The Walt Whitman Archive
In Whitman's Hand
Manuscripts
About this Item
Title: hands are cut by the
Creator: Walt Whitman
Date: Between 1850 and 1855
Whitman Archive ID: duk.00905
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: Whitman probably drafted this manuscript in the early 1850s as he was composing the first (1855) edition of Leaves of Grass. The manuscript includes draft lines that appeared in a revised form in the sixth poem of that edition, eventually titled "Faces."
Related items: Written on the back of this leaf is another poetry draft that contributed to poems in the first edition of Leaves of Grass. Both manuscript drafts were probably originally continuous with manuscript drafts on another leaf, from which this leaf was cut. See duk.00264, tex.00321, and tex.00079.
Contributors to digital file: Nicole Gray, Andrew Jewell, Kenneth Price, Brett Barney, Nick Krauter, and Amy Hezel
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[The teeth
grit?]
[cut away]
[palms of the?]
hands are cut by the naturned in nails
St He It ^The man
falls struggling and foaming to the ground,
though he begs and barters
there.— so
cooly.—
I remember when I visited the Asylum and
they
showed me their most smeared and slobbering
idiot,
Yet I knew for my for my consolation, of
the great
laws that emptied and broke my my
brothers
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