Leaves of Grass First and Death-Bed Editions (96 page)

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:

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:

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.

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.

8
(p. 755)
Calamus. 8:
Like “Calamus. 9,” the poem openly addresses the narrator’s passion for a male companion.

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.

PUBLICATION INFORMATION