FEINBERG / WHITMAN LITERARY FILE POETRY FILE "For Queen Victoria's Birthday" (1890). Proof Sheets. (D??257) Box 27 Folder 5 Includes A. MS. corrections CROSS-REFERENCE POETRY FILE "For Queen Victoria's Birthday," 1890. Proof Sheet See POETRY FILE "Death's Valley," 1891. Proof Sheet. Box 26 [*1703*] 1890 25 May For Queen Victoria's Birthday:Proof with Correction and Notation. A.MS. (2p. 24 x 15 cm.) Written in ink on a proof of 'For Queen Victoria's Birthday', a 5-line poem, with a 16-line Note on the 'Trent affair', with a correction in line 4 of the Note ('national' for 'natural', the word 'national' being written in the margin), at bottom, 17 words: correct & give me this evening 30 slips on good paper (print good & black like this) Second proof, with notation by Traubel (Received from W.W. May 25, '90 See notes.), has been corrected; it has no MS material by Whitman. FOR QUEEN VICTORIA'S BIRTHDAY. An American arbutus bunch, to be put in a little vase, on the royal breakfast table, May 24th, 1890. Lady, accept a birth-day thought -- haply an idle gift and token, Right from the scented soil's May-utterance here, (Smelling of countless blessings, prayers, and old-time thanks), A bunch of white and pink arbutus, silent, spicy, shy, From Hudson's, Delaware's, or Potomac's woody banks. WALT WHITMAN. NOTE. -- Very little, as we Americans stand this day, with our sixty-five or seventy millions of population, an immense surplus in the treasury, and all that actual power or reserved power (land and sea) so dear to nations -- very little I say do we realize that curious crawling [natural] shudder when the "Trent affair" promised [*national*] to bring upon us a war with Great Britain -- followed unquestionably as that war would have, by recognition of the Southern Confederacy from all the leading European nations. It is now certain that all this then inevitable train of calamity hung on arrogant and peremptory phrases in the prepared and written missive of the British Minister, to America, which the Queen (and Prince Albert latent) positively and promptly cancelled; and which her firm attitude did alone actually erase and leave out, against all the other official prestige and Court of St. James's. On such minor and personal incidents (so to call them), often depend the great growths and turns of civilization. This moment of a woman and a queen surely swung the grandest oscillation of modern history's pendulum. Many savings and doings of that period, from foreign potentates and powers, might well be drop'd in oblivion by America -- but never this, if I could have my way. W.W. [*correct & give me this evening 30 slips on good paper (print good & black like this)*] FOR QUEEN VICTORIA'S BIRTHDAY. An American arbutus bunch, to be put in a little vase, on the royal breakfast table, May 24th, 1890. Lady, accept a birth-day thought -- haply an idle gift and token, Right from the scented soil's May-utterance here, (Smelling of countless blessings, prayers, and old-time thanks), A bunch of white and pink arbutus, silent, spicy, shy, From Hudson's, Delaware's, or Potomac's woody banks. WALT WHITMAN. NOTE. -- Very little, as we Americans stand this day, with our sixty-five or seventy millions of population, an immense surplus in the treasury, and all that actual power or reserved power (land and sea) so dear to nations -- very little I say do we realize that curious crawling national shudder when the "Trent affair" promised to bring upon us a war with Great Britain--followed unquestionably as that war would have, by recognition of the Southern Confederacy from all the leading European nations. It is now certain that all this then inevitable train of calamity hung on arrogant and peremptory phrases in the prepared and written missive of the British Minister, to America, which the Queen (and Prince Albert latent) positively and promptly cancelled; and which her firm attitude did alone actually erase and leave out, against all the other official prestige and Court of St. James's. On such minor and personal incidents (so to call them), often depend the great growths and turns of civilization. This moment of a woman and a queen surely swung the grandest oscillation of modern history's pendulum. Many sayings and doings of that period, from foreign potentates and powers, might well be drop'd in oblivion by America-- but never this, if I could have my way. W. W. [*Received from W.W. May 25, '90 see notes.*] Transcribed and reviewed by contributors participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.