What's that on your Boot-Soles?

Confronting The Walt Whitman Archive is akin to confronting Whitman's famous "Song of Myself," in that there is simply too much there to grasp it all together. So, I made my start with one of the obvious advantages of the digital archive - the ability to see and compare the seven versions of "Song of Myself" which Whitman published in the US over his lifetime. I decided to look at the close of the poem (starting at "Listener up there!") in each edition, comparing the changes made.

This section didn't change dramatically over the years, but as Whitman insists in the poem that no thing is too small or soft but it can be the hub of the universe, the subtle differences I can see still interest me. Other than the deletion of "here you" from the line "Listener up there! Here you...what have you to confide to me?" in the 1881 and 1891 versions of the poem, the changes to this section are mainly in punctuation and in the typesetting (is that the right way to describe the layout of the words on the page?).

To begin with the appearance on the page, you can see here the first page of this section in the 1855, 1856, 1867, and 1891 editions:

It's hard to see on the blog, but looking at them together, I noticed that while the first edition (1855) has small print, the lines have enough room to spread their full length across the page, rarely having to spill into a second, indented line. This impression of
s p r e a  d   i   n  g and stretching (a la Walt's soul, which early in the poem reaches from his beard to his toes, or like his body, which late in the poem he effuses in "eddies" and lets "drift in lacy jags.") is amplified by the profusion of ellipses (more about that in a bit!). Later editions, like the 1856 and 1867, offer larger print, which means fewer words and lines per page (a chance to focus on them more closely, perhaps?), but this also means the lines become more cramped, hitting the edges of the page and having to retreat with an indent. These editions also bristle with more punctuation than the earliest version (more about this later). The final two editions of Leaves of Grass return to a style similar to that of the 1855 edition - with the lines more often stretching their full length instead of wrapping around, and the words less restricted by punctuation. I think it's pretty clear what style I prefer for this section, but what style best suits your idea of the poem?

To return to the profusion of ellipses in the 1855 edition - they're everywhere in the section I'm looking at....

"Do I contradict myself? 
Very well then....I contradict myself;
I am large....I contain multitudes."


And...

"I depart as air...I shake my white locks at the runaway sun"

Later additions tighten up the words, using more definite punctuation. The ellipses never return:

"Do I contradict myself?
Very well then, I contradict myself,
I am large, I contain multitudes."


And...

"I depart as air, I shake my white locks at
      the run-away sun"


The shedding of the ellipses suggests a more certain, more forceful, more assured voice. But...I prefer the hint of hesitation....the space for breathing (echoing Walt's interest in inhalation and exhalation), and...the thinking implied in the original ellipses. And, don't they suit the poem's sentiments well?
"I depart as air" dot dot dot seems much more fitting than "I depart as air" comma.

In the 1871 edition a new punctuation appears: parentheses. "I am large, I contain multitudes" slips into a pair:

"Do I contradict myself?
Very well, then, I contradict myself;
(I am large--I contain multitudes.)"

And in 1881, another pair grip the closing line of the stanza above, too:

"Listener up there! what have you to confide to me?
Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening,
(Talk honestly, no one else hears you, and I stay only a minute longer.)"


What do you make of turning these lines into (asides)? And what do you think of the archive as a place or means for digging into Whitman's poetry?