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. |
| |
 [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. |
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| |
| two leads |
| |
| [Leaf 3 recto] |
3
|
| War, Death, cataclysm like this, America, |
| Take Deep to thy proud, prosperous heart. |
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| |
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, |
| |
| [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 potensies 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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