enough in the lines, I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable — , I sound my

He says (p. 31): Clear and sweet is my soul, and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul.

His tribute to Abraham Lincoln (p. 262), beginning "O Captain! my Captain!"

I beat and pound for the dead; I blow through my embouchures my loudest and gayest for them.

white locks at the runaway sun; I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags."

It seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life."

"Between my knees my forehead was,— My lips, drawn in, said not, Alas!

My hair was over in the grass, My naked ears heard the day pass."

grave illness, I gather up the pieces of prose and poetry left over since publishing a while since my

For some reason—not explainable or definite to my own mind, yet secretly pleasing and satisfactory to

And thee, My Soul! Joys, ceaseless exercises, exaltations!

Thee for my recitative!

Roll through my chant with all thy lawless music!

.; Reprinted as "Out from Behind This Mask: To confront My Portrait, illustrating 'the Wound-Dresser,

Lovering," Poet Whitman said, "wrote to me about five weeks ago, saying that my Boston friends wished

Lovering, of the Committee on Pensions, who was favorable to the project, and asking my consent.

It was whilst assisting at a surgical operation that I became poisoned throughout my system, after which

I became prostrated by hospital malaria, which finally caused my paralysis."

the army hospitals, and his noble tribute to Lincoln (not so tender as the really rhythmic verses "My

Captain"), are things for young Americans to study.

its Dantesque horror, and then, brooding over brotherhood, union, democracy, sang 'Leaves of Grass,' 'My

Captain,' 'Calamus,' and all that me quoque which forms the essential germ of the Whitman gospel: egotism

because, being a woman, and having read the uncharitable and bitter attacks upon the book, I wish to give my

There are few poems which I can read with so intense a thrill of exultation at the greatness of my destiny

. ∗ ∗ ∗ The successive growth-stages of my infancy, childhood, youth and manhood were all pass'd on Long

–49) and I split off with the Radicals, which led to rows with the boss and 'the party,' and I lost my

And then such lapses as these: By my great oak—sturdy, vital, green—give feet thick at the butt.

An hour or so after breakfast I wended my way down to the recesses of the aforesaid dell ∗ ∗ ∗ It was

just the place and time for my Adamic air-bath and flesh-brushing from head to foot.

he screams to a gaping universe: "I, Walt Whitman, an American, one of the roughs, a Cosmos; I shout my

voice high and clear over the waves; I send my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world."

From those beginning notes of sickness and love, there in the mist, From the thousand responses in my

O what is my destination? O I fear it is henceforth chaos!"

not live another day; I cannot can not rest, O God — eat Or drink or sleep, till I put forth myself, My

West, where "In a far-away faraway northern county, in the placid, pas- toral pastoral region, Lives my

farmer-friend farmer friend , the theme of my recitative, a famous Tamer of Oxen ." : This is a worthy

Me, master, years a hundred since from my parents sundered.

I always have enough to supply my daily wants, thanks to my kind friends at home and abroad, and am in

My friends in Great Britain are very kind, and have on several occasions recollected me in little acts

"Regarding the insinuation of my being in want of the necessaries of life, I will state that I make it

You can see for yourself my present condition. Yes, I will say I am not in want.

My health is reasonably good.

He explains his inspiration thus: Speech is the twin of my vision, it is unequal to measure itself, It

He explains the limit of his happiness: I merely stir, press, feel with my fingers, and am happy, To

touch my person to some one else's is about as much as I can stand .

Whenever he does this he writes lines that will live—notably, his "O Captain, my Captain," inspired by

People who know absolutely nothing of his writing, either prose or verse, who have not read even "O Captain

, My Captain," do not hesitate to assail him, to excoriate him, to blackguard him with a vehemence which

I will also want my utterances to be in spirit poems of the morning.

I have wished to put the complete union of the states in my songs without any preference or partiality

Then the simile of my friend, John Burroughs, is entirely true, 'his glove is a glove of silk, but the

152yal.00146xxx.00866Walt Whitman's Last—Good-Bye My Fancy1891prose1 leafhandwritten; A draft of Walt

Walt Whitman's Last—Good-Bye My Fancy

treatise on the theory behind Leaves of Grass, which includes a plug for Whitman's latest work, Good-Bye My

indeed fill me best and most, and will longest remain with me, of all the objective shows I see on this, my

Cincinnati and Chicago, and for thirty years, in that wonder, washed by hurried and glittering tides, my

Here in this very Denver, if it might be so, I should like to cast my lot, above all other spots, all

"Give my regards to all the boys in New York city, and don't forget it."

The door was opened in response to my ring by a gentle faced, wistful eyed, elderly woman.

I told him of passages in his writings which I admired and referred particularly to "My Captain," that

bells; But I, with mournful tread, Walk the deck; my captain lies Fallen, cold and dead.

I had outstayed the moments to which I was pledged to limit my visit.

So says Walt Whitman in a foot-note to the little volume which he has just put forth ("Good-bye, my Fancy

Here is his poetical good bye:— Good-bye my Fancy! Farewell dear mate, dear love!

my Fancy.

Essentially my own printed records, all my volumes, are doubtless but offhand utterances from Personality

Indeed the whole room is a sort of result and storage collection of my own past life.

Columbian Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine New York, NY March 1844 [138]–139 per.00333 Walter Whitman My

Remember me to all my old friends in New York."

My theory has been to equip, equip, equip, from every quarter, my own power, possibility—through science

But my mind is animated by other ideas.

My parents' folks mostly farmers and sailors—on my father's side of English—on my mother (Van Velsor's

—This year lost, by death, my dear, dear mother—and, just before, my sister Martha—(the two best and

"One doubt nauseous undulating like a snake, crawl'd on the ground before me, Continually preceding my

and near, (rousing, even in dreams, a devilish exultation, and all the old mad joy, in the depths of my

forced to remember another son of the people, Robert Burns, and one involuntarily thinks of his "O, my

Love's like a red, red rose, That's newly sprung in June: O my Love's like a melodie That's sweetly

(I loved a certain person ardently and my love was unreturned, Yet out of my love have I written these

hardly patience with a man who could offer the public lines like these, and call them poetry: "I tucked my

trowser-ends into my boots, and went and had a good time."

I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil, this air.

My special word to thee. Hear me illustrious!

woodedge, thy touching-distant beams enough, or man matured, or young or old, as now to thee I launch my

lengthening shadows, prepare my starry nights.

or ambition to articulate and faithfully express in literary and poetic form, and uncompromisingly, my

say entirely my own way, and put it unerringly on record."

In another place the feeling of pride leads to this exclamation: "My Book and I—what a period we have

Difficult as it will be, it has become, in my opinion, imperative to achieve a shifted attitude from

These snowy hairs, my feeble arm, my frozen feet, For them thy faith, thy role I take, and grave it to

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

My Soul !

'Ve clof'led with him .... the yards entangled ...• the cannon touched, 895 My captain lashed fast with

I laughed content when I heard the voice of my little captain, \Ve have not struck, he composedly cried

-I put my arms around them-touch my lips to them .

my Fancy."

It reads:328 Mickle StreetCamden New Jersey Sept. 13 Evn’gCox’s photos: came today & I have written my

is a head with hat on, the photo marked No 3—the pictures with the children come out first-rate—Give my

mouldering.When a friend asked about the poem, shortly after its publication, Whitman admitted: “That’s me—that’s my