Title: The Patrol at Barnegat
Creator: Walt Whitman
Date: 1880
Whitman Archive ID: loc.00254
Source: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 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: "Patroling Barnegat" was published first in The American in June 1880. The date of the letter on the verso (see below) and the first publication date of the poem indicate that this manuscript was composed between May and June, 1880.
Related item: On the back of the first manuscript leaf is a letter dated May 12, 1880, from E. H. Hames & Co. of The Literary World magazine. See loc.05034.
Contributors to digital file: Leslie Ianno, Nick Krauter, Nicole Gray, Andrew Jewell, Kenneth Price, and Brett Barney
The Patrol at Barnegat
All
? Through
Nature's gloom,—the
—through
wild, wild storm,
The stretching shore and
The midnight covering all
And on the sand a
straggling group with
ears alert
with ears alert, with
And on the sand, with ears
alert, a
With piercing eyes, seaward
inclining
X
Brav
Amidst
The ^swirling wintry
blast, the
gusts of snow,
Alone with
^Dauntless Confronting
Night, and
Storm and Sea
Alas
Through the
the fierce
the midnight howling
the fierce snow driving
^through slush and sand
toilsome, the mortar dragging,