The Walt Whitman Archive
In Whitman's Hand
Manuscripts
About this Item
Title: You lusty and graceflu youth
Creator: Walt Whitman
Date: Between 1850 and 1855
Whitman Archive ID: duk.00032
Source: Trent Collection of Whitmaniana, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University. Transcribed from digital images of the original. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of manuscripts, see our statement of editorial policy.
Editorial note: This manuscript was likely written between 1850 and 1855 when Whitman was composing his first edition of Leaves of Grass. It is a partial draft of the final poem in that edition, which in later editions would be titled "Great Are the Myths."
Related item: On the back of the leaf are drafts of lines that appeared in the third poem of the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass, ultimately called "To Think of Time." See duk.00889.
Contributors to digital file: Andrew Jewell, Kenneth Price, Brett Barney, Nick Krauter, Lisa Renfro, Heather Morton, and Nicole Gray
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Great are you,
You
lusty and
loving
graceflu
youth! but
you are great
you are not exclusively great,
in youth.—
graceful
and fascinating youth;
Your Middle age
[comes?]
shall be great
with its amplitude
and [illegible] steadiness and ma
allmastering
the
fullblooded
strength
Your old age
[come
with?]
shall be equally
great
shall have
with
resistless majesty and bloom and
fascination and love,
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![[Page image: https://whitmanarchive.org/manuscripts/figures/duk_nhg.00407_large.jpg]](https://whitmanarchive.org/manuscripts/figures/duk_nhg.00407_large.jpg)