Pensive on Her Dead Gazing, I Heard the Mother of All
PENSIVE ON HER DEAD GAZING, I HEARD
THE MOTHER OF ALL.
PENSIVE, on her dead gazing, I heard the Mother of All,
Desperate, on the torn bodies, on the forms covering the battle-fields gazing; As she call'd to her earth with mournful voice while she
stalk'd: Absorb them well, O my earth, she cried—I charge you,
lose not my sons! lose not an atom; And you streams, absorb them well, taking their dear
blood; And you local spots, and you airs that swim above
lightly, And all you essences of soil and growth—and you, O
my rivers' depths; And you mountain sides—and the woods where my
dear children's blood, trickling, redden'd; And you trees, down in your roots, to bequeath to all
future trees, My dead absorb—my young men's beautiful bodies ab-
sorb—and their precious, precious, precious
blood; Which holding in trust for me, faithfully back again give
me, many a year hence, In unseen essence and odor of surface and grass, centu-
ries hence; In blowing airs from the fields, back again give me my
darlings—give my immortal heroes; Exhale me them centuries hence—breathe me their
breath—let not an atom be lost; O years and graves! O air and soil! O my dead, an
aroma sweet! Exhale them perennial, sweet death, years, centuries
hence.