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leaf 1 recto

The body _^ sluggish, old,

The fires in em _{embers left of earlier fires}

The frozen winter clods—but —to them the spring

shall come

And [deleted, illegible]ds With grass and leaves flowers and summer

~~b[deleted, illegible]es green~~ fruits and corn

The sun is _^ now sinking low in the west de

Shall rise again to morning and to noon

The light in the eye grows dim—the

body blood all sluggish, old

Appearances

Date: This manuscript was likely written around 1887 or 1888, shortly before the poem was published in March 1888.

Editorial note: This manuscript is a draft of "Continuities," a poem published first in the New York Herald, March 20, 1888.; On the verso of this manuscript is an undated letter to Whitman from Talcott Williams.

Location: Certainties, Faith, Counterbalances, Alternation | The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

The Walt Whitman Archive