by Walt Whitman
Read by Orson Welles
Presented by Peter Duval Smith
A Song of Myself was written in 1855, when Whitman was thirty-six, and published in that year as an untitled introduction to the first edition of Leaves of Grass. It was intended as a personal testament: its prophetic tone and the pantheism and idealism which it recommends remained a permanent characteristic of Whitman's verse. For this broadcast the poem has been slightly cut.
(The recorded broadcast of April 6)
7.50 American Piano Music
Blues No. 1 (freely poetic): Blues
No. 4 (with bounce) (Aaron Cop-land): played by the composer
Four Excursions, Op. 20 (
Samuel Barber ): played by Rudolf Firkusny on gramophone records
8.5 A SONG OF MYSELF '
(continued)