At the same time, I have retained some characteristic terms used by
Whitman himself, and have named my sections respectively--
1. Chants Democratic (poems of democracy).
2. Drum Taps (war songs).
3. Walt Whitman (personal poems).
4. Leaves of Grass (unclassified poems).
5. Songs of Parting (missives).
The first three designations explain themselves. The fourth, _Leaves of
Grass_, is not so specially applicable to the particular poems of that
section here as I should have liked it to be; but I could not consent to
drop this typical name. The _Songs of Parting_, my fifth section, are
compositions in which the poet expresses his own sentiment regarding his
works, in which he forecasts their future, or consigns them to the reader's
consideration. It deserves mention that, in the copy of Whitman's last
American edition revised by his own hand, as previously noticed, the series
termed _Songs of Parting_ has been recast, and made to consist of poems of
the same character as those included in my section No. 5.
Comparatively few of Whitman's poems have been endowed by himself with
titles properly so called. Most of them are merely headed with the opening
words of the poems themselves--as "I was looking a long while;" "To get
betimes in Boston Town;" "When lilacs last in the door-yard bloomed;" and
so on.
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