Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman

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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.

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