Walt Whitman : Selected Poems, 1855-1892

by Whitman, Walt; Schmidgall, Gary

• ISBN13: 9780312206192
• ISBN10: 0312206194
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-08-23
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Summary

In this provocative edition, Whitman biographer Gary Schmidgall presents more than 200 of Whitman's finest poems, written during the creative and sexual prime of his life. Line drawings. 7 photos.

Author Biography

Gary Schmidgall is the author of several studies of Shakespeare and biographies of Oscar Wilde and Walt Whitman. He has been a fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies and the Mellon and Guggenheim Foundations.

Table of Contents

Introduction	xv
Leaves of Grass 1855
Whitman's Preface	3	(12)
The Twelve Poems of the 1855 Edition:
``I celebrate myself...''	15	(51)
``Come closer to me...''	66	(9)
``To think of time...''	75	(6)
``I wander all night in my vision...''	81	(8)
``The bodies of men and women engirth me...''	89	(6)
``Sauntering the pavement...''	95	(3)
``A young man came to me...''	98	(3)
``Suddenly out of its stale and drowsy lair...''	101	(2)
``Clear the way there Jonathan!...''	103	(2)
``There was a child went forth...''	105	(2)
``Who learns my lesson complete?...''	107	(1)
``Great are the myths...''	108	(4)
Whitman's Unsigned Review, Brooklyn Daily Times (1855)	112	(2)
Whitman's Unsigned Review, U.S. Review (1855)	114	(7)
Leaves of Grass 1856
Poem of Salutation	121	(9)
Poem of Wonder at The Resurrection of The Wheat	130	(2)
Poem of You, Whoever You Are	132	(2)
Sun-Down Poem	134	(6)
Poem of The Road	140	(9)
Poem of Procreation	149	(2)
Clef Poem	151	(1)
Poem of The Heart of The Son of Manhattan Island	152	(1)
Faith Poem	153	(1)
Poem of Perfect Miracles	154	(1)
Bunch Poem	155	(2)
Poem of The Propositions of Nakedness	157	(3)
Poem of The Sayers of The Worlds of The Earth	160	(6)
Ralph Waldo Emerson's Congratulatory Letter	166	(1)
Whitman's Reply to Emerson	166	(6)
The Emerson-Whitman Exchange: A Conversational Postscript (1889)	172	(5)
Leaves of Grass 1860
Proto-Leaf	177	(11)
From the Chants Democratic Cluster:
``Splendor of falling day...''	188	(2)
``Historian ! you who celebrate bygones!...''	190	(1)
``To oratists--to male or female...''	191	(1)
``Poets to come!...''	192	(1)
``Me imperturbe...''	193	(1)
``I was looking a long while...''	194	(1)
``American mouth-songs!...''	194	(1)
From the Leaves of Grass Cluster:
``Elemental drifts!...''	195	(3)
``O bitter sprig!...''	198	(1)
``I sit and look out...''	199	(1)
``Now I make a leaf of Voices...''	200	(1)
``What am I, after all, but a child...''	200	(1)
``Lift me close to your face till I whisper...''	201	(1)
Poem of Joys	201	(7)
A Word Out of the Sea	208	(6)
From the Enfans D'Adam Cluster:
``To the garden, the world...''	214	(1)
``From that of myself...''	215	(2)
``O furious! O confine me not!...''	217	(1)
``You and I--what the earth is, we are...''	218	(1)
``Native moments! when you come upon me...''	219	(1)
``Once I passed through a populous city...''	220	(1)
``Inquiring, tireless, seeking that yet unfound...''	220	(1)
``In the new garden, in all the parts...''	221	(1)
``Ages and ages, returning at intervals...''	221	(1)
``O hymen! O hymenee!...''	222	(1)
``I am he that aches with love...''	222	(1)
``Early in the morning...''	222	(1)
The Complete Calamus Cluster:
``In paths untrodden...''	223	(1)
``Scented herbage of my breast...''	223	(2)
``Whoever you are holding me now in hand...''	225	(2)
``These I, singing in spring, collect for lovers...''	227	(1)
``States!...''	228	(2)
``Not heaving from my ribbed breast only...''	230	(1)
``Of the terrible question of appearances...''	230	(1)
``Long I thought that knowledge alone would suffice me...''	231	(1)
``Hours continuing long, sore and heavy-hearted...''	232	(1)
``You bards of ages hence!...''	233	(1)
``When I heard at the close of the day...''	234	(1)
``Are you the new person drawn toward me...''	235	(1)
``Calamus taste...''	235	(1)
``Not heat flames up and consumes...''	236	(1)
``O drops of me! trickle, slow drops...''	237	(1)
``Who is now reading this?...''	237	(1)
``Of him I love day and night...''	238	(1)
``City of my walks and joys!...''	239	(1)
``Mind you the timid models of the rest, the majority?...''	239	(1)
``I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing...''	240	(1)
``Music always round me...''	241	(1)
``Passing stranger!...''	241	(1)
``This moment as I sit alone...''	242	(1)
``I hear it is charged against me...''	242	(1)
``The prairie-grass dividing...''	243	(1)
``We two boys together clinging...''	243	(1)
``O love!...''	244	(1)
``When I peruse the conquered fame of heroes...''	244	(1)
``One flitting glimpse, caught through an interstice...''	245	(1)
``A promise and gift to California...''	245	(1)
``What ship, puzzled at sea...''	246	(1)
``What think you I take my pen in hand to record...''	246	(1)
``No labor-saving machine...''	247	(1)
``I dreamed in a dream...''	247	(1)
``To you of New England...''	248	(1)
``Earth! my likeness!...''	248	(1)
``A leaf for hand in hand!...''	249	(1)
``Primeval my love for the woman I love...''	249	(1)
``Sometimes with one I love...''	250	(1)
``That shadow, my likeness...''	250	(1)
``Among the men and women, the multitude...''	251	(1)
``To the young man, many things to absorb...''	251	(1)
``O you whom I often and silently come where you are...''	252	(1)
``Here my last words, and the most baffling...''	252	(1)
``Full of life, sweet-blooded, compact, visible...''	252	(1)
From the Messenger Leaves Cluster:
To Him That was Crucified	253	(1)
To One Shortly to Die	254	(1)
To a Common Prostitute	254	(1)
To a Pupil	255	(1)
To The States	256	(1)
To a Cantatrice	257	(1)
Walt Whitman's Caution	257	(1)
To a President	257	(1)
To You	258	(1)
To You	258	(1)
Mannahatta	258	(2)
From the Thoughts Cluster:
``Of persons arrived at high positions...''	260	(1)
A Hand-Mirror	260	(1)
Beginners	261	(1)
Tests	261	(1)
From the Debris Cluster:
``Have you learned lessons...''	262	(1)
``Despairing cries float ceaselessly...''	262	(1)
``I understand your anguish...''	262	(1)
Three old men slowly pass...''	262	(1)
``Women sit, or move to and fro...''	262	(1)
``I thought I was not alone...''	263	(1)
To My Soul	263	(1)
So long!	264	(3)
Unpublished Introduction (1861)	267	(4)
Drum-Taps 1865
Beginning My Studies	271	(1)
The Dresser	271	(2)
Come Up from the Fields Father	273	(2)
City of Ships	275	(1)
Mother and Babe	276	(1)
Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night	276	(1)
A March in the Ranks Hard-Prest, and the Road Unknown	277	(1)
A Farm Picture	278	(1)
Give Me the Splendid Silent Sun	279	(1)
Did You Ask Dulcet Rhymes from Me?	280	(1)
Year That Trembled and Reel'd Beneath Me	281	(1)
The Veteran's Vision	281	(2)
O Tan-Faced Prairie-Boy	283	(1)
As Toilsome I Wander'd Virginia's Woods	283	(1)
Look Down Fair Moon	284	(1)
Hush'd Be the Camps To-day	284	(1)
Not Youth Pertains to Me	285	(1)
Unpublished Introduction (1864)	285	(2)
Unpublished Inscription To the Reader	287	(4)
Sequel to Drum-Taps 1865-66
When Lilacs Last in the Door-Yard Bloom'd	291	(7)
O Captain! My Captain!	298	(1)
Chanting the Square Deific	299	(2)
Not My Enemies Ever Invade Me	301	(1)
Ah Poverties, Wincings, and Sulky Retreats	301	(1)
As I Lay with My Head in Your Lap, Camerado	302	(1)
Dirge for Two Veterans	303	(1)
Reconciliation	304	(3)
Leaves of Grass 1867
Inscription	307	(1)
One's-Self I Sing	307	(1)
The Runner	308	(1)
Leaves of Grass 2 (``Tears! tears! tears!'')	308	(1)
When I Read the Book	309	(1)
Unpublished Introduction: London Edition (1868)	309	(6)
Leaves of Grass 1871-72
Passage to India	315	(8)
Proud Music of the Storm	323	(6)
This Dust was Once the Man	329	(1)
Whispers of Heavenly Death	329	(1)
A Noiseless, Patient Spider	330	(1)
Sparkles from the Wheel	330	(1)
Gods	331	(1)
The Untold Want	332	(1)
For Him I Sing	333	(1)
To Thee, Old Cause!	333	(1)
The Base of all Metaphysics	334	(3)
As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free 1872
Preface	337	(3)
One Song, America, Before I Go	340	(1)
Souvenirs of Democracy	340	(1)
As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free	341	(4)
The Mystic Trumpeter	345	(3)
By Broad Potomac's Shore	348	(5)
Two Rivulets 1876
Preface	353	(7)
Eidolons	360	(2)
Prayer of Columbus	362	(3)
To a Locomotive in Winter	365	(1)
Wandering at Morn	366	(1)
With All Thy Gifts	367	(1)
Unpublished Letter to the Foreign Reader (1876)	367	(4)
Leaves of Grass 1881
The Dalliance of the Eagles	371	(1)
Italian Music in Dakota	371	(1)
The Prairie States	372	(1)
A Riddle Song	372	(2)
Spirit That Form'd This Scene	374	(1)
A Clear Midnight	374	(3)
November Boughs 1888
Preface (``A Backward Glance O'er Travel'd Roads'')	377	(9)
Mannahatta	386	(1)
A Carol Closing Sixty-Nine	387	(1)
A Font of Type	387	(1)
As I Sit Writing Here	388	(1)
Queries to My seventieth Year	388	(1)
America	388	(1)
After the Dazzle of Day	389	(1)
Halcyon Days	389	(1)
Of That Blithe Throat of Thine	390	(1)
Broadway	390	(1)
To Get the Final Lilt of Songs	391	(1)
The Dead Tenor	391	(1)
Yonnondio	392	(1)
Life and Death	392	(1)
A Prairie Sunset	393	(1)
Twilight	393	(1)
Now Precedent Songs, Farewell	394	(1)
After the Supper and Talk	395	(1)
Note at End: Complete Poems and Prose (1888)	396	(1)
Note Preceding: ``A Backward Glance'' (1889)	397	(4)
Leaves of Grass 1891-92
Author's Note to 1891-92 Edition	401	(1)
Preface Note to Good-Bye my Fancy	401	(1)
Good-Bye my Fancy	402	(1)
On, on the Same, ye Jocund Twain!	403	(1)
The Pallid Wreath	404	(1)
To the Sun-Set Breeze	404	(1)
A Twilight Song	405	(1)
A Voice from Death	406	(1)
``The Rounded Catalogue Divine Complete''	407	(1)
L. of G.'s Purport	408	(1)
Good-Bye my Fancy!	409	(1)
Article on Good-Bye my Fancy (1891)	410	(3)
APPENDICES
1. Poems Published Before Leaves or Posthumously
The Love That Is Hereafter (1840)	413	(1)
Each Has His Grief (1841)	414	(2)
A Sketch (1842)	416	(1)
The Mississippi at Midnight (1848)	417	(1)
Resurgemus (1850)	418	(2)
Supplement Hours (1897)	420	(1)
Of Many a Smutch'd Deed Reminiscent (1897)	421	(1)
A Thought of Columbus (1897)	421	(2)
2. Significant Passages from Whitman Manuscripts	423	(15)
3. Whitman's Observations on Leaves of Grass, 1888-92	438	(10)
4. Contemporary Reviews of Leaves of Grass
1855:
New York Daily Tribune, 23 July 1855	448	(1)
Charles Dana
Putnam's Monthly (New York), September 1855	449	(1)
Charles Eliot Norton
New York Criterion, 10 November 1855	449	(2)
Rufus W. Griswold
North American Review (Boston), January 1856	451	(1)
Edward Everett Hale
New York Daily News, 27 February 1856	452	(1)
London Critic, 1 April 1856	453	(1)
New York Ledger, 10 May 1856	454	(2)
Fanny Fern
New York Daily Times, 13 November 1856	456	(3)
William Swinton
Frank Leslie's Illustrated Paper (New York, 20 December 1856	459	(1)
1856:
Boston Christian Examiner, November 1856	459	(2)
Brooklyn Daily Times, 17 December 1856	461	(1)
1860:
New York Times, 19 May 1860	462	(1)
Boston Banner of Light, 2 June 1860	463	(2)
London Literary Gazette, 7 July 1860	465	(1)
London Spectator, 14 July 1860	466	(1)
Drum-Taps:
Round Table (New York), 11 November 1865	467	(2)
William Dean Howells
Nation (New York), 16 November 1865	469	(3)
Henry James
North American Review (Boston), January 1867	472	(1)
A. S. Hill
1871:
Westminster Review (London), July 1871	473	(2)
Edward Dowden
1881-82:
New York Critic, 5 November 1881	475	(2)
Nation (New York), 15 December 1881	477	(1)
T. W. Higginson
November Boughs:
Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, 30 October 1888	478	(1)
San Francisco Chronicle, 13 January 1889	478	(1)
Oscar Wilde, Pall Mall Gazette, 25 January 1889	479	(2)
Good-Bye my Fancy:
New York Tribune, 16 August 1891	481	(1)
Boston Literary World;, 12 September 1891	481	(2)
A Whitman Chronology	483	(2)
Notes on the Poems	485	(32)
A Select Whitman Bibliography	517	(4)
Index of Titles	521