ENDNOTES
FIRST EDITION (1855)
1 (p.
7) [Preface]: The bracketed titles of this section and
the following twelve poems were provided by Whitman in later
editions of Leaves of Grass. In the 1855 edition, Whitman
did not provide a title for the preface and wrote “Leaves of Grass”
as a header for the first six poems, leaving the last six without
any title (see “Publication Information”).
Whitman claimed that he had written the preface
and included it in his book at the last minute. As he was assisting
the Rome brothers with the printing of Leaves of Grass in
their Brooklyn Heights shop, Whitman felt that his literary
experiment needed an introduction. It is part of Whitman lore that
the poet composed what turned out to be ten double-columned,
tightly printed pages in one sitting. Whether or not the preface
was a spontaneous creation, its fluid, conversational language—as
well as its strong call to consciousness to American poets and
their readers—make it a revolutionary statement in American
culture.
The idea for a ground-breaking prefatory
statement was not original to Whitman. Though Whitman’s preface is
thoroughly American in voice, imagery, and intention, it also can
be read as a response to or expansion of William Wordsworth’s
epoch-making “Preface to Lyrical Ballads” (1798).
Wordsworth’s popularity after his death in 1850 resulted in a flood
of new American editions of his poetry; Whitman’s notebooks
indicate that he was familiar with Wordsworth’s writings, and parts
of Whitman’s preface seem to borrow from the poet laureate’s
manifesto.
2 (p. 9)
His spirit responds to his country’s spirit ... he
incarnates its geography and natural life and rivers and lakes:
Whitman here shows how the poet’s patriotism and spirit take actual
shape. It is the first instance of one of Whitman’s favorite
themes: the connection between physicality and spirituality. His
interest in this subject is evinced by his inclusion of his
phrenological chart in advertisements for Leaves of Grass.
(Phrenology, a popular pseudoscience of Whitman’s day, was based on
the assumption that intellectual and emotional qualities could be
manifested on the body as bumps on the head.) On page 17 of the
“[Preface],” Whitman names phrenologists (along with
lexicographers) as among the “lawgivers of poets.”
3 (p. 10)
Of all nations the United States with veins full of poetical
stuff most need poets and will doubtless have the greatest and use
them the greatest: For Whitman, the “need” here is particularly
urgent. The 1850S were a time of unprecedented political
corruption. A series of weak presidencies (Millard Fillmore,
president 1850-1853; Franklin Pierce, 1853-1857; and James
Buchanan, 1857-1861) eroded Americans’ confidence in leadership.
Just a few months before the printing of the First Edition,
Pierce’s failed leadership helped set the stage in “Bleeding
Kansas” for what amounted to a local civil war between pro-slavery
and abolitionist settlers.
4 (p. 13)
This is what you shall do: The following passage is inspired
by Paul’s dictates in Romans 12:1-21. The rolling lines and stately
rhythms of many of Whitman’s writings were inspired by passages
from the Bible, particularly Psalms and the Gospels.
5 (p. 27)
The soul of the largest and wealthiest and proudest nation ...
his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorbed
it: These powerful lines are the foundation of Whitman’s
philosophy of literature: The poet must reflect his people, and the
people embrace their poet. As he brought forth subsequent editions
of Leaves of Grass without receiving the general support of
the American public, Whitman realized he would not experience this
symbiotic relationship with his readers during his lifetime (see
note 130, to “A Backward Glance o‘er Travel’d Roads,” his
end-of-career response to the demands of the “[Preface]”).
6 (p. 29)
loveroot, silkthread, crotch and vine: This is the reader’s
introduction to Whitman’s use of “sexualized” plant life. All four
words are names of plants, though they bring to mind parts of the
human body as well. Whitman’s suggestiveness here has led critics
to hypothesize about the tie between “grass” and pubic hair,
especially in the next few pages of “Song of Myself.”
7 (p. 31)
plumb in the uprights, ... braced in the beams: These are
carpenter’s terms. Whitman’s father was a skilled carpenter, and
Whitman himself worked in the trade while getting Leaves of
Grass ready for publication. In addition to using carpentry
terms throughout his poems, Whitman often includes the terminology
of printing, his first real profession and a trade that remained
dear to him throughout his life.
8 (p. 32)
But they are not the Me myself In the following section,
Whitman differentiates between soul and self (“the other I am”),
spiritual and physical Walt. He sees a symbiotic relationship
between the two, which is typical of the connections between
physical and spiritual realms throughout Leaves of
Grass.
9 (p. 33)
and elder and mullen and pokeweed: The preceding section has
been subject to a myriad of interpretations, many of them concerned
with the sexuality of the passage; for the infamous “oral sex”
interpretation, as well as others, see Edwin Haviland Miller’s Walt
Whitman’s “Song of Myself ”: A Mosaic of Interpretations,
Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1989, pp. 59-67. The intimacy
and moment of revelation shared by the “me” and “you” of the
passage need not be purely sexual, however; it might well be a
dialogue between the “self and the ”soul“ that is referenced in the
section immediately preceding this one in ”Song of Myself.“
10 (p.
36) there the pistol had fallen: When the grandson of
American statesman Henry Clay shot himself in New Orleans, Whitman
was there to report it. The ”still photo“ feeling of many of the
images in ”Song of Myself was inspired by Whitman’s years as a
journalist.
11 (p.
39) Twenty-eight young men bathe by the shore ... They do
not think whom they souse with spray: The “swimmers” passage
has intrigued many of Whitman’s readers, including Thomas Eakins
(who painted “The Swimming Hole” in 1885). Especially intriguing is
the number twenty-eight (or twenty-nine). In Walt Whitman’s America
(see “For Further Reading”), David Reynolds provides a telling
example of Whitman’s “encoded” language in his reference to Pete
Doyle, with whom he began a friendship in 1865, as “16.4” (the
letter numbers of his initials); there is reason to believe, then,
that the number twenty-eight holds significance (whether it has
something to do with the lunar or female reproductive cycle or with
Whitman’s age when he experienced a particularly important
event).
12 (p.
39) shuffle and breakdown: An example of how Whitman used
his journalism to inspire his poetry. In an editorial for the New
York Aurora, Whitman describes butchers in the marketplace:
”With sleeves rolled up, and one comer of their white apron tucked
under the waist string—to whoever casts an enquiring glance at
their stand, they gesticulate ... and when they have nothing else
to do, they amuse themselves with a jig, or a break-down. The
capacities of the ’market roarers’ in all the mystery of a double
shuffle, it needs not our word to endorse“ (1842).
13 (p.
43) must sit for her daguerreotype: In the middle of this
collage of everyday life, Whitman introduces one of his
fascinations: the new and popular art of photography. Starting in
the 1840s, daguerreotype studios lined Broadway. Matthew Brady and
Gabriel Harrison were among the best, and Whitman’s favorites.
Whitman was allegedly the most photographed nineteenth-century
American poet; more then X images of him are available at the Walt
Whitman Archive (see ”For Further Reading“).
14 (p.
43) The opium eater reclines with rigid head and just-opened
lips: Opium use was at an all-time high in Whitman’s New York,
particularly in slum areas such as Five Points. Though there is no
evidence that Whitman ever experimented with opium, he certainly
saw it in use. Whitman had a fear of addictions that may be rooted
in his father’s alleged alcoholism; the poet was active in the
popular Temperance Movement through the early 1840S.
15 (p.
47) I cock my hat as I please indoors or out: From his own
cocky image on the frontispiece of Leaves of Grass, to his
order in the ”[Pref ace]“ to ”take off your hat to nothing known or
unknown or to any man or number of men,“ Whitman defied the polite
conventions of hat wear of his day. Clothes did indeed make the
man, according to Whitman: For him, the reflection of the inner
self in outer wear was analogous to the connection between the
spiritual and the physical.
16 (p.
52) Walt Whitman, an American, one of the roughs, a kosmos:
This line, approximately halfway into the first poem in the 1855
First Edition of Leaves of Grass, is the poet’s first use of
his name. Thus one can identify the ”anonymous“ author only if one
has read into the heart of the poem—a point that calls into
question whether some reviewers had actually read ”Song of Myself “
in its entirety (in the New York Tribune of July 23, 1855,
Charles A. Dana writes of ”our nameless bard“).
17 (p.
52) Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!: These
lines appear on the title page of the City Lights edition of Allen
Ginsberg’s X poem ”Howl,“ a poem meant to respond to and extend
Whitman’s message 100 years after the First Edition of Leaves of
Grass.
18 (p.
56) I hear the bravuras of birds: Throughout this passage, Whitman
”hears“ traditional musical instruments and sounds in nature. Thus
he also listens to the fish-pedlars’ “recitative” (a term normally
reserved for opera singers), the anchor-lifters’ ”refrain“ (or
repeated chorus), and the drum-like ”solid roll of the
train.”
19 (p.
58) I have instant conductors all over me ... lead it
harmlessly through me: Whitman’s idea here is inspired by his
knowledge of such popular pseudosciences as the study of animal
magnetism, a phenomenon in which electrical impulses flow through
the body.
20 (p.
63) Where triphammers crash .... where the press is whirling its
cylinders: In this line, Whitman includes references to the art
of printing. These are wonderfully appropriate to the 1855 edition
of Leaves of Grass, which he helped typeset.
21 (p.
63) or a good game of base-ball: Whitman was a fan of the
new sport, the rules and features of which were standardized in the
1840S by members of the New York Knickerbocker Club. Though the
birthplace of baseball is still in question, many argue that it was
Whitman’s beloved Brooklyn.
22 (p.
67) the crowded and rudderless wreck of the steamship, and death
chasing it up and down the storm : On December 22, 1853, the
ship San Francisco set sail for South America; from December
23 to January 5 it was rudderless. Many lost their lives. Whitman
probably read about this event in the New York Tribune of January
21, 1854.
23 (p.
68) I am the mashed fireman with breastbone broken: As a
journalist in the 1840S, Whitman was well aware of the terrible
fires that ravaged Manhattan throughout that decade. In the
Brooklyn Daily Eagle of February 2.4, 1847, he described a scene to
which he had been an eyewitness: ”When my eyes caught a full view
of it, I beheld a space of several lots, all covered with
smoldering ruins, mortar, red hot embers, piles of smoking,
half-burnt walls—a sight to turn a man’s heart sick.... the most
pitiful thing in the whole affair was the sight of shivering women,
their eyes red with tears, and many of them dashing wildly through
the crowd, in search, no doubt, of some member of their family,
who, for what they knew, might be burned in smoking ruins near by.”
After September 11, 2001, this “Song of Myself”
passage appeared on numerous firehouse doors in New York City, as a
tribute to firefighters killed in the line of duty.
24 (p.
69) I tell not the fall of Alamo: Whitman’s years as a
newspaper reporter continue to flavor this section, which tells a
lesser-known tale of a bloodier battle than the battle of the
Alamo, which ended on March 6, 1836. In late March of that year
some 400 Americans were murdered after they surrendered to the
Mexicans near Goliad, Texas.
25 (p.
70) Did you read in the seabooks of the oldfashioned
frigate-fight?: Whitman here describes a Revolutionary War sea
battle that took place on September 23, 1779, between the American
ship the Bon homme Richard and the British Serapis. He was
interested in preserving important moments in American history in
his poem.
26 (p.
76) Magnifying and applying come I: In this bold passage,
the poet claims that gods and priests have made too little of the
divinity of man. Whitman’s self-education in world religions is
evinced by this passage, which runs through the names of gods from
Jehovah to Manito (an Algonquin god), Odin (the chief Norse deity),
and Mexitli (an Aztec war god).
27 (p.
78) Here and there with dimes on the eyes walking: For an
earlier version of this passage, see “The House of Friends” (p.
739). The early version was first published in the New York
Tribune of June 14, 1850.
28 (p.
83) And slept while God carried me through the lethargic mist, /
And took my time.... and took no hurt from the foetid carbon:
Whitman had read enthusiastically about pre-Darwinian evolutionary
theory in the years leading up to Leaves of Grass.
“Lethargic mist” and “foetid carbon” are references to pre-human
ages, earlier even than the period of “monstrous sauroids” (Whitman
probably means dinosaurs) he refers to in the next few lines.
29 (p.
90) I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world:
The title of Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Howl” (1955), written 100 years
after the publication of Leaves of Grass, was inspired by
this line.
30 (p.
91) I stop some where waiting for you: The lack of end
punctuation here is intentional, as the poem and its message were
not supposed to have an end. The last word “you” circles back to
the first word (“I”), as Whitman’s personal epic continues as the
reader’s own.
31 (p.
91) I pass so poorly with paper and types: Whitman begins
“[A Song of Occupations]” with allusions to his own first
occupation in the printing industry. When he first wrote the poem,
he was engaged in newspaper publishing and would continue to
be—hence the “unfinished business” of “cold types” and “wet
paper.”
32 (p.
101) Woman in your mother or lover or wife: This is one of
many examples in which Whitman ties femaleness with motherhood
first but leaves out references to a father figure as far as
masculinity is concerned. See also the body-skimming passage at the
end of “I Sing the Body Electric” (p. 254), in which Whitman looks
at the male form in detail but fixates upon the maternal elements
of women. In “[There Was a Child Went Forth]” (p. 138), Whitman
speaks lovingly of his mother, but his father is described as
“mean” and even “unjust.”
33 (p.
111) I am the actor and the actress: The dream sequence that
starts here demonstrates extraordinary fluidity of identity. The
poet is neither male nor female—or perhaps he is both. While the
imagery remains heterosexual, the speaker now has the opportunity
to identify his lover as a “he.” Whitman, who was gay but not
completely “out,” is thus able to write about same-sex love under
the guise of heterosexual passion.
34 (p.
112) and the best liquor afterward: It is difficult to
determine the precise nature of this passage, a convolution of
natural and sexual imagery. But it is a moment of bliss and
resolution after a particularly difficult “exposure” passage in
which the poet seemed to find himself “naked” and confronting
deep-set anxieties.
35 (p.
112) through the eddies of the sea: This is the first of
four “dream sequence” passages. The description of the swimmer
sounds like the poet himself, who also identified himself as the
“twenty-ninth swimmer” in “[Song of Myself].” This particular
scene, with its shipwreck and washed-up bodies, was inspired by
Whitman’s witnessing of the wreck of the Mexico off
Hempstead Beach in 1840.
36 (p.
114) Now of the old war-days: The second dream sequence
evokes scenes from Revolutionary War days. In the first stanza,
Washington becomes emotional over the battle of Brooklyn Heights on
August 27, 1776; next, Washington is once again teary-eyed, this
time over bidding his troops farewell after America’s
victory.
37 (p.
114) as we sat at dinner together: The third dream sequence,
like the previous two, concerns the longing for missed human
connections, and the grief over loss. Here, the mother figure
mourns the disappearance of the aborigine—perhaps regretting the
lost bond with indigenous American culture.
38 (p.
115) Now Lucifer was not dead .... or if he was I am his
sorrowful terrible heir: The powerful “Black Lucifer” passage
was deleted after 1855. Whitman evokes the Bible’s Lucifer, who, by
fearlessly confronting God and fighting for his freedom from the
ultimate master, became a revolutionary hero for the Romantic
poets. Whitman thus vilifies the slave (“Black Lucifer”) who
chooses to defy his master (the “sportsman” or hunter of the
passage). Written during a time when slave revolts were on the
increase, the passage is deliberately incendiary. “The vast dusk
bulk that is the whale’s bulk” may well be the latent power of the
enslaved masses waiting to arise—though the phrase is also sexually
provocative, and may have been inspired by Melville’s 1851 novel
Moby Dick.
39 (p.
119) and duly return to you: A rephrasing of the Bible, Job 1:21:
“Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return
thither” (King James Version). Here, as in “Out of the Cradle
Endlessly Rocking” (p. 400), the darkness and quiet of the maternal
womb is evoked as a desirable place to which to return.
40 (p.
119) whether those who defiled the living were as bad as they
who defiled the dead?: The poem begins and ends with
indictments against those who “corrupt” their bodies and “defile”
the living and the dead. Here masturbation (“corruption”) seems to
be viewed negatively, which contrasts with the opinion dominating
“Bunch Poem” of 1856 (retitled “Spontanous Me” in 1867).
41 (p.
127) This is a face of bitter herbs .... caoutchouc, or hog’s
lard: In these lines, the poet compares human faces with items
that speak of inner troubles—a face that evokes the putridity of a
vomit-inducer (emetic), the addictive pull of laudanum (a mixture
of opium and alcohol), the hardness of caoutchouc (crude rubber),
and the soft greasiness of hog’s lard.
42 (p.
128) that emptied and broke my brother: Mental-health
problems plagued the Whitman family, so it is possible that there
is biographical truth to these lines. Walt’s older brother, Jesse,
was eventually confined to and died in an insane asylum in 1870;
his youngest brother, Edward, was mentally retarded at birth (and
possibly afflicted with Down’s syndrome or epilepsy).
43 (p.
133) [Europe: The 72d and 73d Years of These States]:
Whitman is reacting with favor to the revolutions going on in
Austria, Hungary, Germany, and Italy; they were set off by the
dethroning of Louis-Philippe of France in 1848, when the second
French Republic was declared.
44 (p.
135) [A Boston Ballad]: This poem is Whitman’s vigorous and
sarcastic protest against the way state and federal authorities
handled the case of Anthony Burns in 1854. Burns was an African and
a slave belonging to Charles Suttle of Alexandria, Virginia. He
escaped on a Boston-bound ship in early 1854; in May he was
arrested, and after a weeklong trial, Judge Edward Loring ruled
that Burns had to return to his master. Antislavery agitators like
Wendell Phillips championed Burns as a martyr and led rallies.
Because most of Boston protested the ruling, federal troops were
called in to escort Burns back to the ship. Crowds jeered, and the
American flag was hung upside down. On July 4 activists held a huge
rally in Framingham, Massachusetts. It was there that Henry David
Thoreau delivered a powerful address, “Slavery in Massachusetts,”
and William Lloyd Garrison burned copies of the Fugitive Slave Law
and the Constitution.
45 (p.
138) And clap the skull on top of the ribs, and clap a crown on
top of the skull: The poet sarcastically bids the silent,
passive onlookers to glue the corrupt King George III together
again and set him up for the United States Congress to
“worship.”
46 (p.
139) The father, strong, selfsufficient, manly, mean, angered
... the tight bargain, the crafty lure: These lines have been
cited in support of the theory that Whitman had a troubled
relationship with his father. Alternately, maternal imagery in this
poem is comforting and attractive, from the image of the Quaker
mother to the “mother” schooner with the “baby” boat “slacktowed
astern.”
47 (p.
142) thirty-six years old in 1855: The birth date, height,
and age correspond to factual data on Whitman.
DEATH-BED EDITION (1891-1892)
1 (p.
147) Come, said my Soul: Whitman “framed” the experience of
reading the “Death-bed” Edition with this introductory poem (which
also appeared on the title pages of the two variants of the 1876
Centennial Edition—Leaves of Grass: Author’s Edition,
with Portraits and Intercalations and Leaves of Grass:
Author’s Edition, with Portraits from Life—as well as
Complete Poetry and Prose of X888) and “So Long!”, the
farewell poem for every edition since 1860.
2 (p.
165) the word En-Masse: The first lines of the first poem in
the “Death-bed” Edition recall the message of the first poem in the
1855 Leaves of Grass (“[Song of Myself]”): The poem
celebrates Whitman himself and through him all others. Here Whitman
seems to be simplifying and modifying his earlier, more blatantly
egotistical statement.
3 (p.
173) temperate, chaste, magnetic: Throughout the 1850S,
Whitman was intrigued by several developing pseudosciences. Animal
magnetism was the study of the flow of “electricity” within the
human body, including how this energy might be exchanged with the
help of mediums or machines.
4 (p.
173) To a Certain Cantatrice: The poem was dedicated to
Marietta Alboni (1823-1894), an Italian contralto who visited
America in 1852 and 1853. Whitman often referred to his love for
opera; as he wrote for the Atlantic Monthly, “but for the
opera, I could never have composed Leaves of Grass.”
“To a Certain Cantatrice,” “The Dead Tenor” (p.
648), and “The Singer in the Prison” (p. 520) are all dedicated to
opera singers; many other poems and passages—including “That Music
Always Round Me” (p. 583) and the “trained soprano” passage of
“[Song of Myself]” (p. 29)—relate how moved and inspired he was by
this musical genre. See Robert Faner’s Walt Whitman and
Opera, Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press,
1951.
5 (p.
175) I Hear America Singing: Whitman’s vision of himself as
a “singer” and “chanter of songs” was in part inspired by the
popularity of family singing groups in mid-nineteenth-century
America. In the Brooklyn Daily Eagle of April 3,1846,
Whitman wrote: “We have now several American vocal bands that in
true music really surpass almost any of the artificial
performers from abroad: there are the Hutchin sons, the Cheneys,
the Harmoneons, the Barton family, and the Ethiopian serenaders—all
of them well trained, and full of both natural and artistic
capacity.”
6 (p.
183) camerado: One of Whitman’s variants for “comrade,” this
word carries a suggestion of intimacy and tenderness. Whitman often
associated the word “camerado” with “adhesiveness,” a term from
phrenology that designates a love and closeness between friends
(and one of Whitman’s code words for homosexual love).
7 (p.
190) and us two only : In 1860 four lines were included
between this and the next line; they were omitted from all
succeeding editions. The original lines are typical of the strong
“adhesive” sentiments of the 1860 Leaves of Grass—feelings
that Whitman chose to tone down or leave out of later editions.
O power, liberty, eternity at last!
O to be relieved of distinction! To make as much of
vices as virtues!
O to level occupations and the sexes! O to bring all to
common ground! O adhesiveness!
O the pensive aching to be together—you know not why,
and I know not why.
O to be relieved of distinction! To make as much of
vices as virtues!
O to level occupations and the sexes! O to bring all to
common ground! O adhesiveness!
O the pensive aching to be together—you know not why,
and I know not why.
8 (p.
190) Song of Myself- See the “Publication Information”
section of this edition. Major changes over the years include the
addition of stanza numbers in 1860 and the addition of section
numbers in 1867. After 1855 (see p. 29) Whitman also began
substituting dashes and more regular punctuation for his original
ellipses, the length of which he sometimes modified to signify the
length and depth of pauses. Additionally, he modified and toned
down many of the more provocative passages. Many believe that the
1855 version of “Song of Myself” has a spontaneous, vital quality
that is missing from the more ordered later editions. The later
“Song of Myself ” is, however, easier to read, and the poetry often
has a more graceful, even feel.
9 (p.
214) Walt Whitman, a kosmos, of Manhattan the son: This
important identifying line went through several transitions before
achieving its current smoothness and combination of universality
and specificity. In 1855 it was the energetic but clumsy “Walt
Whitman, an American, one of the roughs, a kosmos” (p. 52); in 1867
it became the stronger statement “Walt Whitman am I, of mighty
Manhattan the son”; in 1871 the line became overcrowded again:
“Walt Whitman am I, a Kosmos, of mighty Manhattan the son.” The
line achieved its final version in 1881.
10 (p.
218) I hear the traind’d soprano (what work with hers is
this?): This line was toned down significantly in 1867. In 1855
it read: “I hear the trained soprano .... she convulses me like the
climax of my love-grip” (p. 57). In 1867 the line became “I hear
the trained soprano- (what work, with hers, is this?).”
11 (p.
233) And feel the dull intermitted pain: The alterations
made to this passage illustrate that over time Whitman’s style
became more condensed and focused but also lost some of its
specificity and energy. Consider the nonspecific imagery of the
first stanza of section 37 and compare it to this section’s
appearance in 1855:
O Christ! My fit is mastering me!
What the rebel said gaily adjusting his throat to the rope-noose,
What the savage at the stump, his eye-sockets empty,
his mouth spirting whoops and defiance,
What stills the traveler come to the vault at Mount Vernon,
What sobers the Brooklyn boy as he looks down the shores
of the Wallabout and remembers the prison ships,
What burnt the gums of the redcoat at Saratoga when he
surrendered his brigades,
These become mine and me every one, and they are but little,
I become as much more as I like.
What the rebel said gaily adjusting his throat to the rope-noose,
What the savage at the stump, his eye-sockets empty,
his mouth spirting whoops and defiance,
What stills the traveler come to the vault at Mount Vernon,
What sobers the Brooklyn boy as he looks down the shores
of the Wallabout and remembers the prison ships,
What burnt the gums of the redcoat at Saratoga when he
surrendered his brigades,
These become mine and me every one, and they are but little,
I become as much more as I like.
I become any presence or truth of humanity
here,
And see myself in prison shaped like another man,
And feel the dull intermitted pain (p. 72).
And see myself in prison shaped like another man,
And feel the dull intermitted pain (p. 72).
Most of the lines of the first stanza were
removed for the 1856 edition; the second stanza began changing
significantly after 1860.
12 (p.
234) Enough! enough! enough!: In 1855 the following lines
appeared instead of this one:
I rise extatic through all, and sweep with the
true gravitation,
The whirling and whirling is elemental within me (p. 73).
The whirling and whirling is elemental within me (p. 73).
After 1860 all signs of this culminating moment
were removed, which was typical of the regularized pacing and
modified dramatic moments of the later editions.
13 (p.
244) The great Camerado, the lover true for whom I pine will be
there: In 1855 this section read: “Our rendezvous is fitly
appointed .... God will be there and wait till we come” (p. 84).
The alterations that culminate in the present shaping of these
lines (which appeared first in 1876) demonstrate Whitman’s turn
from more intimate, informal relationships to universal prototypes
for love: The rendezvous morphs from one between Whitman and us,
the readers, to Whitman and God, who becomes his “great Camerado,
the lover true.”
14 (p.
251) I stop somewhere waiting for you: Perhaps the most
significant change in editions of “Song of Myself ” after 1855 was
the addition of end punctuation to this line. The new period at the
end of the sentence seems unfortunate: The open-endedness of the
line in 1855 was a perfect affirmation of the poet’s message.
15 (p.
252) Children of Adam: This group of poems (then “Enfans
d‘Adam”) and “Calamus” both appeared first in the 1860 edition, and
Whitman himself hinted at the relationship between these
collections. While the “Calamus” cluster has as a focus manly
friendship and af fection, the poems in “Children of Adam” involved
heterosexual love and the products of connections between men and
women (as the title suggests). Readers have long noted the
coherence of the poems in the “Calamus” cluster, which seem to tell
a personal tale of the poet’s own love and losses, while the
“Children of Adam” poems are varied and seem less intimate. Whitman
may have purposefully juxtaposed what was important for the
individual (the deep emotions of “Calamus”) and the human race as a
whole (the emphasis on procreation and continuity in “Children of
Adam”); perhaps unconsciously, he demonstrates his sympathies for
homosexual expression in the finessed quality of the “Calamus”
cluster.
16 (p.
254) From sex, from the warp and from the woof Following
this line, these two lines were omitted after 1860:
(To talk to the perfect girl who understands
me—the girl
of The States,
To waft to her these from my own lips—to effuse them from
my own body).
of The States,
To waft to her these from my own lips—to effuse them from
my own body).
17 (p.
254) I Sing the Body Electric: This poem, along with “The
Dalliance of the Eagles” (p. 425), “A Woman Waits for Me” (p. 263),
and several others, came under attack in 1882. Publisher James R.
Osgood of Boston asked Whitman to alter several lines and passages
on the grounds that the poems violated the public statutes
concerning obscene literature. Whitman consented to a few changes,
but when Osgood claimed they weren’t drastic enough, Whitman wrote
back: “The whole list and entire is rejected by me, and will not be
thought of under any circumstances.” He immediately wrote the essay
“A Memorandum at a Venture,” a condemnation of the two prevailing
attitudes toward sex in America: suppression and exploitation. It
was published in June 1882 in the North American Review.
18 (p.
261) For they do not conceal themselves, and cannot conceal
themselves: With these two lines and the following section,
Whitman made a major addition to this poem in 1856. In section 9,
Whitman seems to trace his hand over the human body; when one reads
the passage, one gets the sensation that the poet is lovingly
“touching” the reader from head to toe. Though he claims equal
interest in all human bodies in the fourth line of section 9, the
anatomical “tour” certainly favors the male form. When he does
finally get to “womanhood,” his description is more maternal than
sensual-and notably shorter. D. H. Lawrence was one admirer of
Whitman who nevertheless found reasons to question Whitman’s take
on women, citing the poet’s “‘Athletic mothers of these States—‘
Muscles and wombs. They needn’t have had faces at all” (Studies
in Classic American Literature, 1923).
19 (p.
263) They know how to swim, row, ride, wrestle, shoot, run,
strike, retreat, advance, resist, defend themselves: These
lines depicting women as confident, active, and aggressive seem
wonderfully progressive even today, though critics have pointed out
that Whitman “masculinized” these female objects of his affection.
A friend of many early suffragettes, including Fanny Wright and
Lucretia Mott, Whitman was probably familiar with many of the
writings on the “new womanhood.” The Illustrated Family
Gymnasium (published in 1857 by Fowler and Wells, who sold
Whitman’s First Edition in their bookstore) even contained images
of uncorseted women lifting barbells.
20 (p.
264) I dare not withdraw till I deposit what has so long
accumulated within me: These surprisingly aggressive lines have
offended many readers. In an 1883 diary entry, feminist Elizabeth
Cady Stanton wrote of this poem: “He speaks as if the female must
be forced to the creative act, apparently ignorant of the natural
fact that a healthy woman has as much passion as a man, that she
needs nothing stronger than the law of attraction to draw her to
the male.” Some have looked more critically at this rape-like
scene, while others see it as further evidence that Whitman simply
did not know how to describe a heterosexual love scene.
21 (p.
267) I toss it carelessly to fall where it may: The
condemnation of masturbation—the “solitary vice”—was a major goal
of American social reformers in the 1840S and ’50S. Through the
last twenty lines, the poet wrestles with guilt even as he equates
the act and the elements with beautiful, organic imagery. The last
six lines reference a story from Genesis 38 that is traditionally
used to explain the condemnation of masturbatory practices: Onan
was put to death by God for “spilling his seed” and thus defying
God’s order to mankind to “be fruitful, and multiply” (Genesis
1:28). The speaker of “Spontaneous Me” may be as self-absorbed and
greedy about his seed as Onan; notably, however, Whitman’s
protagonist escapes Onan’s punishment.
22 (p.
270) Once I Pass’d Through a Populous City: In Whitman’s
Manuscripts : Leaves of Grass (1860) (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1955, p. 64), Fredson Bowers includes an early
manuscript draft of this poem, originally titled “Enfans d‘Adam.
9,” that alters the sexuality of the love interest:
Once I passed through a populous celebrated
city, imprinting
on my brain for future use, its shows, with its shows, architecture,
customs and traditions
But now of all that city I remember only the man who
wandered with me, there, for love of me,
Day by day, and night by night, we were together,
on my brain for future use, its shows, with its shows, architecture,
customs and traditions
But now of all that city I remember only the man who
wandered with me, there, for love of me,
Day by day, and night by night, we were together,
All else has long been forgotten by me—I
remember, I say, only one rude and ignorant man who, when I
departed, long and long held me by the hand, with silent lips, sad
and tremulous.
23 (p.
274) Calamus: (See note 15, above, to Children of Adam.)
Fitting for a collection of poems within Leaves of Grass,
“Calamus” takes its name from an herb with pointy, narrow leaves.
Whitman explained his choice to his English editor, William Michael
Rossetti: “Calamus is a common word here. It is the very large
& aromatic grass, or rush, growing about water-ponds in the
valleys—spears about three feet high—often called ‘sweet
flag’—grows all over the Northern and Middle States” (The
Correspondence, vol. 1, p. 347). Whitman’s stress here is
clearly on the universality of the plant, but there is another
reason it may have caught his attention: The shape of its floral
spike is suggestive of an erect phallus. Indeed, he had already
sexualized “sweet-flag” in “Song of Myself (section 24).
Considering that the poems in the ”Calamus“ cluster are held
together by the sentiment of ”male bonding” (Whitman used the
phrenological term ”adhesiveness“ to refer to this attachment
between men), the choice of plant seems especially fitting.
The “Calamus” cluster has been cited as the
“homoerotic” cluster compared with the predominantly heterosexual
passion of the “Children of Adam” poems. The more unified and
intimate feel of the “Calamus” poems suggests that Whitman was more
in his element with the theme of same-sex love. Scholar Fredson
Bowers—in Whitman’s Manuscripts: Leaves of Grass
(1860)—discovered that Whitman had written twelve of the
“Calamus” poems as a separate series entitled “Live Oak with Moss”;
these poems can be read as the story of an unhappy love affair, and
many Whitman scholars have suggested an autobiographical component
to these works. The series can be approximated by reading the poems
in this sequence (numbers of poems are given in the annotations in
the “Publication Information” section): Calamus 14, 20, 11, 23, 8,
32, 10, 9, 34,43, 36, and 42. For a full discussion of the “Live
Oak with Moss” series, see Bowers, pp. lxiii-Ixxiv.
24 (p.
276) Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand: The teachings
of Jesus in the Gospels (particularly the Book of John) inform
Whitman’s message and language throughout this poem. This high,
majestic tone permeates several of the poems new to the 1860
edition of Leaves of Grass: Consider also “To One Shortly to
Die” (p. 585, originally part of the “Messenger Leaves” cluster)
and “Ages and Ages Returning at Intervals” (p. 268; “Enfans d‘Adam.
12” in 1860).
25 (p.
279) Here, out of my pocket, some moss which I pull’d off a
live-oak in Florida as it hung trailing down: This is the first
mention of the live oak in the Calamus series. The action of
”pulling off “ a twig is significant, particularly because it is
the central act of ”I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing” (p.
286).
26 (p.
280) Not in any or all of them O adhesiveness!: Adhesiveness
was a phrenological term for same-sex friendship. On the
phrenological maps of the human mind published in Fowler and
Wells’s Illustrated Family Gymnasium, “adhesiveness”
occupied a large site and thus had tremendous potential for
affecting a person’s behavior. Whitman claimed he scored a 6 (the
highest number) in “adhesiveness” on the phrenological chart he
included in early editions of Leaves of Grass.
27 (p.
281) The Base of All Metaphysics: This poem shows Whitman in
the role of professor—an unusual one for him, since, as he wrote in
”Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand,“ “in any roof’d room of a
house I emerge not, nor in company, /And in libraries I lie as one
dumb” (p. 276). For an interesting juxtaposition, see ”When I Heard
the Learn’d Astronomer” (p. 423).
28 (p.
286) I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing: This is possibly
the first poem written for the ”Calamus” series; it is also
credited with being the second in the ”Live Oak with Moss” series
(see note 23, above). The poet is clearly comparing himself with
the strong, solitary tree—though he has doubts about his ability to
remain so. The doubt of the last line introduces the theme of
yearning that runs throughout the ”Live Oak with Moss”
grouping.
29 (p.
290) A Glimpse: The “Calamus” cluster was written and first
published during what might be called Whitman’s bohemian years. On
September 8,1858, he wrote an article entitled ”Bohemianism in
Literary Circles” for the Brooklyn Times; after he was fired
from the newspaper the next year, he began frequenting New York’s
first bohemian meeting place, Pfaff’s Cellar. The
restaurant/bar/café, at the corner of Broadway and Bleecker, was a
second home to actors like Ada Clare and radical journalists such
as Henry Clapp (whose Saturday Press published several of
Whitman’s poems). “A Glimpse” is thought to be a description of the
poet meeting a lover—perhaps Fred Vaughan—at Pfaff’s.
30 (p.
291) I Dream’d in ’a Dream: In Whitman’s Manuscripts:
Leaves of Grass (1860) (p. 114), Fredson Bowers includes this
earlier, more focused version of the poem’s first lines:
I dreamed in a dream of a city where all the men
were like brothers,
O I saw them tenderly love each other—I often saw them,
in numbers walking hand in hand,
I dreamed that was the city of robust friends—Nothing was
greater there than manly love—it led the rest,
It was seen every hour in the actions of the men of that city,
and in all their looks and words—
O I saw them tenderly love each other—I often saw them,
in numbers walking hand in hand,
I dreamed that was the city of robust friends—Nothing was
greater there than manly love—it led the rest,
It was seen every hour in the actions of the men of that city,
and in all their looks and words—
31 (p.
298) I see the tracks of the railroads: Whitman fully
embraced progress in the name of democracy. In the following five
lines, he celebrates two new wonders: the American rail system,
which had grown quickly after 1830, and the electric telegraph.
When Whitman first published this poem in 1856, Americans were
still experimenting with various methods of telegraphing; by 1866
the first permanently successful transatlantic cable had been laid.
Whitman’s poem “Passage to India,” published in 1871, applauds this
technological advancement.
32 (p.
305) Song of the Open Road: The title and subject of this poem were
particularly influential on the Beat poets of the 1950S Jack
Kerouac embraced Whitman’s ideas of the romance and freedom of
travel and the joys of the journey (rather than the destination) in
his 1957 novel On the Road.
33 (p.
309) Something there is in the float of the sight of things:
Whitman also uses the word “float” in “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry”—in
the passage “I too had been struck from the float forever held in
solution” (p. 319). The connotation is of a disembodied vision or
knowledge, though the poet seems to be purposefully elusive
here.
34 (p.
316) Crossing Brooklyn Ferry: From the mid-1840S to 1862
(when he left New York to help with the Civil War effort), Whitman
rode the Brooklyn ferry almost daily. For Whitman and many of his
fellow New Yorkers, the ferry was a necessary “frame” to the
working day: The eight-minute trip from Brooklyn’s Fulton Street to
Manhattan’s Fulton Street, and then back again, was the commute
between Brooklyn’s bedroom communities and Manhattan’s workplaces.
From the early 1600S until it closed some years after the
completion of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1883, the Brooklyn Ferry
represented an important “passage” that was, for Whitman and
others, also a destination in itself: Even while riders moved
toward a destination, they were part of a common, shared
experience.
35 (p.
319) the dark patches fall: This self-revelatory passage
underwent significant revision from 1856 through later editions.
Also notable are early drafts of this poem, which indicate that
Whitman was struggling with identity issues and second thoughts
about his literary calling. Consider this passage, found in
Whitman’s Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts,
edited by Edward F. Grier, New York: New York Universiy Press,
1984, vol. 1, p. 230. The verbal stutter—an oral “coming to
terms”—is especially moving:
I too have—
Have—have—
I too have—felt the curious questioning come upon me.
In the day they came
In the silence of the night came upon me
Have—have—
I too have—felt the curious questioning come upon me.
In the day they came
In the silence of the night came upon me
36 (p.
322) you dumb, beautiful ministers: Originally this line
ended with the additional phrase “you novices,” which strengthens
the religious associations of the word “minister.” The people and
scenes looking on the ferry as it rides from shore to shore are
divine agents of a greater force—yet the ferry riders have achieved
the greater spiritual awakening.
37 (p.
339) Weapon shapely, naked, wan: The first six lines of the
poem are a rare instance of rhyme in Whitman’s poetic oeuvre; for
another example that was much despised by Whitman himself, see “O
Captain! My Captain!” p. 484). This passage appeared in much the
same form in its original version in the 1856 edition (with the
addition of exclamation marks).
38 (p.
353) Blazon’d with Shakspere’s purple page, / And dirged by
Tennyson’s sweet sad rhyme: William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
and Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892) were among a handful of British
writers whom Whitman admitted to reading and admiring. His anger at
the ongoing popularity of British writers in America and his
interest in creating a new American literary culture did not often
allow him room to admire British “representative men.”
39 (p.
356) Away with old romance!: In the following stanza, the
poet takes aim at two of his favorite targets: the patriarchal
literary traditions of Europe, and the decadence associated with
Old World attitudes. “Take no illustrations whatever from the
ancients or classics, nor from the mythology, nor Egypt, Greece, or
Rome—nor from the royal and aristocratic institutions and forms of
Europe. Make no mention or allusion to them whatever,” wrote
Whitman in manuscripts dating from the early 1850S (Notebooks
and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts, vol. 1, p. 101).
40 (p.
357) the Brooklyn bridge: One of Whitman’s few references to
a bridge often closely associated with his poetry. Construction of
the bridge began in 1870 and was completed in 1883, long after
Whitman had left New York and settled in Camden, New Jersey. In
1876, the year that “Song of the Exposition” appeared in Two
Rivulets, the completion of the Brooklyn and New York bridge
towers inspired a Festival of Connection.
41 (p.
361) Song of the Redwood-Tree: This poem is exceptional in
that it earned Whitman a tidy sum: He received $100 when it
appeared in Harper’s Magazine of February 1874. He later
included it in Two Rivulets (1876) and in the 1881 edition
of Leaves of Grass.
42 (p.
375) Of the interminable sisters: The poet seems to be
speaking of celestial bodies, including the “beautiful sister we
know” (earth). His use of numbers (such as the twenty-four who
appear daily, and the three hundred and sixty-five moving around
the sun) recalls his use of the number twenty-eight in the
“swimmers” passage of “Song of Myself”: Each number relates to
cyclical movements of the planets charted by calendars.
43 (p.
389) France, The 18th Year of These States: Whitman is
alluding to 1794, the year of the culmination of the Reign of
Terror. After the execution of Robespierre on July 28, 1794, a
reconstituted Committee of Public Safety was established, and many
former terrorists were executed.
44 (p.
392) Year of Meteors (1859-60): Whitman probably had
witnessed at least two meteor showers before writing this poem (one
in 1833, another in 1858), but the “meteors” here refer to stellar
individuals rather than heavenly bodies.
45 (p.
395) A Broadway Pageant: The poem was originally written to
commemorate the arrival of the envoys of the new Japanese Embassy
in New York, where treaties between Japan and America were
negotiated that year.
46 (p.
400) Sea-Drift: This group of eleven poems first appeared in
the 1881 edition of Leaves of Grass. As the title
suggests, each of the poems is set in or on the sea, or at the
seashore—a favorite childhood haunt of the poet‘s, and a place for
reflection and inspiration throughout his life.
47 (p.
400) Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking: One of Whitman’s
major statements, this was the last poem written during his most
important decade as an artist (1850-1860). The references to
childhood on Long Island (the Native American name is Paumanok)
have led many to read this poem as Whitman’s personal statement
regarding his development as a poet; it also anticipates the themes
of love and loss in the “Calamus” poems that Whitman probably was
also composing at this time. Remembering too the strong antebellum
tensions of 1859 (a frequent point of discussion at Pfaff’s), one
might also read the poem as an elegy for the United States on the
eve of the Civil War: The happy pair of Alabama birds is eventually
separated, and the remaining bird is trapped in an alien and
violent landscape.
Despite all the possibilities of meaning now seen
in “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking,” the first critical
reaction to the poem was that it was “meaningless.” This attack on
the poem, which appeared in the Cincinnati Daily Commercial
on December 28, 1859, was quickly refuted by Whitman in an article
entitled “All About a Mocking Bird” (Saturday Press, January
7, 1860).
“Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking” has been
set to music more than any of Whitman’s other poems, and it
demonstrates his interest in opera. In Walt Whitman and
Opera (pp. 86-89), Robert Faner suggests that the alternation
of italicized and non-italicized passages reflects the relationship
in opera of arias (sung parts) and recitatives (story lines). In
New York City the 1840S and 1850S were great times for the
performance of Italian opera, of which Whitman was particularly
fond. The Astor Place Opera House opened in 1847 and was America’s
largest theater until the Academy of Music started hosting
performances in 1854; throughout these years, such artists as
Marietta Alboni, Pasquale Brignoli, and Jenny Lind sang at New York
venues. Whitman frequently attended operatic performances.
48 (p.
400) From the word: The poet refers to “Death,” the word
repeated by the sea near the end of the poem. Death, in other
words, is present in the beginnings of life too—and is one of the
poet’s points of departure.
49 (p.
401) Shine! shine! shine!: The first of the arias alluded to by the
poet on page 404. Here, one of the two mockingbirds “sings” words
that the gifted boy-listener can understand.
50 (p.
406) Death, death, death, death, death: This onomatopoeic
sound uttered by the crashing and retreating waves echoes the
five-time repetition of “loved” (p. 404). Facing loss and life’s
dreaded mysteries, the boy becomes an artist.
51 (p.
406) As I Ebb’d with the Ocean of Life: Like other poems
written at this particular moment of Whitman’s career, “As I Ebb’d
with the Ocean of Life” has a confessional feel: Whitman apparently
was disappointed with the mild reception of the first two editions
of Leaves of Grass and was also channeling the unrest and
discontent of antebellum America.
52 (p.
410) To the Man-of-War-Bird: The poem was twice published in
periodicals—the London Athenaeum of April 1, 1876, and the
Philadelphia Progress of November 16,1878. In the latter
publication, Whitman acknowledged that his poem nearly paraphrased
an English translation of Jules Michelet’s French poem “The Bird.”
Such acknowledgments were absent from further publications, which
speaks to Whitman’s lifelong “anxiety of influence” and reticence
regarding his sources and readings. It is strange, however, that
the poet did not seek to alter the rather un-Whitmanesque use of
“thou.”
53
(p. 413) and of the future: Some nineteen lines that
followed this stanza in 1856 were removed for subsequent editions.
It was typical of the mature poet to omit many of his most personal
sentiments in revisions. Consider, for example, three of the lines
left out of all but the poem’s first edition:
I am not uneasy but I am to be beloved by young
and old men,
and to love them the same,
I suppose the pink nipples of the breasts of women with whom
I shall sleep will taste the same to my lips,
But this is the nipple of a breast of my mother, always near
and always divine to me, her true child and son.
and to love them the same,
I suppose the pink nipples of the breasts of women with whom
I shall sleep will taste the same to my lips,
But this is the nipple of a breast of my mother, always near
and always divine to me, her true child and son.
54
(p. 417) A Boston Ballad: See note 44 to the First Edition.
A comparison of the 1855 version of this poem with this final one
indicates some of the changes in Whitman’s style throughout his
career: He replaced ellipses with dashes, controlled and
regularized line length, and toned down the heightened drama of
exclamations.
55
(p. 419) Europe, The 72d and 73d Years of These States: See
the note 43 to the First Edition (p. 133). Revisions made on this
poem between 1855 and 1860 indicate Whitman’s growing appreciation
for more even-toned meter and clarified (if less dramatic)
statements. Compare, for example, the second stanza of 1860 (set in
a more traditional four-line format that evokes blues rhythms) with
the breathless two-line stanza of the 1855 edition.
56
(p. 421) A Hand-Mirror: If the first two poems of “By the
Roadside” represent Whitman’s awakening as a political poet, “A
Hand-Mirror” indicates his increasing interest and involvement in
the bohemian subcultures of New York throughout the late 1850S.
Although there is no evidence that Whitman himself overindulged in
alcohol or drugs, he socialized with heavy drinkers at Pfaff’s
Cellar and regularly walked through the Five Points area, where
many an “unwholesome [opium] eater’s face” was seen on the
streets.
57
(p. 421) Gods: This poem’s regular refrain, almost
hymn-like, places it in a small group of more traditionally
patterned poems, along with “O Captain ! My Captain!” (p. 484) and
“Song of the Broad-Axe” (p. 339).
58
(p. 425) The Dalliance of the Eagles: When Whitman was
courting Boston publisher James R. Osgood for the publication of
Leaves of Grass in 1882, Osgood asked Whitman to remove
several poems and passages on the grounds that they violated the
“Public Statutes concerning obscene literature.” Surprisingly, “The
Dalliance of the Eagles” was one of the “banned” poems—along with
the much racier “A Woman Waits for Me” and “Spontaneous Me.”
59
(p. 426) Roaming in Thought: Late in his career, Whitman
became an avid reader of the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm
Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831).
60
(p. 430) Drum-Taps: Published in a thin, black-covered book,
this collection of poems was designed to be a separate effort from
Leaves of Grass: Whitman saw Drum-Taps as reflecting
his time and place more specifically than his other collections. He
had left New York for Virginia in December 1862, to search for his
wounded brother; from that time until the end of the Civil War,
Whitman spent most of his time in Washington as a hospital nurse
and governmental office worker. What he saw and experienced went
into Drum-Taps, the most patriotic and accessible poetry he
had yet written.
61
(P. 435) Song of the Banner at Daybreak: The “call and
response” format is not typical of Whitman’s style. English poet
William Wordsworth (1770-1850) used it in such popular poems such
as “Expostulation and Reply” and “We Are Seven.”
62
(p. 444) City of Ships: Lines 8 and 9 of this poem form part
of the balustrade at the World Financial Center in New York
City.
63
(p. 445) The Centenarian’s Story: A man old enough to
remember the battle of Long Island (August 1776) recalls his story
to a Civil War soldier. Whitman thus places two fights for freedom
in a comparison.
64
(p. 457) The Wound-Dresser: This poem catalogues Whitman’s
experiences as a Civil War hospital nurse. For the classic
commentary on Whitman’s engagement in the war, see Walt Whitman
and the Civil War, edited by Charles Glicksberg, Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1933.
65
(p. 462) Dirge for Two Veterans: Note the unusual regular
stanzaic form of this poem; as in “O Captain! My Captain!” (p.
484), the closed form seems to bring solemnity to the poem’s
subject.
66
(p. 465) The Artilleryman’s Vision: This poem is an
interesting nineteenth-century explanation of “shell shock.”
67
(p. 470) Delicate Cluster: In this poem Whitman uses
language (“cluster,” “orbs”) he had earlier employed in the
“Calamus” and “Children of Adam” poems to connote male sexuality;
he now applies those words to a feminized American flag.
68
(p. 471) Lo, Victress on the Peaks: It was typical of
Whitman’s “late style” (after 1871) to remove more dramatic lines
and phrasing. This poem exhibits another of the poet’s later
tendencies: to feminize neutral imagery, in this case Libertad
(“Freedom”). See also note 67, above.
69
(p. 473) To the Leaven’d Soil They Trod: Whitman often
carefully selected the opening and closing poems of his collections
(see, for example, the Publication Information note for “So
Long!”), and “To the Leaven’d Soil They Trod” is no exception: It
gives the sense of America as a “clean slate” and “equal ground”
after the Civil War.
70
(p. 475) When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d: In
1865-1866, lines 9—13 of what is now section 16 read as follows:
Must I leave thee, lilac with heart-shaped
leaves?
Must I leave thee there in the door-yard, blooming, returning
with spring?
Must I pass from my song for thee;
From my gaze on thee in the west, fronting the west,
communing with thee,
O comrade lustrous, with silver face in the night?
Must I leave thee there in the door-yard, blooming, returning
with spring?
Must I pass from my song for thee;
From my gaze on thee in the west, fronting the west,
communing with thee,
O comrade lustrous, with silver face in the night?
These dramatic questions reflect Whitman’s
immediate and utter despondency over the loss of his “redeemer
president.” Whitman had first seen Lincoln on February 19,
1861—Lincoln’s second visit to New York City. From the top of an
omnibus gridlocked in traffic, Whitman had a “capital view” of
Lincoln despite the crowd of about 40,000 gathered to see him. And
so began Whitman’s fascination with Lincoln, a representation of
the poet’s supreme values for humanity, both political and personal
(some critics have suggested that the poet may have even had a
“crush” on the president). When he was working in Washington,
Whitman allegedly waited by the White House gates just to catch a
glimpse of Lincoln when he stepped out. In a lecture entitled
“Death of Abraham Lincoln” delivered several times between 1879 and
1881 (and recorded in Collect, the literary miscellany
included in Specimen Days and Collect of 1882), Whitman
concluded : “Dear to the Muse—thrice dear to Nationality—to the
whole human race—precious to the Union—precious to
Democracy—unspeakably and forever precious—their first great Martyr
Chief ”
As for the strong symbols of the lilac sprig
(Whitman’s love for the president) and the star (Lincoln himself)
used throughout, Whitman was struck by two particular visions in
the month before the assassination: the lilacs that bloomed early
due to an unusually warm spring, and the beauty of Venus sinking
into the west. The thrush resembles the “solitary singer” of “Out
of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking,” a fig uration of Whitman as
“chanter of songs.”
71
(p. 476) Night and day journeys a coffin: In sections 5 and
6, the poet describes the procession of Lincoln’s funeral train
from Washington to Springfield, Illinois. Nine railroad cars draped
in black traveled the 1,662 miles to Lincoln’s hometown, and 7
million Americans gathered alongside the tracks to watch it
pass.
72
(p. 481) Come lovely and soothing death: As in “Out of the Cradle
Endlessly Rocking” (p. 400), the bird’s voice is set in italics.
Whitman did not use italics in the first publication of “When
Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d.”
73
(p. 484) O Captain! My Captain!: The most popular of
Whitman’s poems is also uncharacteristic of his style. Whitman grew
to dislike the poem and its clumsy attempt at regularity. “The
thing that tantalizes me most is not its rhythmic imperfection or
its imperfection as a ballad or rhymed poem (it is damned bad in
all that, I do believe) but the fact that my enemies and some of my
friends who half doubt me, look upon it as a concession made to the
philistines—that makes me mad,” he told his friend Horace Traubel
(see With Walt Whitman in Camden, vol. 2, p. 333).
74
(p. 485) By Blue Ontario’s Shore: From its first appearance
in 1856, this poem has functioned as Whitman’s definitive social
statement. In 1856 it constituted a broad directive for how the
country might be unified; the poem echoed many of the commands of
the “[Preface]” (p. 7) and actually used or modified many of its
most powerful statements. Section 14 of “By Blue Ontario’s Shore,”
for example, places Whitman’s well-known passage from the
“[Preface]” (the lines beginning with “This is what you shall do,”
p. 13) in a poetic format.
Whitman continued to revise this poem through
subsequent editions, adding historical detail and topical
references, and the changes between editions are interesting to
note. Consider section 7, for example; this angry indictment of
Southern slave-owners was added only for the 1867 Leaves of
Grass.
75
(p. 501) Reversals: “Reversals” is a fitting name for this
poem, since the commands are either “reversals” or seem to oppose
Whitman’s typical commands; however, “Respondez,” the title it
carried in the 1867, 1871, and 1876 editions, also fits the
deliberately provocative nature of Whitman’s indictments.
76
(p. 502) Autumn Rivulets: Like the three clusters that
followed it in 1881 (“Whispers of Heavenly Death,” “From Noon to
Starry Night,” and “Songs of Parting”), “Autumn Rivulets” has a
title that reflects the poet’s sense of impending death. His
personal history provides a clear indication of why mortality was
so much on his mind at this time. Beginning in his fifties, Whitman
was plagued with health problems and emotional trials: He suffered
a paralytic stroke in January 18 and his mother died in May of that
year; he became involved in an ill-fated relationship with Harry
Stafford in 1876; and he was taken ill again in 1879 while
traveling west.
Despite the aches of his deteriorating body and a
heavy heart, Whitman rarely brought a sense of hopelessness or
sadness to these late collections. Many of the poems he selected to
include in them focus on the themes of immortality and the cycles
of life. The selections exhibit a thoughtful “backward glance” at a
life that spanned the nineteenth century, and a sense that Whitman
saw a progression and continuance in his own career as poet.
77
(p. 502) As Consequent, Etc.: Notable are Whitman’s use of
the “rivulets” metaphor, an old-age echo of his image of the
American poet in the 1855 “[Preface]:” “His spirit responds to his
country’s spirit ... he incarnates its geography and natural life
and rivers and lakes” (p. 9). The “windrow-drift of weeds and
shells” are the scenes of American life “washed up” by the poet’s
“currents.”
78
(p. 511) Old Ireland: This is Whitman’s single poem on the
Irish, which is surprising in that they were the largest group of
working-class immigrants during Whitman’s New York years. In
Whitman and the Irish (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press,
2000, p. xii), Joann Krieg notes that a full 30 percent of New
York’s population in 1855 were Irish by birth. Though “Old Ireland”
is a sympathetic portrait of the Irish and the revolutionary
organization the Fenian Brotherhood, Krieg and others have wondered
at Whitman’s silence regarding this important population in his
city.
79
(p. 517) Song of Prudence: Like “By Blue Ontario’s Shore”
(p. 485), “Song of Prudence” is greatly influenced by the language
of the 1855 “[Preface].” See the passage on prudence—undoubtedly
inspired by Emerson’s essay “Prudence”—which begins on page 21; the
section beginning “Only the soul is of itself (p. 22) corresponds
with Whitman’s third stanza here. The fine line between Whitman’s
prose and poetry is particularly interesting to note in this
case.
80
(p. 520) The Singer in the Prison: This is one of the three
poems in this cluster—along with “Vocalism” (p. 526), “Italian
Music in Dakota” (p. 541), and ”Proud Music of the Storm“ (p.
543)—to be inspired specifically by the power of music, and one of
the very few poems in Whitman’s entire oeuvre to be inspired by a
particular event (”When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom‘d,” on
page 475, is probably the best-known example). Whitman is said to
have attended a concert given by the Italian tenor Carl Parepa-Rosa
at a New York prison in 1869.
81
(p. 533) Unfolded Out of the Folds: The 1881 publication of
the poem garnered this celebration of womanhood more attention than
had its previous revisions: It was one of the poems (along with
”The Sleepers,“ also included in the “Autumn Rivulets” cluster)
that was considered indecent by Boston district attorney Oliver
Stevens. Before the D.A. would allow publication of this edition,
he asked publisher James R. Osgood to alter and omit particular
lines of ”Unfolded Out of the Folds.”
82
(p. 537) O Star of France: As the subtitle suggests, Whitman
wrote this poem in 1871 as a reaction to the defeat of France in
the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871).
83
(p. 541) Italian Music in Dakota: An enthusiastic fan of
Italian opera since the 1840S, Whitman mentions three of his
favorites; the military band of the subtitle probably played the
overtures. His taste for European opera, which always seemed in
conflict with his support for an independent American culture, here
finds resolution: The music of Vincenzo Bellini (1801-1835;
composer of Norma and La Sonnambula) and Gaetano
Donizetti (1797-1848; Poliuto) sound as “native” as the
natural sounds of the Dakota plains.
84
(p. 543) Proud Music of the Storm: In Walt Whitman and
Opera (pp. 103—105), Robert Faner describes section 3 of the
poem as Whitman’s “musical autobiography”: The poet recounts that
his love of music developed from his mother’s lullabies through the
folk songs of his youth to his love of Italian opera. Critics have
also commented on the poem’s “symphonic structure” and musical
rhythms, though Whitman himself admitted he was a musical
illiterate who could not carry a tune.
85
(p. 549) Passage to India: A celebration of progress and
modern life, ”Passage to India“ reflects Whitman’s admiration of
Columbus in its title (see “Prayer of Columbus,” below). He praises
the accomplishments of explorers, engineers, architects, and
inventors throughout, with special emphasis on the three grand
achievements in lines 5, 6, and 7: the Suez canal (opened in 1869),
the transcontinental railroad (Union Pacific and Central Pacific
lines were joined in 1869), and the transatlantic cable (laid in
1866). Machines and the workings of man ”connect“ humanity here—a
very different message from the more spiritual, poet-centered
proclamations of the 1855 poems.
86
(p. 558) Prayer of Columbus : The poet here assumes the
voice of Columbus, who was imprisoned after his third voyage and
plagued by ill health before his death. Whitman’s admiration for
the explorer leads to strong identification with him. Like
Columbus, the aging poet had not gained the widespread appeal he
had hoped for, and in 1873 Whitman suffered a paralytic stroke that
brought on dizzy spells for the better part of a year.
87
(p. 560) The Sleepers: See notes 33-39 to the First Edition.
This final version of ”The Sleepers,“ prepared for the 1881 edition
of Leaves of Grass, excludes two notable paragraphs from the
original work: the ”discovery and mortification“ passage (”O
hotcheeked and blushing!“, p. 111), and the ”black Lucifer“ passage
(”Now Lucifer was not dead“, p. 115). The omission of these highly
charged, sexual (and politically radical, in the case of the
plotting slave Lucifer) passages is a typical ”late style“
revision, as is the refigured punctuation (dashes and periods
substitute for the original ellipses). The numbering of the
passages is a later addition as well.
88
(p. 570) To Think of Time: A comparison of this poem with
its first incarnation (p. 102) reveals much about Whitman’s
changing editorial practices.
89
(p. 577) Whispers of Heavenly Death: The poems of ”Whispers
of Heavenly Death“ are taken from several editions, though not so
many as were used for ”Autumn Rivulets“; nine of the eighteen are
from the 1860 edition. Like the other clusters new to the 1881
edition, this one shows Whitman in a philosophical, almost mystical
mode. The word ”soul“ predominates among the eighteen works.
90
(p. 577) Whispers of Heavenly Death: This poem is
interesting for its use of female-based imagery for night (”labial
gossip,“ ”sibilant chorals“), which connects with the final
”birthing“ metaphor.
91
(p. 578) Chanting the Square Deific: The first of the
allusions to the ”square deific,“ this poem is divided into four
parts: The first describes four supreme authority figures (the god
of the Hebrews, Jehovah; the Hindu supreme spirit, Brahma; the
Roman god Saturnius, or Saturn; and the Greek god Kronos); the
second part details divinities of sacrifice and love; the third,
Satan; and the fourth, the Christian idea of the Holy Spirit.
92
(p. 580) Of Him I Love Day and Night: The poem’s themes make
it a good fit for the provocative ”Calamus“ series, but a better
match for this soul-searching group of poems. It’s interesting to
compare ”Of Him I Love Day and Night“ with Wordsworth’s ”Lucy“
poems.
93
(p. 582) Assurances: The poem defies its title by including
a negative statement in each of its twelve lines.
94
(p. 583) That Music Always Round Me: This poem is one of
several in which Whitman celebrates the power of music
(specifically opera or vocal music). See also ”The Dead Tenor“ (p.
648), ”The Mystic Trumpeter“ (p. 600), ”To a Certain Cantatrice“
(p. 173), ”Proud Music of the Storm“ (p. 543), and ”Italian Music
in Dakota“ (p. 541)-
95
(p. 584) A Noiseless Patient Spider: See the ”Publication
Information“ note for ”Darest Thou Now O Soul“ (p. 577). Whitman’s
use of an unusually easy to understand metaphor (the spider’s
creation of a web for the soul’s exploration of space and time) has
made this poem a popular favorite.
96
(p. 595) From Noon to Starry Night: The idea of the title
begins with the high noon described in the first poem (”Thou Orb
Aloft Full-Dazzling“) and ends with the vision of ”A Clear
Midnight“ (p. 617). The poems also follow Whitman’s career from his
”noon“ on through the evening of his life, with poems selected from
the First Edition as well as new works for 1881. In addition to a
feeling of time that has passed, these poems convey a sense of
great distances crossed: from south to north, Spain to Colorado,
and back to Whitman’s beloved Mannahatta.
97
(p. 596) Faces: Among the faces described are several
possible family members, including Whitman’s brother Eddie, who was
possibly retarded or epileptic (the ”idiot“ of section 3), and his
grandmother (the woman wearing a Quaker cap in section 5).
98
(p. 600) The Mystic Trumpeter: This is yet another poem
celebrating the powers of music—in this case, its ability to evoke
the past and herald the future.
99
(p. 603) To a Locomotive in Winter: Along with such poems as
”Passage to India,“ this is an example of Whitman’s celebration of
progress and invention.
100
(p. 606) Mannahatta: This poem appeared in 1881 with the
three final lines substituting for seven original lines:
The parades, processions, bugles playing, flags
flying, drums beating,
A million people—manners free and superb—open voices—
hospitality—the most courageous and friendly young men,
The free city! No slaves! No owners of slaves!
The beautiful city, the city of hurried and sparkling waters!
The city of spires and masts!
The city nested in bays! My city!
The city of such women, I am mad to be with them!
I will return after death to be with them!
The city of such young men, I swear I cannot live happy without
I often go talk, walk, eat, drink, sleep with them!
A million people—manners free and superb—open voices—
hospitality—the most courageous and friendly young men,
The free city! No slaves! No owners of slaves!
The beautiful city, the city of hurried and sparkling waters!
The city of spires and masts!
The city nested in bays! My city!
The city of such women, I am mad to be with them!
I will return after death to be with them!
The city of such young men, I swear I cannot live happy without
I often go talk, walk, eat, drink, sleep with them!
It is interesting to compare the force and
effectiveness of “Mannahatta” with the poem immediately preceding
it, “O Magnet-South.” Though Whitman was clearly trying to portray
his love for all corners of the United States, his attachment to
New York City clearly shines through the superior lines of this
poem.
101
(p. 608) A Riddle Song: This poem contains a question
without an answer—and follows Whitman’s 1855 directive to the
reader, to “listen to all sides, and filter them from yourself”
(“[Song of Myself]”).
102
(p. 611) Mediums: The “mediums” of the title are Americans
who will represent and convey ideas of democracy through their
physical selves and actions. The poem clearly draws on the 1855
“[Preface]” (p. 7) for its thesis.
103
(p. 612) Spain, 1873-74: Whitman here supports Spain’s
attempt to establish a constitutional republic and asks Americans
to consider their past and offer support for the Spanish
revolutionaries.
104
(p. 613) From Far Dakota’s Canons: In the last stanza,
Whitman romanticizes Custer’s last stand at Little Big Horn.
105
(p. 614) Old War-Dreams: The poem is interesting for its
suggestion of just how much the poet was emotionally affected by
his Civil War experiences; it reads as an insider’s understanding
of “shell shock.”
106
(p. 615) What Best I See in Thee: This poem celebrates
General Ulysses S. Grant’s 1877-1879 world tour.
107
(p. 66) Spirit That Form’d This Scene: In 1879 Whitman took
a trip to the western states; he commemorates its memory in these
lines.
108
(p. 618) Songs of Parting: As the title suggests, the themes
of this cluster are death and departure: The poet glances backward,
but also ponders his legacy and the future of America. Just as this
title is a more forthright statement of Whitman’s feelings of
mortality than are “Autumn Rivulets,” “Whispers of Heavenly Death,”
and “From Noon to Starry Night” (the other three newly organized
clusters in the 1881 Leaves of Grass), the poems in this
cluster focus more directly and intensely on the themes of death
and swiftly passing time.
109
(p. 618) As the Time Draws Nigh: Among the lines that were
dropped or changed in revisions are these, which appeared after
line 6 in 1860:
The glances of my eyes, that swept the
daylight,
The unspeakable love I interchanged with women,
My joys in the open air—my walks through the Mannahatta,
The continual good will I have met—the curious attachment
of young men to me,
My reflections alone—the absorption into me from the
landscape, stars, animals, thunder, rain, and snow, in my
wanderings alone ...
The unspeakable love I interchanged with women,
My joys in the open air—my walks through the Mannahatta,
The continual good will I have met—the curious attachment
of young men to me,
My reflections alone—the absorption into me from the
landscape, stars, animals, thunder, rain, and snow, in my
wanderings alone ...
110
(p. 620) Ashes of Soldiers: Whitman’s inclusion of this
poem, along with “Pensive on Her Dead Gazing” (p. 626) and “Camps
of Green” (p. 627) in 1881 confirms the enduring impact of his
Civil War experiences.
111
(p. 623) Song at Sunset: This poem’s ecstatic, celebratory
mode has made it a favorite with readers.
112
(p. 625) As at Thy Portals Also Death: New for 1881, this
poem was inspired by the death in 1873 of Whitman’s beloved mother,
Louisa Van Velsor Whitman.
113
(p. 628) The Sobbing of the Bells: Whitman penned this poem
after hearing of President James A. Garfield’s death on September
19.
114
(p. 635) First Annex: Sands at Seventy: Each poem in this
cluster is brief, at least for Whitman; one after another, they
read as a series of spontaneous “thought-bubbles” floating through
the poet’s mind. In “You Lingering Sparse Leaves of Me” (p. 657),
the poet writes of his special affection for these “soul-dearest
leaves confirming all the rest, / The
faithfulest—hardiest—last.”
115
(p. 637) A Font of Type: This poem celebrates the art of
printing; the names for different type styles listed in line 3 show
off Whitman’s insider knowledge of the “language” of
printing.
116
(p. 638) The Wallabout Martyrs: This poem celebrates the
Revolutionary soldiers buried in a mass grave in Brooklyn.
Wallabout Bay is a bend in the East River just north of the
Brooklyn Bridge.
117
(p. 638) America : A recording of Whitman reading the first
four lines of this poem was allegedly made by Thomas Edison in
1891.
118
(p. 640) Fancies at Navesink: Whitman may have visited Navesink, on
the New Jersey coast, in the summer of 1883 or 1884. “With
Husky-Haughty Lips, O Sea!” (p. 644), another “Sands at Seventy”
poem, was also inspired by the poet’s visits to the Jersey
shore.
119
(p. 645) Red Jacket (From Aloft): This poem—like “Yonnondio”
(p. 649), also in “Sands at Seventy”—demonstrates Whitman’s
interest in Native American culture. Red Jacket was an Iroquois
leader who is said to have made the Iroquois sympathetic to the
American cause in the War of 1812.
120
(p. 648) Old Salt Kossabone: This poem celebrates Whitman’s
maternal heritage. Dutch Kossabone was the grandfather of Louisa
Van Velsor Whitman, the poet’s mother.
121
(p. 648) The Dead Tenor: This poem is a memorial to the
great Italian tenor Pasquale Brignoli (1824-1884). Whitman had
enjoyed the singer’s performance of some of his favorite roles;
those he mentions in the poem include Fernando in Donizetti’s La
Favorita, Manrico in Verdi’s II Trovatore, the title
role in Verdi’s Ernani, and Gennaro in Donizetti’s Lucrezia
Borgia.
122
(p. 650) “Going Somewhere”: This poem alludes to Anne
Gilchrist, an Englishwoman (and wife of William Blake’s biographer)
who greatly admired Whitman and developed a friendship with him.
Gilchrist died in 1885.
123
(p. 658) As the Greek’s Signal Flame: First published in the
New York Herald of December 15, 1887, the poem celebrates
the birthday of the American poet John Greenleaf Whittier
(1807-1892), who had corresponded with Whitman.
124
(p. 661) Preface Note to 2d Annex, Concluding L. of G.—1891:
Spontaneous-sounding remarks like these introduce or expand the
themes of other poems in the collection, giving this cluster a
“conversational” tone.
125
(p. 667) Shakspere-Bacon’s Cipher: This poem engages in the
questions regarding Shakespeare’s identity and the authorship of
the plays.
126
(p. 668) Bravo, Paris Exposition!: This poem celebrates the
1889 Paris Exposition and indicates Whitman’s interest in progress
and invention in his final years.
127
(p. 673) Osceola: This poem memorializes the bravery of the
Seminole leader Osceola, who died, as Whitman indicates, in
1838.
128
(p. 674) A Voice from Death: This poem memorializes the
thousands who died when a dam collapsed in Johnstown,
Pennsylvania.
129
(p. 677) Mirages: This poem’s introductory note is
fictional: Whitman never visited Nevada. The veracity of other
unverifiable introductory statements—such as the one for “The
Rounded Catalogue Divine Complete”—is thus called into
question.
130
(p. 679) Good-Bye My Fancy!: Though “fancy” more commonly
designates the imagination, the poet may be bidding his own body or
physical presence farewell in this poem (consider the line “Exit,
nightfall, and soon the heart-thud stopping”). “Fancy” might also
be something (or someone) the poet has treasured and fantasized
about for an extended time.
131
(p. 681) A Backward Glance o‘er Travel’d Roads: In a note to
his “Prefatory Letter to the Reader, Leaves of Grass 1889,”
Whitman told his public that he favored this edition of his
writings: “As there are now several editions of L. of G., different
texts and dates, I wish to say that I prefer and recommend the
present one, complete, for future printing.” The essay “A Backward
Glance o’er Travel’d Roads” has thus remained in volumes of his
collected poetry, while also collected in Complete Prose
Works (1892). Along with the “[Preface]” to the 1855 edition
of Leaves of Grass, “A Backward Glance” frames Whitman’s
career and the body of his work. Although he had grown more
pessimistic about his reception since his poetic beginnings, he
remained determined when explaining the motivations of his project
and when calling American artists to consciousness.
ADDITIONAL POEMS
Poems Written before 1855
1
(P.719) The Spanish Lady: This poem retells the tragic tale of Inez
de Castro (1320-1355).
2 (p.
723) The Punishment of Pride: In 1894 Whitman’s friend and
companion Horace Traubel interviewed Charles A. Roe, one of
Whitman’s former students from Little Bay Side, Queens. Roe claimed
that Whitman made his students memorize a poem entitled “The Fallen
Angel”; to prove it, Roe recited the poem, which turned out to be a
variant of “The Punishment of Pride.” See Traubel’s article “Walt
Whitman, Schoolmaster: Notes of a Conversation with Charles A. Roe,
1894,” in the Walt Whitman Fellowship Papers 14 (April
1895), pp. 81-87.
3 (p.
728) The Death and Burial of McDonald Clarke: This poem was
signed “W.” and designated “For the Aurora” (the Aurora was
a New York newspaper of the day). Clarke (1798-1842), the so-called
“Mad Poet of Broadway,” wrote several volumes of unconventional
poetry and was himself a symbol of the “outsider artist.”
4 (p.
735) Song for Certain Congressmen: This poem mocks
supporters of the Compromise of 1850, which granted California
admittance to the Union but did not enforce legal restrictions on
slavery in Utah and New Mexico. “Song for Certain Congressmen” is
Whitman’s first truly political poem, and his growing political
awareness is evident in the following three poems (all published
over a period of less than four months).
5
(P.738) Blood-Money: In this poem, supporters of the
Compromise of 1850 are compared with Judas Iscariot, the disciple
who betrayed Jesus in the New Testament.
6
(p.739) The House of Friends: The third poem inspired by the
hypocrisies of the Compromise of 1850, the poem demonstrates
Whitman’s increasing awareness of the division between South and
North.
7 (p.
741) Resurgemus: Whitman’s inspiration here is the spirit of
the European revolutions of the late 1840S; despite loss and death,
the ideas of liberty and democracy live on.
Poems Excluded from the “Death-bed” Edition
of Leaves of Grass (1891-1892)
8 (p.
755) Calamus. 8: Like “Calamus. 9,” the poem openly
addresses the narrator’s passion for a male companion.
Poems Published after the 1891-1892
“Death-bed” Edition: Old Age Echoes
9 (p.
780) A Kiss to the Bride: This poem commemorates the wedding
of the daughter of Ulysses S. Grant.
10
(p. 781) Nay, Tell Me Not To-day the Publish’d Shame: This
poem critiques the passing of an act to increase the salaries of
the U.S. president and other government officials.
11
(p. 783) Death’s Valley: “Death’s Valley” was inspired by
the artwork of American landscape painter George Inness
(1825-1894).
12
(p. 784) On the Same Picture: The title is Horace Traubel’s.
The title of the manuscript (“Death’s Valley”) indicates that the
stanza was meant to be included in the poem “Death’s Valley,”
above.
13
(p. 784) A Thought of Columbus: In the July 16, 1892,
edition of the newspaper Once a Week, Traubel explains how
Whitman finished the poem and handed it to him a few days before
his death.