User menu

Login
Menu

You are here

Home ›

Letter to James Russell Lowell, January 20, 1860

Whitman, Walt. "Letter to James Russell Lowell, January 20, 1860." Walt Whitman: The Correspondence. Ed. Edwin Haviland Miller. New York: New York University Press, 1961. 47-48.
Full Text Available Below
Permission to reprint this text has been granted by New York University Press.
Type: 
manuscript
Genre: 
correspondence
Abstract: 

Whitman writes to James Russell Lowell in regard to a few lines in his poem “Bardic Symbols,” which Russell will shortly be publishing.

Full Text


To James Russell Lowell
Jan. 20, '60.

Dear Sir,
Mr. House inform'd me that you accepted, and would publish, my "Bardic Symbols." If so, would you, as soon as convenient, have it put in type, and send me the proof?
About the two lines:
(See from my dead lips the ooze exuding at last! See the prismatic colon glistening and rolling!)
I have in view, from them, an effect in the piece which I clearly feel, but cannot as clearly define. Though I should prefer them in, still, as I told Mr. House, I agree that you may omit them, if you decidedly wish to.
Yours &c
Walt Whitman
Portland av. near Myrtle | Brooklyn, N. Y.

People who Created this Work

Whitman, Walt author

People Mentioned in this Work

House, Edward [pages:47,48]

Whitman has been told by Mr. House that James Russell Lowell with publish his "Bardic Symbols."

AUTHOR(S) OF - Letter to James Russell Lowell, January 20, 1860

Whitman, Walt

Born on Long Island and raised in Brooklyn, Walt Whitman spent his childhood and early adulthood amid the sights and

MENTIONED IN - Letter to James Russell Lowell, January 20, 1860

House, Edward

Edward Howard House, also known as “Ned,” was born near Boston and became a musical prodigy under his pianist mother's tutelage.