Poetry Manuscripts

Table of Contents
Color Key

       
[Leaf 1 recto]
sent to Herald March 2

A Prairie sunset.

Shot gold, maroon and violet, dazzling silver,
        emerald, fawn,
The earth's whole amplitude and Nature's
        multiform power consigned for once
        to colors
The ^ light, the very air diffused in possess'd by them,—colors till now
        unknown
No limits, confines—not the west, the ern sky
        alone—the high meridian—north,
        south, all,
Pure, ^ varied, brilliant colors, varied, fused and brilliant, fighting the silent, shadows to
        the last.
Date
This document was probably composed in early 1888.
Editorial note
"A Prairie Sunset" was published first in the March 9, 1888 issue of the New York Herald.
This manuscript was probably composed in the winter of 1888, shortly before the poem's publication in March.The verso of the manuscript leaf is blank.
Location
A Prairie Sunset  |  Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia.
Whitman Archive ID
uva.00167

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