2d Preface to As a Strong Bird

Whitman Archive Title: 2d Preface to As a Strong Bird
Whitman Archive ID: pml.00003
Repository ID: MA 4500
Repository: Catalog of the Walt Whitman Literary Manuscripts in The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York
Repository Title: Second preface to 'As a strong bird': autograph manuscript
Date: about 1876
Genre: prose
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1
Content: A brief prose note headed "2d Preface to As a Strong Bird." On June 26, 1872, Whitman presented the poem "As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free" for the Dartmouth College commencement, and it appeared in print that same date in both the New York Herald and the Washington Evening Post . Whitman published it later that year as the title poem in a small book, As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free: and Other Poems (1872). The title was later revised to "Thou Mother with Thy Equal Brood" when it was included in Leaves of Grass in 1881–1882. Though this prose draft may have been intended as a second preface to the poem before its title revision in 1881, portions of this manuscript were first used in an essay titled, "Preface," which appeared at the beginning of Two Rivulets , the second volume of the "Centennial Edition" of Leaves of Grass (1876). The title was later changed to "Preface, 1876, to the two-volume Centennial Edition of L. of G. and 'Two Rivulets.'" In the top left corner Whitman has written "Waves in the Vessel's Wake," a title that was used in manuscript for the poem published first as "In the Wake Following" in 1874 and as "After the Sea-Ship" in 1876.