The Poetic Legacy

The 1867 edition of Leaves of Grass had involved much reworking and rearrangement, and the fifth edition (1871) continued that process, with many of the original Drum-Taps poems being distributed throughout the book and with an assemblage of old and new poems in a large new section, "Passage to India." The "Centennial Edition" of 1876 was a reissue of the 1871 edition and was most notable for the way Whitman's English admirers got funds to him by having important literary people subscribe to it. American public opinion was gradually swayed by new evidences that the invalid in Camden could command the respect of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, the poet laureate, and many other famous British writers. The "deathbed" edition of 1891-92 was in fact a reissue of the 1881 edition with the addition of two later groups of poems, "Sands at Seventy" (from November Boughs, which Whitman published in 1888) and "Good-bye My Fancy" (from the 1891 collection of that name).

Of all the American writers of the nineteenth century, Whitman offers the most inspiring example of fidelity to his art. Outraging his employers and his family by his odd hours and the semblance of mere loafing, outraging his well-wishers by refusing to compromise on minor points that might have gained him fuller acceptance, finagling reviews, reviewing himself, writing admiring accounts of his work for others to sign, shocking some of his followers by refusing to give autographs gratis, Whitman kept on, like what he called some high-and-dry "hard-cased dilapidated grim ancient shell-fish or time-bang'd conch," uncompromising to the end. He died at Camden on March 26, 1892, secure in the knowledge that he had held unwaveringly true to his art and to his role as an artist who had made that art prevail.