WALT WHITMAN COMPLETE PROSE WORKS 2008 – All rights reserved Non commercial use permitted COMPLETE PROSE WORKS Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Good Bye My Fancy By WALT WHITMAN CONTENTS SPECIMEN DAYS A Happy Hour's Command Answer to an Insisting Friend Genealogy--Van Velsor and Whitman The Old Whitman and Van Velsor Cemeteries The Maternal Homestead Two Old Family Interiors Paumanok, and my Life on it as Child and Young Man My First Reading--Lafayette Printing Office--Old Brooklyn Growth--Health--Work My Passion for Ferries Broadway Sights Omnibus Jaunts and Drivers Plays and Operas too Through Eight Years Sources of Character--Results--1860 Opening of the Secession War National Uprising and Volunteering Contemptuous Feeling Battle of Bull Run, July, 1861 The Stupor Passes--Something Else Begins Down at the Front After First Fredericksburg Back to Washington Fifty Hours Left Wounded on the Field Hospital Scenes and Persons Patent-Office Hospital The White House by Moonlight An Army Hospital Ward A Connecticut Case Two Brooklyn Boys A Secesh Brave The Wounded from Chancellorsville A Night Battle over a Week Since Unnamed Remains the Bravest Soldier Some Specimen Cases My Preparations for Visits Ambulance Processions Bad Wounds--the Young The Most Inspiriting of all War's Shows Battle of Gettysburg A Cavalry Camp A New York Soldier Home-Made Music Abraham Lincoln Heated Term Soldiers and Talks Death of a Wisconsin Officer Hospitals Ensemble A Silent Night Ramble Spiritual Characters among the Soldiers Cattle Droves about Washington Hospital Perplexity Down at the Front Paying the Bounties Rumors, Changes, Etc. Virginia Summer of 1864 A New Army Organization fit for America Death of a Hero Hospital Scenes--Incidents A Yankee Soldier Union Prisoners South Deserters A Glimpse of War's Hell-Scenes Gifts--Money--Discrimination Items from My Note Books A Case from Second Bull Run Army Surgeons--Aid Deficiencies The Blue Everywhere A Model Hospital Boys in the Army Burial of a Lady Nurse Female Nurses for Soldiers Southern Escapees The Capitol by Gas-Light The Inauguration Attitude of Foreign Governments During the War The Weather--Does it Sympathize with These Times? Inauguration Ball Scene at the Capitol A Yankee Antique Wounds and Diseases Death of President Lincoln Sherman's Army Jubilation--its Sudden Stoppage No Good Portrait of Lincoln Releas'd Union Prisoners from South Death of a Pennsylvania Soldier The Armies Returning The Grand Review Western Soldiers A Soldier on Lincoln Two Brothers, one South, one North Some Sad Cases Yet Calhoun's Real Monument Hospitals Closing Typical Soldiers "Convulsiveness" Three Years Summ'd up The Million Dead, too, Summ'd up The Real War will never get in the Books An Interregnum Paragraph New Themes Enter'd Upon Entering a Long Farm-Lane To the Spring and Brook An Early Summer Reveille Birds Migrating at Midnight Bumble-Bees Cedar-Apples Summer Sights and Indolences Sundown Perfume--Quail-Notes--the Hermit Thrush A July Afternoon by the Pond Locusts and Katy-Dids The Lesson of a Tree Autumn Side-Bits The Sky--Days and Nights--Happiness Colors--A Contrast November 8, '76 Crows and Crows A Winter-Day on the Sea-Beach Sea-Shore Fancies In Memory of Thomas Paine A Two Hours' Ice-Sail Spring Overtures--Recreations One of the Human Kinks An Afternoon Scene The Gates Opening The Common Earth, the Soil Birds and Birds and Birds Full-Starr'd Nights Mulleins and Mulleins Distant Sounds A Sun-Bath--Nakedness The Oaks and I A Quintette The First Frost--Mems Three Young Men's Deaths February Days A Meadow Lark Sundown Lights Thoughts Under an Oak--A Dream Clover and Hay Perfume An Unknown Bird Whistling Horse-Mint Three of Us Death of William Cullen Bryant Jaunt up the Hudson Happiness and Raspberries A Specimen Tramp Family Manhattan from the Bay Human and Heroic New York Hours for the Soul Straw-Color'd and other Psyches A Night Remembrance Wild Flowers A Civility Too Long Neglected Delaware River--Days and Nights Scenes on Ferry and River--Last Winter's Nights The First Spring Day on Chestnut Street Up the Hudson to Ulster County Days at J.B.'s--Turf Fires--Spring Songs Meeting a Hermit An Ulster County Waterfall Walter Dumont and his Medal Hudson River Sights Two City Areas Certain Hours Central Park Walks and Talks A Fine Afternoon, 4 to 6 Departing of the Big Steamers Two Hours on the Minnesota Mature Summer Days and Night Exposition Building--New City Hall--River-Trip Swallows on the River Begin a Long Jaunt West In the Sleeper Missouri State Lawrence and Topeka, Kansas The Prairies--(and an Undeliver'd Speech) On to Denver--A Frontier Incident An Hour on Kenosha Summit An Egotistical "Find" New Scenes--New Joys Steam-Power, Telegraphs, Etc. America's Back-Bone The Parks Art Features Denver Impressions I Turn South and then East Again Unfulfill'd Wants--the Arkansas River A Silent Little Follower--the Coreopsis The Prairies and Great Plains in Poetry The Spanish Peaks--Evening on the Plains America's Characteristic Landscape Earth's Most Important Stream Prairie Analogies--the Tree Question Mississippi Valley Literature An Interviewer's Item The Women of the West The Silent General President Hayes's Speeches St. Louis Memoranda Nights on the Mississippi Upon our Own Land Edgar Poe's Significance Beethoven's Septette A Hint of Wild Nature Loafing in the Woods A Contralto Voice Seeing Niagara to Advantage Jaunting to Canada Sunday with the Insane Reminiscence of Elias Hicks Grand Native Growth A Zollverein between the U. S. and Canada The St. Lawrence Line The Savage Saguenay Capes Eternity and Trinity Chicoutimi, and Ha-ha Bay The Inhabitants--Good Living Cedar-Plums Like--Names Death of Thomas Carlyle Carlyle from American Points of View A Couple of Old Friends--A Coleridge Bit A Week's Visit to Boston The Boston of To-Day My Tribute to Four Poets Millet's Pictures--Last Items Birds--and a Caution Samples of my Common-Place Book My Native Sand and Salt Once More Hot Weather New York "Ouster's Last Rally" Some Old Acquaintances--Memories A Discovery of Old Age A Visit, at the Last, to R. W. Emerson Other Concord Notations Boston Common--More of Emerson An Ossianic Night--Dearest Friends Only a New Ferry Boat Death of Longfellow Starting Newspapers The Great Unrest of which We are Part By Emerson's Grave At Present Writing--Personal After Trying a Certain Book Final Confessions--Literary Tests Nature and Democracy--Morality COLLECT ONE OR TWO INDEX ITEMS DEMOCRATIC VISTAS ORIGINS OF ATTEMPTED SECESSION PREFACES TO "LEAVES OF GRASS" Preface, 1855, to first issue of "Leaves of Grass" Preface, 1872, to "As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free" Preface, 1876, to L. of G. and "Two Rivulets" POETRY TO-DAY IN AMERICA--SHAKESPEARE--THE FUTURE A MEMORANDUM AT A VENTURE DEATH OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN TWO LETTERS NOTES LEFT OVER Nationality (and Yet) Emerson's Books (the Shadows of Them) Ventures, on an Old Theme British Literature Darwinism (then Furthermore) "Society" The Tramp and Strike Questions Democracy in the New World Foundation Stages--then Others General Suffrage, Elections, Etc. Who Gets the Plunder? Friendship (the Real Article) Lacks and Wants Yet Rulers Strictly Out of the Masses Monuments--the Past and Present Little or Nothing New After All A Lincoln Reminiscence Freedom Book-Classes-America's Literature Our Real Culmination An American Problem The Last Collective Compaction PIECES IN EARLY YOUTH Dough Face Song Death in the School-Room One Wicked Impulse The Last Loyalist Wild Frank's Return The Boy Lover The Child and the Profligate Lingave's Temptation Little Jane Dumb Kate Talk to an Art Union Blood-Money Wounded in the House of Friends Sailing the Mississippi at Midnight NOVEMBER BOUGHS OUR EMINENT VISITORS, Past, Present and Future THE BIBLE AS POETRY FATHER TAYLOR (AND ORATORY) THE SPANISH ELEMENT IN OUR NATIONALITY WHAT LURKS BEHIND SHAKSPERE'S HISTORICAL PLAYS? A THOUGHT ON SHAKSPERE ROBERT BURNS AS POET AND PERSON A WORD ABOUT TENNYSON SLANG IN AMERICA AN INDIAN BUREAU REMINISCENCE SOME DIARY NOTES AT RANDOM Negro Slaves in New York Canada Nights Country Days and Nights Central Park Notes Plate Glass Notes SOME WAR MEMORANDA Washington Street Scenes The 195th Pennsylvania Left-hand Writing by Soldiers Central Virginia in '64 Paying the First Color'd Troops FIVE THOUSAND POEMS THE OLD BOWERY NOTES TO LATE ENGLISH BOOKS Preface to Reader in British Islands Additional Note, 1887 Preface to English Edition "Democratic Vistas" ABRAHAM LINCOLN NEW ORLEANS IN 1848 SMALL MEMORANDA Attorney General's Office, 1865 A Glint Inside of Abraham Lincoln's Cabinet Appointments Note to a Friend Written Impromptu in an Album The Place Gratitude fills in a Fine Character LAST OF THE WAR CASES ELIAS HICKS, Notes (such as they are) George Fox and Shakspere GOOD-BYE MY FANCY AN OLD MAN'S REJOINDER OLD POETS Ship Ahoy For Queen Victoria's Birthday AMERICAN NATIONAL LITERATURE GATHERING THE CORN A DEATH BOUQUET SOME LAGGARDS YET The Perfect Human Voice Shakspere for America "Unassailed Renown" Inscription for a Little Book on Giordano Bruno Splinters Health (Old Style) Gay-heartedness As in a Swoon L. of G. After the Argument For Us Two, Reader Dear MEMORANDA A World's Show New York--the Bay--the Old Name A Sick Spell To be Present Only "Intestinal Agitation" "Walt Whitman's Last 'Public'" Ingersoll's Speech Feeling Fairly Old Brooklyn Days Two Questions Preface to a Volume An Engineer's Obituary Old Actors, Singers, Shows, Etc., in New York Some Personal and Old Age Jottings Out in the Open Again America's Bulk Average Last Saved Items WALT WHITMAN'S LAST SPECIMEN DAYS A HAPPY HOUR'S COMMAND _Down in the Woods, July 2d, 1882_.-If I do it at all I must delay no longer.