"The Last Invocation" (p. 408). First published in the Broadway Magazine (London), October 1868. Originally without title, this poem is sometimes called "The Imprisoned Soul" (Oxford Book of English Verse). This poem was set to music by Eugene Bonner, Frank Bridge, Ada Weigle Powers and Eva Ruth Spalding.

"Pensive and Flattering" (p. 409). First published in Broadway Magazine (London), October 1868.

"Thou mother with Thy Equal Brood" (p. 410). This poem was read by Whitman before the United Literary Societies of Dartmouth College at commencement on Wednesday, June 26, 1872 (Calamus, p.96). For an account of the circumstances connected with this occasional poem, see Perry, pp. 203-210, and Harold W. Blodgett, "Walt Whitman's Dartmouth Visit". (Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, February 1933.)

"A Paumanok Picture" (p. 415). Cf. "Paumanok, and my Life on it as Child and Young Man" (p. 538).

"Faces" (p. 418). For a counterpart of this poem, see "Street Yarn". (New York Dissected, pp. 128-132.)

p. 420, ll. 1-6: "I saw the face", etc. This passage Whitman said, was suggested by his brother Eddie, who was mentally defective.

p. 421, § 5: This is commonly interpreted as a description of Whitman's Quaker grandmother, Amy Williams Van Velsor.

p. 420, l. 25-p.421, l.3: "She speaks . . . my breast and shoulders". This passage was on the Osgood list of expurgations.

"The Mystic Trumpeter" (p. 421). First published in the Kansas Magazine, February 1872. Cf. "Proud Music of the Storm" (p. 366), "Italian Music in Dakota", and "That Music Always Round Me" (p. 405). Many years ago the present editor examined a manuscript, then in the collection of Mr. W. R. Benjamin, which indicated that one Julius Bing supplied Whitman with notes on classical music when he was writing this poem.

"Mannahatta" (p. 427). Whitman was fond of referring to Manhattan in this way in his poetry, and in compliment to him his brother Jefferson named a daughter Mannahatta.

"A Riddle Song" (p. 429). Whitman never gave the key to this riddle, but Dr. Bucke suggested that it is "good cause" of "old cause" (Traubel, II, 228); Kennedy offers "the Ideal" (The Fight of a Book for the World, p. 188). In the Bayard Wyman collection is a printed proof of the poem which omits lines 2- 10, 29, and makes many changes in punctuation. Apparently it was published in the first number of Sunnyside Press in the spring of 1880 (see Barrus, p. 191).

"Excelsior" (p. 430). Whitman was an admirer of Longfellow, and may have borrowed the title from him. Cf. "Ambition" (p. 502).

"Ah Poverties, Wincings, and Sulky Retreats" (p. 431). Cf. "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry", § 6 (p. 150).

"Weave in, My Hearty Life" (p. 432). To show the metrical regularity of this poem, William Sloane Kennedy has arranged it in conventional form. (Kennedy, p. 167.)

"Spain, 1873-74" (p. 433). First published without the date and the title in the New York Daily Graphic, March 24, 1873, with the signature, "Washington, March 23, 1873, Walt Whitman".

"From Far Dakota's Cañons" (p. 434). First published as "A Death-Sonnet for Custer", in the New York Tribune, July 10, 1876. Cf. "Custer's Last Rally" (p. 793).

"What Best I See In Thee" (p. 436). President Grant returned from his world tour in the fall of 1879. Cf. "Death of General Grant" (p. 463), and "The Silent General" (p. 767).