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Notes

ABBREVIATIONS

The following abbreviations have been used:

Barrus for Whitman and Burroughs Comrades, 1931, Clara Barrus.

Bucke for Walt Whitman, 1883, Richard Maurice Bucke, M.D.

Comp. Prose for Complete Prose, 1907, Walt Whitman.

Donaldson for Walt Whitman the Man, 1896, Thomas Donaldson.

Furness for Walt Whitman's Workshop, 1928, Clifton Joseph Furness.

Glicksberg for Walt Whitman and the Civil War, 1933, Charles I. Glicksberg.

Harned for The Letters of Anne Gilchrist and Walt Whitman, 1918, ed. Thomas B. Harned.

Holloway for Whitman; An Interpretation in Narrative, 1926, Emory Holloway.

In Re for In Re Walt Whitman, 1893, eds. Horace L. Traubel, Richard Maurice Bucke, Thomas B. Harned.

Kennedy for Reminiscences of Walt Whitman, 1896, William Sloane Kennedy.

N. and F. for Notes and Fragments Left by Walt Whitman, 1899, ed. by Dr. Richard Maurice Bucke.

Perry for Walt Whitman, 1906, Bliss Perry.

Saunders for Whitman Music List, 1926, compiled and privately published by Henry S. Saunders.

S.D.C. for Specimen Days&emdash;Collect, 1907, Walt Whitman.

Traubel for With Walt Whitman in Camden, 1915, Horace Traubel.

U.P.P. for Uncollected Poetry and Prose of Walt Whitman, 1914, ed. Emory Holloway.

"Come, Said My Soul" (motto). Various drafts of this poem, first published in "A Christmas Garland", Christmas Graphic, 1874, are to be found in The Conservator, June 1896, the Putnam edition of Whitman's Complete Writings, 1902, X, p. 131 ff., and in U.P.P., II, p. 56.

"One's Self I Sing" (p. 3). Cf. "Small the Theme of my Chant" (p.469).

"Eidólons" (p.6). For an explanation of Whitman's use of this word see Kennedy, pp. 140-141, and Carleton Noyes, An Approach to Walt Whitman, p.166. Frank Harris quotes Whitman as saying that the poem was "returned by Scribner's with a very insulting and contemptuous letter ". (Contemporary Portraits, Third Series, p.221.)

"To the States" (p. 10). Title in the 1860 Edition, "Walt Whitman's Caution".

"To a Certain Cantatrice" (p. 10). Addressed to Marietta Alboni, according to Isaac Hull Platt. (Walt Whitman, p. 15.)

"Starting from Paumanok" (p. 14). Whitman was fond of the old Indian name for Long Island and sometimes used it as a nom de plume, e.g. U.P.P., I, p. 247. In "Brooklyniana" he gives the meaning as "The island with its breast long drawn out, and laid against the sea". (U.P.P., II, p. 274.)

p. 18, II. 9-10: "It may be", etc. Cf. "Ambition" (p. 502).

"Song of Myself" (p. 26). First printed with a title, "A Poem of Walt Whitman, An American", in 1860.

p. 29, 1. 8: "Show me to a cent" substituted for "show to me a cent" in 1888 edition. (See Traubel, II, p. 234.)

p. 30, II, 9-12: These lines were on the list of passages Osgood asked to be expurgated if he should continue the publication of Leaves of Grass in 1880. (Bucke, p. 149.)

p. 31, 1. II: "Tuckahoe"&emdash;a native of Virginia, the inhabitants of the poor lands of which state were supposed to live on tuckahoe, an underground fungus-sclerotium (Standard Dictionary). "Cuff"&emdash;short for Cuffy, a local nickname for a negro.

p. 33, II. 14 ff.: "the heavy omnibus", etc. Cf. pp. 563 ff.

p. 36, I. 15: "Shuffle and break-down", a form of negro dance.

p. 39, l. 7:"The jour printer with grad head", etc. A line probably suggested by William Hartshorne, the old printer who taught Whitman to set type. (U.P.P., I, p. 234 n.: II, pp. 245-249, 294.)

p. 41, l. 4: "the fourth of Seventh-month", a form of expression appearing in Whitman's early editions which reflects the Quaker influences of his childhood.

p. 49, II. 14-23: "And of the threads", etc. These lines were also on the Osgood list of expurgations demanded.

p. 50, II. 9-18: "You my rich blood . . . it shall be you". These lines were also on the Osgood list. (Bucke, p. 149.)

p. 53, l. 18: "To be in any form", etc. Cf. "To Be At All" (p. 499).

p. 54, II. 1-23: "Is this then a touch? . . . too much for me". This passage was also on the Osgood list of recommended expurgations. The original manuscript of this passage is to be seen in U.P.P., II, pp. 72-73.

p. 55, II, 20 ff.: "I believe a leaf of grass", etc. The original manuscript version of this passage is to be found in U.P.P., I, p. 70.

p. 57, II. 23 ff.: "My ties and ballasts leave me", etc. Cf. U.P.P., II, p. 66. "I am afoot with my vision". Cf. The Sleepers (p. 383) and Holloway, pp. 123 ff.

p. 59, l. 6: "Swims with her calf". Originally "her calves", but altered when Whitman discovered that the whale usually has but one calf. See J. Johnston and J. W. Wallace, Visits to Walt Whitman in 1890-1891, p. 46.

p. 62, II. 15-16: "I turn the bridegroom out of bed", etc. These lines were on the Osgood list of expurgations demanded.

p. 62, II. 19 ff.: "I understand the large hearts of heroes", etc. According to Dr. R. M. Bucke this passage describes an actual shipwreck. ("Notes on the Text of Leaves of Grass", Conservator, VIII, p. 40.)

p. 64, II. 20 ff.: "Now I tell what I knew in Texas", etc. Though Whitman may have been in Texas on some unidentified journey, this anecdote came from his reading rather than his personal experience. As editor of the Brooklyn Eagle, he had published, on March II, 1846, an excerpt entitled "Fanning's Men, or The Massacre at Goliad", which he had found in Blackwood's. The original article was based in part on A Campaign in Texas, by Von H. Ehrenberg, Leipzig, 1845.

p. 66, II. 1 ff.: "Would you hear of an old-time sea-fight?" etc. According to Dr. Bucke this passage describes the engagement between the Bon Homme Richard, John Paul Jones, commandebr, and the Serapis, Richard Pearson, commander, in the North Sea, September 23, 1779. (Conservator, VII, p. 88.)

p. 69, l. 12: "Eleves". For Whitman's attitude toward the incorporation of foreign words into English speech, see his article "America's Mightiest Inheritance", New York Dissected, pp. 55-65.

p. 70, II. 21-22: "On women", etc. Cf. "To the Garden the World" (p. 86). These lines were included in the Osgood list.

p. 70, II. 23 ff.: "To any one dying", etc. The original manuscript version of this passage is to be seen in U.P.P., II, p. 69.

p. 74, II. 16 ff.: "I do not despise you priests", etc. For a very early employment of the device used in this passage see Sun-Down Papers&emdash;No. 8, p. 542. Albert Mordell (Erotic Motive in Literature, p. 240) thinks this passage may have been suggested by George Sand's Consuelo, a book of which Whitman was very fond. A fictional use of the method is made by Jack London in The Star Rover.

p. 79, II. 10 ff.: "I have no chair", etc. For the original prose version of this passage see U.P.P., II, p. 66.

"Children of Adam" (pp. 86-105). For Whitman's statements concerning his purpose in writing this group of poems see "A Memorandum at a Venture" (p. 804) and "Boston Common&emdash;More of Emerson" (p. 797). Whitman said to Traubel in March, 1888: " Children of Adam stumps the worst and the best: I have even tried hard to see if it might not as I grow older or experience new moods stump me: I have even almost deliberately tried to retreat. But it would not do. When I tried to take these pieces out of the scheme the whole scheme came down about my ears." (Traubel, I, p. 3.) Cf. Letter XXXVIII (p. 948).

"From Pent-up Aching Rivers" (p. 86):

p. 86, II. 15-16: "From my own voice", etc. and

p. 87, I. 12; p. 88, l. 19: "The female form approaching", etc. These lines were on the Osgood list.

"I Sing the Body Electric" (p. 88).

p. 91, I. 15-p. 92, l. 3: "Mad filaments", etc. These lines were on the Osgood list.

p. 93, I. 13: During his visit to New Orleans in 1848 Whitman had an opportunity to observe the slave auctions in the basement of the old St. Louis Hotel. Advertisements of these auctions were carried in the daily Crescent, on which he worked.

p. 95, I. 17-p. 96, I. 10: "Hips, lip-sockets . . . meat of the body." Osgood included these lines in his list.

"A Woman Waits for Me" (p. 96). The entire poem was on the Osgood list.

"Spontaneous Me" (p. 98, I. 17-p. 100, I. 10). "This poem . . . where it may". This passage was on the Osgood list.

"Out of the Rolling Ocean the Crowd" (p. 101). All that is known of the romantic attachment celebrated in this poem is given in U.P.P., I, lviii, n. 15. This poem has been set to music by Weda Cook Addicks, but the song has not been published.

"Once I pass'd through a Populous City" (p. 104). This poem, often cited in support of the theory that Whitman had a love-affair in New Orleans, is shown in the original manuscript (U.P.P., II, p. 102) to have been addressed to a man. Mr. H. B. Binns mentions Whitman's "express desire that the poem be regarded merely in its universal application" (A Life of Walt Whitman, p. 51); since it was not published until 1860, it is possible to argue that, in his desire to celebrate the permanence of human affection as contrasted with other experiences, Whitman chose from his own memories, first, his memory of a "Calamus" relationship, and substituted later a reminiscence of some "Children of Adam" experience, both being equally suitable as illustrations, but the latter more likely to prove poetically effective. As bearing upon this interpretation, compare "Fast-Anchor'd Eternal O Love", published in the same edition as this poem (1860); it contained, until they were dropped from the 1881 edition, two lines whose phraseology is so similar to that of "Once I Pass'd through a Populous City" as to suggest the possibility of a common origin in Whitman's experience:

"Singing what, to the Soul, entirely redeemed her, the faithful one, the prostitute, who detained me when I went to the city;

Singing the song of prostitutes."

"I Heard You Solemn-Sweet Pipes of the Organ" (p. 104). I am indebted to Mr. Ralph Adimari for information concerning the first publication of this poem. Apparently it does not refer, as did "Out of the Rolling Ocean the Crowd", to Whitman's Washington inamorata, for it was first published in the New York Leader, October 12, 1861, as follows:

LITTLE BELLS LAST NIGHT

War-suggesting trumpets, I heard you;
And you I heard beating, you chorus of small and large drums;
You round-lipp'd cannons!&emdash;you I heard, thunder-cracking, saluting the frigate from France;
I heard you, solemn-sweet pipes of the organ, as last Sunday morn I pass'd the church;
Winds of Autumn!&emdash;as I walk'd the woods at dusk, I heard your long-stretch'd sighs, up above, so mournful;
I heard the perfect Italian tenor, singing at the opera; I heard the soprano in the midst of the quartet singing;
Lady! you, too, I heard, as with white arms in your parlor, you play'd for me delicious music on the harp;
Heart of my love!&emdash;you, too, I heard, murmuring low, through one of the wrists around my head&emdash;
Heard the pulse of you, when all was still, ringing little bells last night under my ear.

"Calamus" (pp. 106-125). Cf. Letter LI (p. 964), Letter CLVII (p. 1052), and Letter CLXI, n. (p. 1054). This group of poems has long been the subject of conflicting interpretation, which Whitman's own comments have not always helped to clarify. Some writers see in them plain evidence that Whitman was simply a Uranian. (See Eduard Bertz, Walt Whitman Ein Charakterbild and other writings; W. W. Rivers, Walt Whitman's Anomaly; Ludwig Lewisohn, Expression in America; and Edgar Lee Masters, Whitman.) Others, like George Rice Carpenter (Walt Whitman), and Leon Bazalgette (Walt Whitman) interpret these poems of comradeship purely in their spiritual sense. No evidence has ever been made public which would convict Whitman of homosexual practices, and to classify him psychologically as a simple Uranian raises difficulties in the interpretation of the "Children of Adam" poems, their counterpart, which are as outspoken on the subject of the attraction between man and woman. Havelock Ellis indicates his view, always worthy of respect, by including Whitman in his Intermediate Sex. Jean Catel (Walt Whitman, La Naissance du Poète) seeks to reconcile the two expressions given to the affectionate nature of Whitman by a theory of autoeroticism, a kind of narcissism which employed others, of either sex, as mirrors in whom he could admire himself. The poems which follow certainly contain some esoteric elements, but this is not the place to analyse them. Suffice it to say that it is difficult to believe that any very simple explanation can fit all the facts.

"In Paths Untrodden" (p. 106). A part of an early manuscript of this poem is to be found in the Camden Edition of Whitman's Complete Writings, III, p. 137.

"These I Singing in Spring" (p. 111, l. 11): "a live-oak". Cf. "I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing" (p. 118).

"I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing" (p. 118). An early draft of this poem is published in Complete Writings, III, p. 140.

"Here the Frailest Leaves of Me" (p. 121). This poem was set to music as a song (unpublished) by Nicolas Dority. (Henry S. Saunders in his privately published Whitman Music List, 1926. To this I am indebted for most of the notes on Whitman music.)

"Sometimes with One I Love" (p. 124). Set to music in an unpublished song by Nicolas Dority.

"That Shadow My Likeness" (p. 125). An early manuscript version of this poem is to be found in U.P.P., II, p.91.

"Salut au Monde!" (p. 126). Cf. "Excelsior" (p. 430), also "Sun-Down Papers&emdash;No. 8" (p. 542), and Pictures, An Unpublished Poem of Walt Whitman, New York and London, 1927. For a description of this poem as presented in a musical festival at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York in April, 1922, with pantomime and choral music by Charles T. Griffes and Edmund Rickett, see New York Sun, April 24, 1922. There was a revival
of this festival in 1936 under the direction of Blanche Yurka, as a Federal Theater Project.

p. 130, l. 12: "the full limb'd Bacchus". Moncure Conway reports seeing a picture of Bacchus in Whitman's room when he visited him in Brooklyn. (Fortnightly Review, October 1866.)

"Song of the Open Road" (p. 136). William Sloane Kennedy is probably right in suggesting (Conservator, February 1907) that a hint for this poem may have been found by Whitman in George Sand's Consuelo, Chapter III: "What is more beautiful than a road? It is the symbol and the image of an active and varied life," etc. Whitman's unbounded enthusiasm for George Sand, and for this novel in particular, is well known. John Burroughs suggested that the idea of the poem might have come from Thoreau's essay on "Walking". (Life and Letters of John Burroughs, vol. II, p. 102.)

p. 140, ll. 21 ff.: "Why are there trees", etc. Cf. "I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing" (p. 118).

p. 144, ll. 11-14: "To see no possession", etc. Cf. Emerson's Monadnoc".

p. 146, ll. 13-16: "Let the paper remain on the desk", etc. Cf. "Beat! Beat! Drums!" (p. 259).

"Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" (p. 147). Cf. "To Think of Time" (p. 392).

p. 148, ll. 11 ff.: "I too many and many a time". For a contemporary description of one of the many experiences out of which this poem confessedly grew see "Letters from Paumanok&emdash;No. 3", U.P.P., I, pp. 255-256.

p. 150, ll. 11-26: "I am he who knew", etc. Cf. "Of Many a Smutch'd Deed Reminiscent" (p. 499).

"Song of the Answerer" (p. 153). Cf. Emerson's essay, "The Poet".

p. 156, l. 13: "The singers do not beget", etc. Cf. "To the Garden the World" (p. 86).

"Our Old Feuillage" (p. 158). This poem, though substituting thumbnail descriptions of "catalogues", is a sort of "Salut au Monde" limited to the national horizon.

"A Song of Joys" (p. 163). Edward Hungerford seeks to trace each of the joys celebrated in this poem to a phrenological attribute. ("Walt Whitman and His Chart of Bumps", American Literature, January 1931.)

p. 166, ll. 16 ff.: "O the whaleman's joys", etc. This passage may well have been suggested by Moby Dick (1851).

"Song of the Exposition" (p. 181). Cf. "After All, Not to Create Only". The poem was read at the opening of the annual exhibition of the American Institute in New York, September, 7, 1881. It was widely published at the time in the New York and Boston newspapers. (Camden Edition of Whitman's Complete Writings, X, p. 180.) The manuscript of this poem is said to have been sold in London in 1921 for $1500 (New York Times, February 6, 1921). For a discussion of Whitman's methods of turning the occasion to account see "Whitman as His Own Press Agent" (Emory Holloway), American Mercury, December 1929.

The poem was published in a second edition by Roberts Bros., Boston, in 1871, which contained a description of the occasion, probably written by Whitman himself for the Washington Chronicle. (See Kennedy, The Fight of a Book for the World, p. 196.)

"Song of the Redwood-Tree" (p. 191). Published in Harper's Magazine, February 1874; price paid, $100 (Kennedy, p. 16).

"Song of the Universal" (p. 209). First published in the New Republic, Camden, New Jersey, June 20, 1874. Read as a commencement poem at Tuft's College, June 17, 1874. (See Two Rivulets, "Centennial Songs", p. 15.)

"Pioneers! O Pioneers!" (p. 211). The title of this poem was borrowed by Willa Cather for one of her novels.

"France" (p. 217). Cf. "To a Foil'd European Revolutionaire" (p. 338), "O Star of France" (p. 360), "Spain, 1873-74" (p. 433), and "Resurgemus" (p. 505).

"Year of Meteors" (p. 220).

p. 220, ll. 20 ff.: "I would sing how an old man", etc. The reference is to John Brown, executed in 1859 for inciting slaves to rebellion.

p. 221, l. 6: "young prince of England", the Prince of Wales (Edward VII).

"A Broadway Pageant" (p. 224). This poem was occasioned by the reception given to the Japanese Embassy in June 1860.

p. 227, l. 6: "her eldest son", the Prince of Wales. Cf. "Year of Meteors" (p. 221).

"Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" (p. 228). Originally published as "A Child's Reminiscence" in the New York Saturday Press, December 24, 1859. The poem was perhaps written about 1858 (see Bucke, p. 29). For a full discussion of its first appearance and reception see Thomas Olive Mabott and Rollo G. Silver, A Child's Reminiscence.

p. 228, l. 2: "The Mocking Bird's Throat". As to whether Whitman was at fault in placing the mocking bird on Long Island, it may be noted that J. P. Giraud, Jr., says that the gray mocking bird sometimes was seen there in the mating season at the period to which Whitman's poem refers. (The Birds of Long Island, New York, 1843, p. 82.)

p. 229, ll. 7 ff.: "Shine! shine! shine!" etc. The exalted music of this poem has been highly commended, and many passages of it, especially these lines, have been set to music by Stanley Addicks, W. W. Gilchrist, Arthur Hartmann, Marshall Kernochan, A. H. Ryder and Frank O. Warner.

"As I Ebb'd with the Ocean of Life" (p. 234). First published in the Atlantic Monthly, April 1860, as "Bardic Symbols".

"Tears" (p. 237). Set to music, 1905, by C. V. Stanford, Opus 97, No. 5.

"To the Man-of-War Bird" (p. 237). Published in the Athenaeum, April 1, 1876.

"Aboard at the Ship's Helm" (p. 238). Set to music in an unpublished song by Phillip Dalmas.

"Song for All Seas, All Ships" (p. 241). Published in the New York Daily Graphic, April 4, 1873, under the title, "Sea Captains, Young or Old".

"Patroling Barnegat" (p. 242). Published in the American, June 1880 (Vol. X, p. 179) and republished in Harper's Monthly, April 1881. Set to music by Eugene Bonner.

The Barnegat Shoals are off the shore of New Jersey at the Barnegat Inlet and Long Beach.

"After the Sea-Ship" (p. 243). First published under the title "In the Wake Following", New York Daily Graphic, Christmas Number, 1874.

"A Boston Ballad" (p. 244). The occasion of this poem was the arrest of Apthony Burns in Boston and his rendition to slavery, on May 24, 1854, despite an attempt to free him led by T. W. Higginson. According to William Sloane Kennedy, Whitman intended to drop this poem, but was persuaded to retain it by John T. Trowbridge. (The Fight of a Book for the Word, p. 175.)

"Europe, the 72d and 73d Years of These States" (p. 246). Whitman's chronology dates from the Declaration of Independence (1776), so that he refers to the years 1848 and 1849. The poem, one of his earliest in free verse, was published as "Resurgemus" in the New York Tribune, June 21, 1850. For a collection of the poems in the two versions, and the growth of Whitman's characteristic verse form, see U.P.P., I, pp. 27-30. The occasion was, of course, the abortive popular movements in Italy, Hungary, France and Germany, in these years. Compare "To a Foil'd European Revolutionaire" (p. 338), "O Star of France" (p. 360), "Spain, 1873-74" (p. 433), and "Resurgemus" (p. 505).

"To a President" (p. 251). The poem is apparently addressed to President Buchanan. Cf. poem entitled, "To the States" (p. 255).

"The Dalliance of the Eagles" (p. 252). First published in Cope's Tobacco Plant, November 1880. This poem was included in the Osgood list of expurgations (Bucke, p. 149). This poem seems to have been based on a description given to the poet by John Burroughs. (Barrus, p. 170.)

"Roaming in Thought" (p. 252). Cf. "Carlyle from American Points of View" (p. 780). "To the States" (p.255). Cf. "To a President" (p. 251).

"Drum-Taps" (p. 256). Apparently this group of poems, or some of them, was in manuscript as early as March 1863. (Wound Dresser, p. 61; also see pp. 163, 164, 188.)

"Eighteen Sixty-One" (p. 258). Cf. Letter VI (p. 887). Although Whitman in 1861 and 1862 was supporting himself by doing hack work for the Brooklyn Standard and the New York Leader, much of which had no reference to the war, it is unfair to assume that he was not profoundly moved by it from the start. (See U.P.P., I, LVII, 2, 222 ff., Glicksberg, and the note following.)

"Beat! Beat! Drums!" (p. 259). A manuscript letter dated October I, 1861, offered this poem for $20, to James Russell Lowell, then editor of the Atlantic Monthly (Bayard Wyman collection). But the poem was actually published in Harper's Weekly, September 28, 1861, and copied in the New York Leader on the same date, where the third line from the end concluded with the exhortation, "Recruit! Recruit!" It seems clear that the poem, like Bryant's "Our Country's Call" which appeared in the New York Ledger on November 2, and Whittier's "The Summons", in the Leader, July 27, was written in an effort to counteract the moral effect of the defeat at Bull Run on July 21. See "Battle of Bull Run", and "The Stupor Passes" (pp. 620-624). For information concerning the original version of this poem, the editor is indebted to Mr. Ralph Adimari.

This poem was set to music by Coleridge-Taylor, Opus 45, No.6.

"Song of the Banner at Daybreak" (p. 260). This is the only poem of Whitman's cast in dramatic form.

"The Centenarian's Story" (p. 270). According to Whitman's literary executors, Traubel, Bucke and Harned (Camden Edition, I, p. xix) the poet had a great uncle, the son of Nehemiah Whitman, his great grandfather, who "was a lieutenant in Col. Josiah Smith's regiment of the American Army. He participated in the disastrous battle of Brooklyn and there lost his life. In the Centennarian story will be found some informal account of this portentious event". As editor of the Eagle, Whitman urged the creation of Washington Park (Fort Greene), wrote a patriotic ode about the patriots buried there (U.P.P., I, pp. 22-23), and gave considerable space to it in his "Brooklyniana" (U.P.P., II, pp. 242-246). Cf. also "The Sleepers", § 5 (p. 388).

"Cavalry Crossing a Ford" (p. 275). This poem has been set to music by Tillie White.

"By the Bivouac's Fitful Flame" (p. 276). This poem was set to music by Harvey Gaul.

"Come Up from the Fields Father" (p. 277). Manuscripts in the Bayard Wyman collection seem to identify this poem with the case of Oscar Cunningham, mentioned in one of Whitman's letters to his mother (p.944). Whitman wrote such a letter to Cunningham's sister when he died in June 1864.

"A March in the Ranks, Hard Pres't, and the Road Unknown" (p. 280). For an early manuscript version of this incident see Glicksberg, pp. 123-125.

"Dirge for Two Veterans" (p. 288). This poem was set to music by F.L. Ritter, Opus 13.

"The Artilleryman's Vision" (p. 291). Cf. "The Sleepers", § 5 (p. 388).

"Ethiopia Saluting the Colors" (p. 292). Set to music by Coleridge-Taylor, Opus 51, and by Charles Wood.

"World Take Good Notice" (p. 293). A longer manuscript version of this poem was printed in facsimile by J.H. Johnston, a friend of the poet, in the Century Magazine, February 1911, Vol. 59, p.532, as follows:

"Rise, lurid stars, woolly white no more;
Change, angry cloth&emdash;weft of the silver stars no more;
Orbs blushing scarlet&emdash;thirty four stars, red as flame,
On the blue bunting this day we sew.

World take good notice, silver stars have vanished;
Orbs now of scarlet&emdash;now mortal coals all aglow
Dots of molten iron, wakeful and ominous,
On the blue bunting henceforth appear."

"O Tan-Faced Prairie-Boy" (p. 293). This poem was set to music by Weda Cook Addicks.

"Look Down Fair Moon" (p. 294). This poem was set to music by Phillip Dalmas.

"Reconciliation" (p. 294). This poem was set to music by Phillip Dalmas.

"As I Lay with My Head in Your Lap Camerado" (p. 295). In William Rossetti's selected edition of Whitman's poems the title of this poem was "Questionable".

"Memories of President Lincoln" (p.300). The relationship of Whitman and Lincoln is the subject of an entire volume by William E. Barton, an unsympathetic study, the occasional inaccuracies of which are pointed out by Charles I. Glicksberg in his Walt Whitman and the Civil War. For Whitman's contemporary references to Lincoln, see pp. 644, 651, 959; his memorial lecture on Lincoln is given on pp. 752-762.

Abraham Lincoln was shot in Ford's theater in Washington, Good Friday night, April 14, 1865, and died the next morning, After the funeral in Washington, the funeral train passed through Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Indiana, to Springfield, Illinois, where the body was buried in the Oak Ridge Cemetery. Whitman makes use of this fact in his poem. An article in the Atlantic Monthly, June 1865, declared: "Along the line of more than 1500 miles his remains were borne, as it were, through continued lines of the people; and the number of mourners and the sincerity and unanimity of grief was such as never before attended the obsequies of a human being. So that the terrible catastrophe of his end hardly struck more awe than the majestic sorrow of the people."

p. 305, 1. 25-p. 306, 1. 24: "Come Lovely and Soothing Death" etc. In the 1876 Edition this passage was called "Death Carol". This poem was set to music by W.H. Neidlinge and by Nicolas Douty: the "Death Carol" passage by Stanley Addicks.

"O Captain! My Captain!" (p. 308). First published in New York Saturday Press, November 4, 1865. The poem has been set to music by Weda Cook Addicks, Frank Butcher, H.H. Huss, E.S. Kelley, Charles F. Manning, Cyril Scott, Donald Nicholas Tweedy and Charles Wood.

Although this is perhaps Whitman's best-known poem, it is so atypical that he at times resented the fact that its popularity tended to obscure his more individual work. Horace Traubel gives (II, pp. 332-333), with partial facsimile reproduction, an early manuscript version which varies considerably from the one printed:

MY CAPTAIN

The mortal voyage over, the gales and tempests done,
The ship that bears me nears her home the prize I sought is won,
The port is close, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While (As) steady sails and enters straight my wondrous veteran vessel;
But O heart! heart! heart! leave you not the little spot,
Where on the deck my Captain lies&emdash;sleeping pale and dead.

O Captain! dearest Captain! get up and hear the bells;
Get up and see the flying flags, and see the splendid sun,
For you it is the cities shout&emdash;for you the shores are crowded;
For you the red-rose garlands, and electric eyes of women;
O Captain! O my father! My arm I push beneath you;
It is some dream that on the deck you slumber pale and dead.

My captain does not answer, his lips are closed and still,
My father does not feel my arm&emdash;he has no pulse nor will;
But his ship, his ship, is anchor'd safe, the fearful trip is done,
The wondrous ship, the ship divine, its mighty object won,
And our cities walk in triumph&emdash;but O heart, heart, you stay,
Where on the deck my captain lies sleeping cold dead.

And cities shout and thunder&emdash;but my heart.

And all career in triumph wide&emdash;but I with gentle tread,
Walk the deck my captain lies, sleeping cold and dead.

My captain does not answer, his lips are closed and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
But his ship, his ship is anchor'd safe&emdash;the fearful trip is done,
The wondrous ship, the well-tried ship, its proudest object won;
And my lands career in triumph&emdash;but I with gentle tread
Walk the spot my captain lies sleeping pale and dead.

"By Blue Ontario's Shore" (p. 310). Parts of this poem have been taken from the prose Preface to the 1855 Edition, others were composed for the 1856 Edition, and several passages, including §§ 1, 7, and 20, and parts of 14,17, and 18, were added in 1867. A few lines were added in 1871.

p. 313, ll. 10-11: "Attracting it body and soul . . . merits and demerits". Included in the Osgood list of expurgations.

p. 315, ll. 3-4: "Slavery&emdash;the murderous, treacherous conspiracy", etc. Cf. "The Eighteenth Presidency" (p. 586), also composed in 1856.

p. 317, l. 5: "He judges not . . . a helpless thing". Cf. "To a Common Prostitute" (p. 353).

pp.318-320, § 12: Compare "Democratic Vistas" (pp. 657-722), passim), and "Poetry To-Day in America". (Comp. Prose, p.281.)

"Reversals" (p. 325). This is only a fragment of a poem called "Poem of the Proposition of Nakedness" in the 1856 edition, and "Respondez!" in 1867 and 1871 editions. The original poem appears on p.511.

"The Return of the Heroes" (p.327). First published in Galaxy, in September 1867, under the title, "A Carol of Harvest".

"There Was a Child Went Forth" (p. 332). Though this poem with its description of Whitman's father and mother is obviously more or less autobiographical, yet Traubel records (II, p.228): "People have often asked him the meaning of the poem There was a Child Went Forth and he has always made the same answer: What is the meaning? I wonder what? I wonder what? Once he said to Bonsall: Harry, maybe it has no meaning."

p.333, l. 16: "The mother at home", etc. Cf. "The Sleepers" (p. 383), and "Faces" (p. 418).

p. 334, l. 13: "These became part of that child", etc. Cf. Tennyson's "Ulysses": "I am a part of all that I have met."

"Old Ireland" (p. 334). First published in the New York Leader November 2, 1861. The editor is indebted to Mr. Ralph Adimari for information about its first publication. Originally the last two lines read:

"And now with rosy and new blood, again among the nations of the earth,

Moves to-day, an armed man, in a new country."

Like "Beat! Beat! Drums!" this was published not long after the defeat at Bull Run and may have been intended also to stimulate recruiting among the Irish.

"The City Dead-House" (p.335). Cf. "To A Common Prostitute" (p. 353).

"To a Foil'd European Revolutionaire" (p. 338). Cf. "Europe" (p.246), "O Star of France" (p. 360), and "Spain" (p. 433).

"Song of Prudence" (p. 341). Parts of this poem are taken from the Preface to the 1855 edition. It is apparently indebted somewhat to Emerson's essay on "Prudence". Cf. also "Song of the Rolling Earth" (p. 203).

"The Singer in the Prison" (p. 344). First published in the Saturday Evening Visitor, December 1869, with the subtitle, "A Christmas Incident". Sidney H. Morse, when sculpturing Whitman, was told that this poem was based on a personal observation. As Morse recalled it, the singer was Parepa Rosa singing to the convicts in a prison in New York. (In Re., p. 370.)

"Warble for Lilac-time" (p. 346). Published in Galaxy, May 1870.

"Outlines for a Tomb (p. 347). Originally published in Galaxy, 1870, with the title, "Brother of All, With Generous Hand". The poem was a tribute to George Peabody, who gave large sums for science, for the education of the negro, and for improving living conditions among the poor in London. Though he died in London, November 14, 1869, he was buried in Massachusetts, February 1870. In "Two Rivulets", above the title appeared the following inscription:

"To any Hospital or School-Founder, or Public Beneficiary, anywhere."

"Out from Behind this Mask" (p. 349). In "Two Rivulets" appeared under the title this explanatory note: "To confront My Portrait, illustrating the Wound Dresser, in Leaves of Grass."

"To A Common Prostitute" (p. 353). This poem was on the Osgood list, notwithstanding the fact that Whitman said, "It is nothing but the beautiful little idyl of the New Testament concerning the woman taken in adultery." (See Kennedy, pp.125-127.)

"Unfolded Out of the Folds" (p. 356). It is not clear why Whitman did not include this poem in the "Children of Adam" group, where it would seem to belong.

p. 357, ll. 6-7: "Unfolded out of the strong . . . embraces of the man." These two lines were on the Osgood list of expurgations.

"Kosmos" (p. 357). Cf. "Walt Whitman, a kosmos", etc., p. 48, l. 21.

"O Star of France" (p. 360). First published in Galaxy, June 1871. The occasion of this poem was the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War.

"The Ox-Tamer" (p. 362). First published in the New York Daily Graphic, Christmas Number, 1874.

"An Old Man's Thought of School" (p. 363). Recited by the author at the Cooper Public School in Camden and published in the New York Daily Graphic, November 3, 1874.

"Wandering at Morn" (p. 363). First published as "The Singing Thrush" in the New York Daily Graphic, March 15, 1873.

"Italian Music in Dakota" (p. 364). Cf. "Proud Music of the Storm" (p. 366), "The Mystic Trumpeter" (p. 421), "Plays and Operas Too" (p. 564), "Old Actors, Singers, Shows, Etc., in New York" (p. 875), "The Opera" (New York Dissected, pp. 18-23), and Louise Pound "Walt Whitman and Italian Music" (American Mercury, September 1925).

"My Picture-Gallery" (p. 365). First published in the American, October 1880. For a long manuscript out of which this short poem grew, see Pictures, An Unpublished Poem of Walt Whitman (Emory Holloway, editor), New York and London, 1927. Cf. also N. and F., pp. 77,177.

"The Prairie States" (p. 365). A facsimile manuscript of this poem was printed in the catalogue of the Saltus Sale at the Anderson Galleries (1922), and in the Art Autograph, March 16, 1880. It is said to have been published on behalf of the Irish Famine Fund.

"Proud Music of the Storm" (p. 366). First published in the Atlantic Monthly, February 1869, but written some months earlier. For this poem Whitman received $100. (See Traubel, II, 21-23.) The poem was offered to the Atlantic through Whitman's friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson (Letter LXVIII, p. 981). Cf. For other Whitman compositions on music, see note on "Italian Music in Dakota" (p.364).

"Passage to India" (p. 372). This poem was rejected by Bret Harte when submitted to the Overland Monthly in April 1870. It was first printed as a thin booklet in 1871 (copyright 1870), but parts of it had been written earlier. Section 5 was printed from a manuscript by the Brooklyn Eagle, October 26, 1911, where the date of composition is said to be about 1848. This, however, seems to be a mistake, for Traubel gives a letter to James T. Fields, offering it to the Atlantic on January 20, 1869, and it appeared in the London Fortnightly Review in April of that year. Another passage apparently intended for a separate poem is that in § 8, beginning, "O soul thou pleasest me", and ending with the section. Mr. Oscar Lion of New York owns this manuscript.

The occasion of the poem was the completion of the Suez Canal and the Pacific Railroad. Of the poem Whitman said, "There's more of me, the essential ultimate me, in that than in any of the poems . . . the burden of it is evolution&emdash;the one thing escaping the other&emdash;the unfolding of cosmic purposes." (Traubel, I, pp. 156-157.)

"Prayer of Columbus" (p. 381). First published in Harper's Magazine, March 1874, where it was accompanied by the following explanatory note:

"It was near the close of his indomitable and pious life&emdash;on his last voyage when nearly 70 years of age&emdash;that Columbus, to save his two remaining ships from foundering in the Caribbean Sea in a terrible storm, had to run them ashore on the Island of Jamaica where, laid up for a long and miserable year&emdash;1503&emdash;he was taken very sick, had several relapses, his men revolted, and death seem'd daily imminent; though he was eventually rescued, and sent home to Spain to die, unrecognized, neglected and in want. . . . It is only ask'd, as preparation and atmosphere for the following lines, that the bare authentic facts be recall'd and realized, and nothing contributed by the fancy. See, the Antillean Island, with its florid skies and rich foliage and scenery, the waves beating the solitary sands, and the hulls of the ships in the distance. See, the figure of the great Admiral, walking the beach, as a stage, in this sublimest tragedy&emdash;for what tragedy, what poem, so piteous and majestic as the real scene?&emdash;and hear him uttering&emdash;as his mystical and religious soul surely utter'd, the ideas following&emdash;perhaps, in their equivalents, the very words." (Inclusive Edition, Leaves, p.682.)

Whitman wrote to Pete Doyle concerning this poem: "I am told that I have colored it with thoughts of myself&emdash;very likely." (Calamus, p. 145.)

"The Sleepers" (p. 383). Though on the surface this poem is an attempt to picture the mind in sleep (see Bucke, p. 171), it serves also as a key to Whitman's poetic method (see Holloway, pp. 123 ff.).

p. 384, l. 9: "He with his palm . . . of the husband". These phrases were on the Osgood list of expurgations.

p. 387, §4: The reference here is to the Mexico, wrecked off Hempstead, Long Island, in 1840. (See "Paumanok, and my Life on it as Child and Young Man." (p.538).

p. 390, ll. 21-22: "Perfect and clean . . . and plumb". These lines were on the Osgood list of expurgations.

"Transpositions" (p. 392). Part of the much longer poem "Respondez!" from the 1856 edition (p. 511).

"To think of Time" (p. 392). Cf. "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" (p. 147).

"Darest Thou Now O Soul" (p. 399). First published in the Broadway Magazine (London), October 1868. This poem has been set to music by Rutland Boughton, G.W.Chadwick, Harper Seed and Eva Ruth Spalding.

"Whispers of Heavenly Death" (p. 399). First published in Broadway Magazine (London), October 1868.

"Chanting the Square Deific" (p. 400). To Daniel G. Brinton, Whitman commented on this poem as follows: "It would be hard to give the idea mathematical expression: the idea of spiritual equity&emdash;of spiritual substance: the four-square entity&emdash;the north, south, east, west of the constituted universe (even the soul universe)&emdash;the four sides as sustaining the universe (the superntural something): this is not the poem, but the idea back of the poem or below the poem. I am lame enough trying to explain it in other words&emdash;the idea seems to fit its own words better than mine. You see, at the time the poem wrote itself: now I am trying to write it." (Traubel, I, p. 156.) See also Leon Howard, "A Critique of Whitman's Transcendentalism" (Modern Language Notes, January 1931).

"That Music Always Round Me" (p. 405). Cf. "The Mystic Trumpeter" (p. 421), and "Proud Music of the Storm" (p. 366).

"Quicksand Years" (p. 404). For manuscript versions of this poem differing from the text, see Glicksberg, pp. 125-126.

"A Noiseless Patient Spider" (p. 406). First published in Broadway Magazine (London), October 1868. For an early manuscript of this poem, see U.P.P., II, p.93.

"The Last Invocation" (p. 408). First published in the Broadway Magazine (London), October 1868. Originally without title, this poem is sometimes called "The Imprisoned Soul" (Oxford Book of English Verse). This poem was set to music by Eugene Bonner, Frank Bridge, Ada Weigle Powers and Eva Ruth Spalding.

"Pensive and Flattering" (p. 409). First published in Broadway Magazine (London), October 1868.

"Thou mother with Thy Equal Brood" (p. 410). This poem was read by Whitman before the United Literary Societies of Dartmouth College at commencement on Wednesday, June 26, 1872 (Calamus, p.96). For an account of the circumstances connected with this occasional poem, see Perry, pp. 203-210, and Harold W. Blodgett, "Walt Whitman's Dartmouth Visit". (Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, February 1933.)

"A Paumanok Picture" (p. 415). Cf. "Paumanok, and my Life on it as Child and Young Man" (p. 538).

"Faces" (p. 418). For a counterpart of this poem, see "Street Yarn". (New York Dissected, pp. 128-132.)

p. 420, ll. 1-6: "I saw the face", etc. This passage Whitman said, was suggested by his brother Eddie, who was mentally defective.

p. 421, § 5: This is commonly interpreted as a description of Whitman's Quaker grandmother, Amy Williams Van Velsor.

p. 420, l. 25-p.421, l.3: "She speaks . . . my breast and shoulders". This passage was on the Osgood list of expurgations.

"The Mystic Trumpeter" (p. 421). First published in the Kansas Magazine, February 1872. Cf. "Proud Music of the Storm" (p. 366), "Italian Music in Dakota", and "That Music Always Round Me" (p. 405). Many years ago the present editor examined a manuscript, then in the collection of Mr. W. R. Benjamin, which indicated that one Julius Bing supplied Whitman with notes on classical music when he was writing this poem.

"Mannahatta" (p. 427). Whitman was fond of referring to Manhattan in this way in his poetry, and in compliment to him his brother Jefferson named a daughter Mannahatta.

"A Riddle Song" (p. 429). Whitman never gave the key to this riddle, but Dr. Bucke suggested that it is "good cause" of "old cause" (Traubel, II, 228); Kennedy offers "the Ideal" (The Fight of a Book for the World, p. 188). In the Bayard Wyman collection is a printed proof of the poem which omits lines 2-10, 29, and makes many changes in punctuation. Apparently it was published in the first number of Sunnyside Press in the spring of 1880 (see Barrus, p. 191).

"Excelsior" (p. 430). Whitman was an admirer of Longfellow, and may have borrowed the title from him. Cf. "Ambition" (p. 502).

"Ah Poverties, Wincings, and Sulky Retreats" (p. 431). Cf. "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry", § 6 (p. 150).

"Weave in, My Hearty Life" (p. 432). To show the metrical regularity of this poem, William Sloane Kennedy has arranged it in conventional form. (Kennedy, p. 167.)

"Spain, 1873-74" (p. 433). First published without the date and the title in the New York Daily Graphic, March 24, 1873, with the signature, "Washington, March 23, 1873, Walt Whitman".

"From Far Dakota's Cañons" (p. 434). First published as "A Death-Sonnet for Custer", in the New York Tribune, July 10, 1876. Cf. "Custer's Last Rally" (p. 793).

"What Best I See In Thee" (p. 436). President Grant returned from his world tour in the fall of 1879. Cf. "Death of General Grant" (p. 463), and "The Silent General" (p. 767).

"Spirit that Form'd This Scene" (p. 436). First published in the Critic, September 10, 1881.

"A Clear Midnight" (p. 437). Set to music by Eugene Bonner, F.S. Converse, Philip Dalmas, W.H. Pommer, Ada Weigle Powers, Lynnel Reed, and Eva Ruth Spalding.

"Years of the Modern" (p. 438). Though first published in 1865 (in Drum-Taps), parts of this poem were written in prose form in 1856. (Cf. "The Eighteenth Presidency", pp. 586-602.)

"As at Thy Portals also Death" (p. 445). Whitman's mother died, May 23, 1873.

"The Artilleryman's Vision" (p. 291). Cf. "The Dying Veteran" (p. 473), and "The Sleepers", § 5 (p. 388).

"The Sobbing of the Bells" (p. 448). This tribute to President Garfield, whom Whitman had known personally (Traubel, I, p. 324), written at the Hotel Bulfinch in Boston (Kennedy, p. 3), was first published in the Boston Daily Globe, September 27, 1881. A facsimile reproduction of the manuscript is to be found in Bucke, facing p. 54. Whitman once expressed a doubt about the propriety of retaining the poem because it borrows a line from Poe's "The Bells" for its title. (Traubel, III, p. 129.)

"So Long" (p. 450). First appearing in the 1860 edition, this poem was always kept at the end of Leaves of Grass (though the Annexes in late editions came after it).

"Mannahatta" (p. 454). First published in New York Herald, February 27, 1888. Whitman has another poem with the same title (p. 427).

"Paumanok" (p. 454). First published in New York Herald, February 29, 1888.

"From Montauk Point" (p. 454). First published in New York Herald, March 1, 1888.

"A Carol Closing Sixty-nine" (p. 455). First published in New York Herald, May 21, 1888. Whitman had offered this poem to Lippincott's Magazine, but when it did not appear in the June issue, he withdrew it and sent it to the Herald in order that it might appear near his birthday (Traubel, I, p. 179). A Critic paragraph taking note of his approaching birthday, declared that "the number of those who greatly admire his writings, though without thinking them the be-all and the end-all of American poetry, and who feel for his personality a heartfelt and growing affection has increased in proportion as his work and the story of his career have become better known". (Critic, May 25, 1889.)

"The Bravest Soldiers" (p. 455). First published in New York Herald, March 18, 1888.

"A Font of Type" (p. 455). In John Russell Young's Men and Memories (Vol. I, p. 107) the original version of this poem is given as follows:

"O latent mine! O unlaunched voices! passionate powers, all eligible.
Wrath, argument, praise, or comic leer, or prayer devout, or love's caress,
(Not nonpareil, brevier, bourgeois, long primer, merely),
Shores, oceans, roused to fury and to death,
Or soothed to ease and sheeny sun, and sleep,
With these pallid slivers, waiting.

"As I Sit Writing Here" (p. 456). First published in New York Herald, May 14, 1888.

"My Canary Bird" (p. 456). First published in New York Herald, March 2, 1888.

"Queries to My Seventieth Year" (p. 456). First published in New York Herald, May 2, 1888.

"The Wallabout Martyrs" (p. 456). First published in New York Herald, March 16, 1888. Cf. "The Centenarian's Story" (p. 270).

"The First Dandelion" (p. 457). First published in New York Herald, March 12, 1888. It appeared, ironically, on the morning of New York's greatest blizzard, and was parodied in the press.

"America" (p. 457). First published in New York Herald, February II, 1888.

"To-day and Thee" (p. 457). First published in New York Herald, April 23, 1888.

"After the Dazzle of Day" (p. 458). First published in New York Herald, February 3, 1888.

"Out of May's Shows Selected" (p. 458). First published in New York Herald, May 10, 1888.

"Halcyon Days" (p. 458). First published in New York Herald, January 29, 1888.

"Fancies at Navesink" (p. 459). All these poems except the fifth were published in Nineteenth Century Magazine, August 1885, after having been declined by Mr. H. M. Alden for Harper's Magazine. (Traubel, I, p. 61.)

"Election Day, November 1884" (p. 462). This poem was first published in the Philadelphia Press, October 26, 1884, using a part of the first line for a title. Diary in Canada (p. 73) contains the following explanatory note:

Presidential Election. Oct. 31, '84

The political parties are trying&emdash;but mostly in vain&emdash;to get up some fervor of excitement on the pending Presidential election. It comes off next Tuesday. There is no question at issue of any importance. I cannot "enthuse" at all. I think of the elections of '30 and '20. Then there was something to arouse a fellow. But I like well the fact of all these national election&emdash;have written a little poem about it (to order)&emdash;published in a Philadelphia daily of 26th instant. [The candidates in '84 were Blaine and Cleveland; the issues, tariff and Chinese exclusion. Blaine was defeated, owing to Conkling's defection.]

"With Husky-Haughty Lips, O Sea!" (p. 462). First published in Harper's Magazine, March 1884. Fifty dollars was paid for the poem on November 30, 1883 (Traubel, II, p. 220). The poem was written at Ocean Grove, New Jersey, where Whitman was visiting with John Burroughs, September 26-October I, 1883 (Traubel, I, p. 406).

"Death of General Grant" (p. 463). Cf. "What Best I See in Thee" (p. 436), and "The Silent General" (p. 767). First published in the Critic, August 15, 1885, as "Grant". In a printed proofsheet the first line was used as a title and a second section was added as follows:

"And still shall be;&emdash;resume again, thou hero heart!
Strengthen to firmest day, O rosy dawn of hope!
Thou dirge I started first, to joyful shout reversed!&emdash;and thou, O grave,
Wait long and long."

"Red Jacket (from Aloft)" (p. 464). First published in the Philadelphia Press, October 10, 1884. (Rollo G. Silver, "Thirtyone Letters of Walt Whitman", American Literature, January 1937, p. 430.)

"Washington's Monument, February, 1885" (p. 464). Probably first printed in Philadelphia Press, February 22, 1885.

"Of that Blythe Throat of Thine" (p. 465). First published in Harper's Monthly, January 1885. The price paid was $30. (Traubel, II, p. 218-219.)

"Broadway" (p. 465). First published in New York Herald, April 10, 1888. Cf. "Broadway". (New York Dissected, pp. 119-124.)

"To Get the Final Lilt of Songs" (p. 466). First published in New York Herald, April 16, 1888, after having been rejected by the Cosmopolitan. (Traubel, I, p. 37.)

"Old Salt Kossabone" (p. 466). First published in New York Herald, February 25, 1888.

"Continuities" (p. 467). First published in New York Herald, March 20, 1888.

"Yonnondio" (p. 468): First published in the Critic, November 26, 1887. For a discussion of the meaning of the Indian word, see Traubel, II, p. 269. A Critic correspondent, who signed his letter "Etymologist", said Whitman had been misinformed&emdash;that the Hurons and Iroquois used it to mean "Beautiful Mountain", and applied it to the Canadian Governor, Montmagny, whose name had been incorrectly explained to them. (Critic, December 17, 1887.)

"Life" (p. 468): First published in New York Herald, April 5, 1888.

"Going Somewhere" (p. 469): First published in Lippincott's Magazine, November 1887. This elegiac poem was a tribute to Mrs. Anne Gilchrist. For the story of her friendship with the poet, see Harned; also Letters LXXV (p. 987), LXXXVIII (p. 998), XCVI (p. 1005), CIV (p. 1012), CVII (p. 1016), CXXIV (p. 1029), CXXVIII (p. 1032), CXXXI (p. 1035), CXL (p. 1042), and CLXIV (p. 1045). The manuscript of this poem is reproduced in facsimile in Thomas Donaldson, Walt Whitman, the Man, facing p. 74.

"Small the Theme of My Chant" (p. 469): Cf. "One's Self I Sing" (p. 3).

"True Conquerors" (p. 470): First published in New York Herald, February 15, 1888.

"The United States to Old World Critics" (p. 470). First published in New York Herald, May 27, 1888.

"The Calming Thought of All" (p. 470). First published in New York Herald, May 27, 1888.

"Life and Death" (p. 471). First published in New York Herald, May 23, 1888.

"Soon shall the Winter's Foil be Here" (p. 472). First published in New York Herald, February 21, 1888.

"The Dying Veteran" (p. 473). Cf. "The Artilleryman's Vision" (p. 291). Whitman wrote to Kennedy, "A New York newspaper syndicate (S.S. McClure, Tribune Building) vehemently solicited and gave me $25 (far more than it is worth)." (Kennedy, p. 55.)

"A Prairie Sunset" (p. 473). First published in New York Herald, March 9, 1888.

"Twenty Years" (p. 474). First published in Magazine of Art (in England, July 1888; in America, August 1888), with a line drawing. The poem had been requested by M. H. Spielmann, editor of the magazine, on November 30, 1887. (Traubel, II, p. 232-233.)

"Orange Buds by Mail from Florida" (p. 474). First published in New York Herald, March 19, 1888.

"Twilight" (p. 475). First published in the Century Magazine, December 1887. The price paid was $10 (Kennedy, p. 55). The word "oblivion" in the poem called forth numerous protests from Whitman readers as being inconsistent with his philosophy. For his self defense, see Traubel, I, pp. 140-141.

"You Lingering Sparse Leaves of Me" (p. 475). First published in Lippincott's Magazine, November 1887.

"Not Meager Latent Boughs Alone" (p. 475). First published in Lippincott's Magazine, November 1887.

"The Dead Emperor" (p. 476). First published in New York Herald, March 10, 1888, where it is dated March 9. The poem was written at the request of the Herald. Concerning the criticism it aroused among Whitman's democratic and liberal friends, he said: "You know, I include Kings, Queens, Emperors, Nobles, Barons, and the aristocracy generally, in my net&emdash;excluding nobody and nothing human&emdash;and this does not seem to be relished by these narrow-minded folks." (J. Johnston and J. W. Wallace, Visits to Walt Whitman in 1890-1891, 1917, p. 50.)

"As the Greek's Signal Flame" (p. 476). First published in the New York Herald, December 15, 1887, with the heading, "Walt Whitman's Praise". In the Herald version, between lines 1 and 2, appears the line, "(Tally of many hard strain'd battle struggle, year&emdash;triumphant only at the last.)" Although Whittier is said to have thrown into the fire the complimentary copy of the first edition which Whitman sent him (Perry, 1908, p. 100), the poets admired each other personally, and Whitman at his seventy-second birthday dinner drank a toast to the Quaker poet, "a noble old man". (In Re, p. 297.)

"The Dismantled Ship" (p. 476). First published in New York Herald, February 23, 1888. Whitman said to Traubel: "Yes, it was suggested by the picture in Harned's parlor: that's me&emdash;that's my old hulk&emdash;was laid up at last: no good anymore&emdash;no good"&emdash;pausing&emdash;"a fellow might get melancholy seeing himself in such a mirror&emdash;but I guess we can see through as well as in the mirrors when the test comes!" (Traubel, I, p. 390.) Mr. Harned gave to the present editor a similar account of the origin of this poem.

"An Evening Lull" (p. 477). For a discussion concerning the poem, between Whitman, Traubel, and Bucke, see Traubel, I, pp. 354, 472-491.

"Old Age's Lambent Peaks" (p. 477). First published in the Century, September 1888.

"After the Supper and Talk" (p. 478). First published in Lippincott's Magazine, 1887. The manuscript of this poem is reproduced in facsimile in the Complete Writings (1902), Vol. II, facing p. 322.

"Second Annex" (Good-Bye My Fancy) (p. 479). In Whitman's final edition this group of poems had the following preface:

"Had I not better withhold (in this old age and paralysis of me) such little tags and fringe-dots (maybe specks, stains), as follow a long dusty journey, and witness it afterward? I have probably not been enough afraid of careless touches, from the first&emdash;and am not now&emdash;nor of parrot-like repetitions&emdash;nor platitudes and the commonplace. Perhaps I am too democratic for such avoidances. Besides, is not the verse-field, as originally plann'd by my theory, now sufficiently illustrated&emdash;and full time for me to silently retire?&emdash;(indeed amid no loud call or market for my sort of poetic utterance).

In answer, or rather defiance, to that kind of well-put interrogation, here comes this little cluster, and conclusion of my preceding clusters. Though not at all clear that, as here collated, it is worth printing (certainly I have nothing fresh to write)&emdash;I while away the hours of my 72d year&emdash;hours of forced confinement in my den&emdash;by putting in shape this small old age collation:

Last droplets of and after spontaneous rain,
From many limpid distillations and past showers;
(Will they germinate anything? mere exhalations as they all are&emdash;the land's and sea's&emdash;America's;
Will they filter to any deep emotion? any heart and brain?

However that may be, I feel like improving to-day's opportunity and wind up. During the last two years I have sent out, in the lulls of illness and exhaustion, certain chirps&emdash;lingering-dying ones probably (undoubtedly)&emdash;which I may as well gather and put in fair type while able to see correctly&emdash;(for my eyes plainly warn me they are dimming, and my brain more and more palpably neglects or refuses, month after month, even slight tasks or revisions).

In fact, here I am these current years 1890 and '91, (each successive fortnight getting stiffer and stuck deeper) much like some hard-cased dilapidated grim ancient shell-fish or time-bang'd conch (no legs, utterly non-locomotive) cast up high and dry on the shore-sands, helpless to move anywhere&emdash;nothing left but behave myself quiet, and while away the days yet assign'd, and discover if there is anything for the said grim and time-bang'd conch to be got at last out of inherited good spirits and primal buoyant centre-pulses down there deep somewhere within his gray-blurr'd old shell. . . . (Reader, you must allow a little fun here&emdash;for one reason there are too many of the following poemets about death, &c., and for another the passing hours (July 5, 1890) are so sunny-fine. And old as I am I feel to-day almost a part of some frolicsome wave, or for sporting yet like a kid or kitten&emdash;probably a streak of physical adjustment and perfection here and now. I believe I have it in me perennially anyhow.)

Then behind all, the deep down consolation (it is a glum one, but I dare not be sorry for the fact of it in the past, nor refrain from dwelling, even vaunting here at the end) that this late-years palsied old shorn and shell-fish condition of me is the indubitable outcome and growth, now near for 20 years along, of too over-zealous, over-continued bodily and emotional excitement and action through the times of 1862, '3, '4, and '5, visiting and waiting on wounded and sick army volunteers, both sides, in campaigns or contests, or after them, or in hospitals or fields south of Washington City, or in that place and elsewhere&emdash;those hot, sad, wrenching times&emdash;the army volunteers, all States&emdash;or North or South&emdash;the wounded, suffering, dying&emdash;the exhausting, sweating summers, marches, battles, carnage&emdash;those trenches hurriedly heap'd by the corpse-thousands, mainly unknown&emdash;Will the America of the future&emdash;will this vast rich Union ever realize what itself cost, back there after all?&emdash;those hecatombs of battle-deaths&emdash;Those times of which, O far-off reader, this whole book is indeed finally but a reminiscent memorial from thence by me to you?"

"Sail Out for Good, Eidólon Yacht" (p. 479). First published in Lippincott's Magazine, March 1881.

"On, on the Same, Ye Jocund Twain!" (p. 480). Whitman is quoted as saying that this poem was rejected by the Century Magazineas being merely personal. (Frank Harris, Contemporary Portraits, Third Series, p. 221.)

"My 71st Year" (p. 481). First published in the Century Magazine, November 1889.

"The Pallid Wreath" (p. 481). First published in the Critic, January 10, 1891.

"Old Age's Ship & Crafty Death's" (p. 482). First published in the Century Magazine, February 1890.

"To the Pending Year" (p. 483). First published in the Critic, with the title, "To the Year 1889", January 5, 1889.

"Bravo, Paris Exposition!" (p. 483). First published in Harper's Weekly, September 28, 1889.

"Interpolation Sounds" (p. 484). First published in New York Herald, August 12, 1888, without title. Whitman was chagrined that this poem, written in "ten minutes or so", was displayed so prominently in the paper. (Traubel, II, p. 125.)

"To the Sun-set Breeze" (p. 485). First published in Lippincott's Magazine, December 1890; previously rejected by Harper's. (Frank Harris, Contemporary Portraits, Third Series, p. 221.)

"Old Chants" (p. 485). First published in Truth, New York, March 19, 1891. Cf. "With Antecedents" (p. 222); also "Preparatory Reading and Thought". (N. and F., pp. 75-149.)

"Sounds of the Winter" (p. 487). First published in Lippincott's Magazine, March 1891.

"A Twilight Song" (p. 487). First published in the Century Magazine, May 1890.

"When the Full-Grown Poet Came" (p. 488). Cf. "Passage to India", § 5 (p. 375).

"Osceola" (p. 488). First published in Munson's Illustrated World, April 1890.

"A Voice from Death" (p. 489). First published in New York World, June 7, 1889.

"The Commonplace" (p. 491). First published, in facsimile, in Munson's Illustrated World, March 1891. (Rollo G. Silver, American Literature, January 1937, p. 435.)

"The Unexpressed" (p. 493). First published in Lippincott's Magazine, March 1891. A Whitman manuscript, on display in the Whitman Exhibition at the New York Public Library in 1925, indicates that the poem had been offered to Harper's, October 18, 1890.

"Grand is the Seen" (p. 494). A manuscript showing several variations was published in the Conservator, January 1897:

"Grand is the seen, the light&emdash;grand are the sky & stars.
Grand is the earth, & grand are time & space,

And grand their laws so multiform, so evolutionary, puzzling, lasting;
Then grander is one's unseen soul, endowing comprehending those&emdash;
Lighting the light, the sky & stars, sailing the sea, delving the earth,
More multiform&emdash;more puzzling than they, more evolutionary vast & lasting."

"A Kiss to the Bride" (p. 497). Cf. Letter CXXVIII, n. (p. 1032).

"Nay, Tell Me Not To-day the Published Shame" (p. 497). First published in New York Daily Graphic, March 5, 1873.

"Of Many a Smutch'd Deed Reminiscent" (p. 499). Cf. "Ah Poverties, Wincings and Sulky Retreats" (p. 431), and "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, § 6 (p. 150). The manuscript of this poem appears in N. and F., p. 39. Probably it was first published after the poet's death. Other "Old Age Echoes" may belong in the same category such as the first five poems in the group and "Supplement Hours".

"Death's Valley" (p. 499). First published in Harper's Magazine, April 1892.

"A Thought of Columbus" (p. 501). A facsimile of the manuscript of this, Whitman's last deliberate composition, was published in Once a Week, July 9, 1892. Cf. "Prayer of Columbus" (p. 381).

EARLY POEMS

"Ambition" (p. 502). First published in Brother Jonathan, January 29, 1842. The poem is an elaboration of "Fame's Vanity", published in the Long Island Democrat, October 23, 1839. Both poems were reprinted in U.P.P. (I, pp. 4-5, 19-20). A comparison of them shows gradual improvement in verse composition. Cf. "A Backward Glance O'er Travel'd Roads" (p. 858).

"Blood-Money" (p. 503). This poem, almost the first that Whitman published in free verse, appeared in Horace Greeley's New York Tribune, Supplement, March 22, 1850. It was inspired, like Whittier's "Ichabod", by Webster's speech conciliating the slave states, on the 7th of March, and by the Fugitive Slave Law.

"Resurgemus" (p. 505). First published in the New York Daily Tribune, June 21, 1850. Cf. "Europe, The 72d and 73d Years of These States" (p. 246). A comparison of the two versions is made in U.P.P., I, pp. xci, 27-30.

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