"Aboard at the Ship's Helm" (p. 238). Set to music in an unpublished song by Phillip Dalmas.

"Song for All Seas, All Ships" (p. 241). Published in the New York Daily Graphic, April 4, 1873, under the title, "Sea Captains, Young or Old".

"Patroling Barnegat" (p. 242). Published in the American, June 1880 (Vol. X, p. 179) and republished in Harper's Monthly, April 1881. Set to music by Eugene Bonner.

The Barnegat Shoals are off the shore of New Jersey at the Barnegat Inlet and Long Beach.

"After the Sea-Ship" (p. 243). First published under the title "In the Wake Following", New York Daily Graphic, Christmas Number, 1874.

"A Boston Ballad" (p. 244). The occasion of this poem was the arrest of Apthony Burns in Boston and his rendition to slavery, on May 24, 1854, despite an attempt to free him led by T. W. Higginson. According to William Sloane Kennedy, Whitman intended to drop this poem, but was persuaded to retain it by John T. Trowbridge. (The Fight of a Book for the Word, p. 175.)

"Europe, the 72d and 73d Years of These States" (p. 246). Whitman's chronology dates from the Declaration of Independence (1776), so that he refers to the years 1848 and 1849. The poem, one of his earliest in free verse, was published as "Resurgemus" in the New York Tribune, June 21, 1850. For a collection of the poems in the two versions, and the growth of Whitman's characteristic verse form, see U.P.P., I, pp. 27-30. The occasion was, of course, the abortive popular movements in Italy, Hungary, France and Germany, in these years. Compare "To a Foil'd European Revolutionaire" (p. 338), "O Star of France" (p. 360), "Spain, 1873-74" (p. 433), and "Resurgemus" (p. 505).

"To a President" (p. 251). The poem is apparently addressed to President Buchanan. Cf. poem entitled, "To the States" (p. 255).

"The Dalliance of the Eagles" (p. 252). First published in Cope's Tobacco Plant, November 1880. This poem was included in the Osgood list of expurgations (Bucke, p. 149). This poem seems to have been based on a description given to the poet by John Burroughs. (Barrus, p. 170.)

"Roaming in Thought" (p. 252). Cf. "Carlyle from American Points of View" (p. 780). "To the States" (p.255). Cf. "To a President" (p. 251).

"Drum-Taps" (p. 256). Apparently this group of poems, or some of them, was in manuscript as early as March 1863. (Wound Dresser, p. 61; also see pp. 163, 164, 188.)

"Eighteen Sixty-One" (p. 258). Cf. Letter VI (p. 887). Although Whitman in 1861 and 1862 was supporting himself by doing hack work for the Brooklyn Standard and the New York Leader, much of which had no reference to the war, it is unfair to assume that he was not profoundly moved by it from the start. (See U.P.P., I, LVII, 2, 222 ff., Glicksberg, and the note following.)

"Beat! Beat! Drums!" (p. 259). A manuscript letter dated October I, 1861, offered this poem for $20, to James Russell Lowell, then editor of the Atlantic Monthly (Bayard Wyman collection). But the poem was actually published in Harper's Weekly, September 28, 1861, and copied in the New York Leader on the same date, where the third line from the end concluded with the exhortation, "Recruit! Recruit!" It seems clear that the poem, like Bryant's "Our Country's Call" which appeared in the New York Ledger on November 2, and Whittier's "The Summons", in the Leader, July 27, was written in an effort to counteract the moral effect of the defeat at Bull Run on July 21. See "Battle of Bull Run", and "The Stupor Passes" (pp. 620-624). For information concerning the original version of this poem, the editor is indebted to Mr. Ralph Adimari.

This poem was set to music by Coleridge-Taylor, Opus 45, No.6.