Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman

contents | previous | next

ARM'D year! year of the struggle!

No dainty rhymes or sentimental love verses for you,
terrible year!

Not you as some pale poetling, seated at a desk, lisping
cadenzas piano;

But as a strong man, erect, clothed in blue clothes, ad-
vancing, carrying a rifle on your shoulder,

With well-gristled body and sunburnt face and hands
—with a knife in a belt at your side,

As I heard you shouting loud—your sonorous voice
ringing across the continent;

Your masculine voice, O year, as rising amid the great
cities,

Amid the men of Manhattan I saw you, as one of the
workmen, the dwellers in Manhattan;

Or with large steps crossing the prairies out of Illinois
and Indiana,

Rapidly crossing the West with springy gait, and de-
scending the Alleghanies;

Or down from the great lakes, or in Pennsylvania, or on
deck along the Ohio river;

Or southward along the Tennessee or Cumberland rivers,
or at Chattanooga on the mountain top,

View Page 265

Saw I your gait and saw I your sinewy limbs, clothed
in blue, bearing weapons, robust year;

Heard your determin'd voice, launch'd forth again and
again;

Year that suddenly sang by the mouths of the round-
lipp'd cannon,

I repeat you, hurrying, crashing, sad, distracted year.

contents | previous | next