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A Voice from Death

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  [begin leaf 1 recto] To printers & proof reader follow copy, please, punctuation &c. & read carefully by copy No 1

A Voice from Death

A voice from Death, solemn and  
 strange, in all his sweep and  
 power,
With sudden, indescribable blow—towns  
 drown'd—humanity by thousands  
 slain
The vaunted work of thrift, goods,  
 dwellings, forge, street, iron bridge,
Dash'd pell-mell by the blow—yet  
 usher'd life continuing on.
(Amid the rest, amid the rushing, whirling,  
 wild debris,
An enceinte suff'ring woman saved—a baby safely  
 born!)
Although I come and unannounced, in  
 horror and in pang,
In pouring flood and fire, and wholesale  
 elemental crash, (this voice so solemn, strange,)
I too a minister of Deity.   [begin leaf 2 recto] 2 # two leads Yea, Death, we bow our faces, veil  
 our eyes to thee,
We mourn the old, the young untimely  
 drawn to thee,
The fair, the strong, the good, the capable, The household wreck'd, the husband and  
 the wife, the engulf'd forger  
 in his forge,
The corpses in the whelming waters and  
 the mud,
The gather'd thousands in their funeral  
 mounds and thousands never found  
 or gather'd.
two leads Then after burying, mourning the dead, (Faithful to them, found or unfound, forgetting  
 not, bearing the past, here now musing,)
A day—a passing moment or an hour—we  
 bow ourselves—America itself bends low,
Silent, resign'd submmissive.
two leads   [begin leaf 3 recto] 3 War, death, cataclysm like this, America, Take deep to thy proud, prosperous heart. two leads E'en as I chant, lo! out of death, and  
 out of ooze and slime,
The blossoms rapidly blooming, sympathy,  
 help, love,
From west and east, from south and north  
 and over sea,
Its hot spurr'd hearts and hands humanity  
 to human ad aid moves on;
And from within a thought and lesson yet.
two leads Thou ever-darting globe! thou earth and air! Thou waters that encompass us! Thou that in all the life and death of us,  
 in action or in sleep!
Thou laws invisible that permeate them  
 and all!
Thou that in all and over all, and through  
 and under all, incessant!
Thou! thou! the vital, universal, giant force  
 resistless, sleepless, calm,
  [begin leaf 4 recto] 4 4 Holding humanity as in thy open hand,  
 as some ephemeral toy.
How ill to e'er forget thee!
two leads For I too have forgotten, (wrapt in these little potencies of progress,  
 politics, culture, wealth, inventions,  
 civilization.)
Have lost my recognition of your silent  
 ever-swaying power, ye mighty,  
 elemental throes,
In which and upon which we float,  
 and every one of us us is buoyed.
Walt Whitman
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