SOME PORTRAITS AND
AUTOGRAPHS OF WALT WHITMAN

From a photograph by Brady, New York. In the collection of Robert Coster

WALT WHITMAN

THE following poem by Walt Whitman, here reprinted in facsimile from the author's manuscript, has special significance in that it was written shortly before the breaking out of hostilities of the Civil War, as is evident from the reference to the "thirty-four stars" of the American flag. Mr. Horace Traubel, one of the executors of Whitman, believes that in this form it has not before appeared. In making his complete collection Whitman did not include it, but a portion of it in revised form was included as follows in "Leaves of Grass":

WORLD TAKE GOOD NOTICE

World take good notice, silver stars fading,
Milky hue ript, weft of white detaching,
Coals thirty-eight, baleful and burning,

Scarlet, significant, hands off warning,
Now and henceforth flaunt from these shores.

The reference to "thirty-eight stars"
indicates that the second poem was written
twelve years or more after the war. Com-
parison of the two poems is interesting
as showing that after the war Whitman
shifted some of the lines to a theme of
larger scope, adapted to the changed state
of affairs. The same broad spirit of na-
tionalism characterizes the opening page of
Whitman's published lecture on Lincoln,
of which a facsimile is presented on a fol-
lowing page. Both these manuscripts are
from the collection of Whitman's friend,
Mr. J. H. Johnston. They have not be-
fore been reproduced. The two portraits
also are from photographs hitherto un-
known.—THE EDITOR.