Since I am easily confused, and not entirely sure how to find passages from the various editions, I have chosen to focus on the beginnings of each.
1855: “I celebrate myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you”
1860: “ELEMENTAL drifts!/
O I wish I could impress others as you and the waves
have just been impressing me.”
1867: “THERE was a child went forth every day;
And the first object he look'd upon, that object he be-
came;
And that object became part of him for the day, or a
certain part of the day, or for many years, or
stretching cycles of years.”
These three opening lines, If they are indeed the edited opening lines I assume them to be address the idea of Whitman’s expansion of self in various ways. In the first is the one all of us in the class are familiar with as Whitman has rather familiarized himself with us by saying, “You settled your head athwart my hips and gently turned over upon me./ And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongue to my barestript/ heart.” He passes through the second person singular pronoun “you” and first person “I” to make the point that the two are connected as our tongues are fastened to his heart. Because he can, “know that the spirit of God is the eldest brother of my own,” then so can we. We at first are with him and experience his experience through his narrative eye.
The second edition strays a bit. Instead he introduces us to his home: the great Paumanok, Long Island, his home. The reader is then subject to his beautiful descriptions of the island where, “the sea ripples wash you Paumanok/ where they rustle up hoarse and sibilant.” Here we get a greater understanding of Whitman as our guide. He shares with us the world that molded him into the poet he became. Instead of expanding himself to us the reader he expands outward to become part of his city and surroundings.
“I perceive Nature here, in sight of the sea, is taking
advantage of me, to dart upon me, and sting me,
Because I was assuming so much,
And because I have dared to open my mouth to sing
at all.” Showing us his insolence he opens himself to criticism and scorn even from his own home. He opens himself but does not come to us. We must go to him out on his “Fish-shaped” island. He melds the elements together with such metaphors and similes. By doing so he is able to combine his surroundings into one whole. He brings himself into the mixture and towards the end attempts to convey that he is not yet complete. As he becomes closer to Paumanok, who he refers to as his father and the sea his mother, he refers to himself as we until he finally finds us, “Whoever you are—we too lie in drifts at your feet.” He surrounds us and becomes part of the landscape pointing back to the idea that we will always find him beneath our boots.
In the final edition in 1867 Whitman examines the point of view of the child. Instead of warming us up to the idea that Whitman himself surrounds us. The poet persona immediate assaults us with the concept that the child becomes one with what surrounds him. “The first object he looked upon, that object he became,” shows that the child is an empty vessel, empty and vast. Whitman uses the child to point to the simplicity with which man could accept his surroundings, but as he grows older he becomes stuck. When the child becomes his parents he takes on the duality of gender roles. The mother is kind and gentle while the father is harsh and rough. They are stuck as what they are as all objects are, but through the child they transcend beyond one simple role and are added to the many that reside within the child. Whitman steers clear of the first and second person and stays in the encompassing third that is the child. He points to the innocence of everything. Instead of expanding outward the poet persona focuses inward saying, “These became part of the child who went forth every/ day, and now goes, and will always go forth/ every day.” These lines focus on the passage of time going from day to every day. The symbol of child is present and future and all encompassing, instead of expanding outward all collapse in the self to make a whole.