In Whitman's Hand

Manuscripts

About this Item

Title: sorrow

Creator: Walt Whitman

Date: 1865

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00052

Source: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Transcribed from The Walt Whitman Archive I: Whitman Manuscripts at the Library of Congress, ed Joel Myerson (New York: Garland, 1993), 1:157. The transcription was then checked against 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 soon after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in April 1865, as Whitman composed his elegy for Lincoln, "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd." A few of the words appear in that poem, including "mourn," "sad," "wailing," and others.

Contributors to digital file: Lisa Renfro, Nick Krauter, Melissa Sinner, Justin St. Clair, Nicole Gray, Andrew Jewell, Kenneth Price, and Brett Barney



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sorrow (saxon)
grieve
sad
mourn (sax)
" ing
" ful
melancholy
dismal
heavy‑hearted
tears
black
sobs —ing
sighing
funeral rites
wailing
lamenting
mute grief
eloquent silence
bewail
bemoan
deplore
regret deeply
loud lament
pitiful
loud weeping
violent lamentation
anguish
wept sore
depression
pain of mind
passionate regret
afflicted with grief
cast down
downcast
gloomy
serious
sympathy
moving compassion
tenderness
tender-hearted
full of pity
obscurity
partial or total darkness
(as the gloom of a forest—gloom of midnight)
cloudy
cloudiness
" of mind
mind sunk in gloom
soul " " "

———
dejection
dejected

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[shades?] of night
heavy
dull—sombre
sombre shades
" ness
affliction
oppress—oppressiove
" ion
prostration
humble—humility
suffering—silent suffering
burdensome
Distress—distressing
Calamity
Extreme anguish (either of mind or body)
Misery
torture
harrassed
weighed down
trouble
deep affliction
plaintive
Calamity
disaster
something that strikes down—as by Almighty

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[Page image: https://whitmanarchive.org/manuscripts/figures/loc.00052.004.jpg]




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