In the Second Annex, there are a series of short poems, including one that caught my interest. “Good-Bye my Fancy” is a four-word poem with a parenthetical and a lengthy comment on the first two words of the poem. The main body of the work is simply

GOOD-BYE* my fancy–

followed by what seems to be Whitman interrupting himself mid-sentence, reconsidering what he is about to say

(I had a word to say,
But ’tis not quite the time–The best of any man’s word or say,
Is when its proper place arrives–and for its meaning,
I keep mine till the last.)
(639)

The em-dash separating the body of the poem and the parenthetical indicates an interruption.  It tells us that there was originally more to the thought, but what follows interrupted Whitman’s stream of consciousness.  The words indicate that while Whitman was about to impart a farewell to his “fancy” (Leaves of Grass itself, perhaps), something stopped him, and he decided that it would be best to finish his thought at another time.

But if that is so, why write it at all?  The interruption theory works for speech or dialogue, but in the medium Whitman is working in, there is no illusion of spontaneity.  From conception to publication, the crafting of a poem is a lengthy and deliberate process; so, if words are on the printed page, it is because Whitman wanted them there–not because they were already spoken and could not be unspoken.  To answer this question, we must look to the tiny asterisk attached to the words Good-Bye.

That asterisk indicates a footnote, which Whitman has included with the poem.  The full text can be found at the bottom of page 639, but it essentially says two things:  first, that G00d-byes are merely the marks of new beginnings, and second, that while last words are valuable, they are often mistakenly used as “samples of the best” when in fact, they are not.  This gives an important insight into the inclusion of a seemingly out-of-place poem.

Perhaps it is because of his age or because Leaves of Grass had not had the impact he had hoped for, but Whitman clearly adopted the view that the End is not truly the conclusion, but a transitory period that marks the start of something new–a New Beginning.  But, rather than keep this information to himself, he wanted to infuse it within the very work he was closing.  The Annex ultimately ends with a full version of “Good-Bye my Fancy,” but including only the full version would have glossed over the true meaning behind the words.  By including what seems like a false-start, Whitman employs a technique often used by Shakespeare:  he forces us to stop, recognize that we are reading words very deliberately placed on the page and think about why they are there and what they are telling us.  So when Whitman tells us that he “had a word to say,/But ’tis not quite the time–” he is telling us that there is a special meaning behind the last words of a person or work.

And for Whitman, the special meaning is that a Good-bye is not a Good-bye or an End at all; rather, it is a Hello and a Beginning.