In 1925, Walt Whitman’s hand-written manuscript, including part of Leaves of Grass, was found. The following poem didn’t match the published version of 1892 where the pronoun of the poem’s subject was female. The story see Whitman self-censoring his own poetry to avoid further scandal, for homoeroticism, on his poetry.

ONCE I PASS’D THROUGH A POPULOUS CITY

Once I pass’d through a populous city imprinting my brain for

future use with its shows, architecture, customs, traditions,

Yet now all that city I remember only a man I casually

met there who detain’d me for love of me,

Day by day and night by night we were together – all else has

long been forgotten by me,

I remember, I say, only that man who passionately clung

to me,

Again We wonder, we love we separate again,

Again he holds me by the hand, I must not go,

I see him close beside me with silent lips sad and tremulous.

From Leaves of Grass, Children of Adam, the bold fragments have been revisited following the speculations on the hand-written manuscript.