Transpositions

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) · Leaves of Grass · The Sleepers · 1856

Let the reformers descend from the stands where they are forever bawling⁠—let an idiot or insane person appear on each of the stands;
Let judges and criminals be transposed⁠—let the prison-keepers be put in prison⁠—let those that were prisoners take the keys;
Let them that distrust birth and death lead the rest.

Where this text comes from

First published in Leaves of Grass (Brooklyn, 1856). Located in this edition by matching this text's lines against the Whitman Archive transcription of the 1856 Fowler & Wells edition (ppp.00237). The corpus text follows the 1891–92 arrangement, by which the poem had been revised. First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established. [1]

Structure read from the source's markup; the words have not been compared against a page scan. Last checked 2026-08-12.

Taken from Standard Ebooks, standardebooks/walt-whitman_leaves-of-grass, the-sleepers.xhtml. Rights: public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931).

Earlier sources (2)

This poem as JSON or plain text. Line anchors #L1–#L3.

Cite this poem

Walt Whitman (1819–1892). “Transpositions.” First published in Leaves of Grass (Brooklyn, 1856). Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/walt-whitman/transpositions/. Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.

More by Walt Whitman