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Leaves of Grass (1871-72)
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ASHES OF SOLDIERS.
Again a verse for sake of you, |
You soldiers in the ranks—you Volunteers, |
Who bravely fighting silent fell. |
To fill unmention'd graves. |
ASHES OF SOLDIERS.
As I muse, retrospective, murmuring a chant in thought, |
Lo! The war resumes—again to my sense your shapes, |
And again the advance of the armies. |
2 Noiseless as mists and vapors, |
From their graves in the trenches ascending, |
From their cemeteries all through Virginia and Ten-
nessee,
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From every point of the compass, out of the countless
unnamed graves,
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In wafted clouds, in myriads large, or squads of twos
or threes, or single ones, they come,
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And silently gather round me. |
3 Now sound no note, O trumpeters, |
Not at the head of my cavalry, parading on spirited
horses,
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With sabres drawn and glist'ning, and carbines by
their thighs, (ah my brave horsemen!
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My handsome, tan-faced horsemen! what life, what joy
and pride,
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With all the perils, were yours!) |
4 Nor you drummers—neither at reveillé at dawn, |
Nor the long roll alarming the camp—nor even the
muffled beat for a burial;
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Nothing from you this time, O drummers, bearing my
warlike drums.
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5 But aside from these, and the marts of wealth, and
the crowded promenade,
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Admitting around me comrades close, unseen by the
rest and voiceless,
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The slain elate and alive again—the dust and debris
alive,
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I chant this chant of my silent soul in the name of all
dead soldiers.
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6 Faces so pale, with wondrous eyes, very dear, gather
closer yet;
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Draw close, but speak not. |
7 Phantoms of countless lost, |
Invisible to the rest henceforth become my compan-
ions!
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Follow me ever—desert me not while I live. |
8 Sweet are the blooming cheeks of the living! sweet
are the musical voices sounding!
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But sweet, ah sweet, are the dead with their silent eyes. |
9 Dearest comrades! all is over and long gone; |
But love is not over—and what love, O comrades! |
Perfume from battle-fields rising—up from the foetor
arising.
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10 Perfume therefore my chant, O love! immortal Love! |
Give me to bathe the memories of all dead soldiers, |
Shroud them, embalm them, cover them all over with
tender pride.
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11 Perfume all! make all wholesome! |
Make these ashes to nourish and blossom, |
O love! O chant! solve all, fructify all with the last
chemistry.
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12 Give me exhaustless—make me a fountain, |
That I exhale love from me wherever I go like a moist
perennial dew,
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For the ashes of all dead soldiers. |
IN MIDNIGHT SLEEP.
1
IN midnight sleep, of many a face of anguish, |
Of the look at first of the mortally wounded—(of that
indescribable look,)
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Of the dead on their backs with arms extended wide, |
I dream, I dream, I dream. |
2
Of scenes of nature, fields and mountains; |
Of skies, so beauteous after a storm—and at night the
moon so unearthly bright,
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Shining sweetly, shining down, where we dig the
trenches and gather the heaps,
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I dream, I dream, I dream. |
3
Long, long have they pass'd—faces and trenches and
fields;
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Where through the carnage I moved with a callous com-
posure—or away from the fallen,
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Onward I sped at the time—But now of their forms at
night,
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I dream, I dream, I dream. |
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CAMPS OF GREEN.
1 NOT alone those camps of white, O soldiers, |
When, as order'd forward, after a long march, |
Footsore and weary, soon as the light lessen'd, we
halt for the night;
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Some of us so fatigued, carrying the gun and knapsack,
dropping asleep in our tracks;
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Others pitching the little tents, and the fires lit up
began to sparkle,
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Outposts of pickets posted, surrounding, alert through
the dark,
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And a word provided for countersign, careful for safety; |
Till to the call of the drummers at daybreak loudly
beating the drums,
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We rose up refresh'd, the night and sleep pass'd over,
and resumed our journey,
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2 Lo! the camps of the tents of green, |
Which the days of peace keep filling, and the days of
war keep filling,
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With a mystic army, (is it too order'd forward? is it
too only halting awhile,
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Till night and sleep pass over?) |
3 Now in those camps of green—in their tents dotting
the world;
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In the parents, children, husbands, wives, in them—in
the old and young,
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Sleeping under the sunlight, sleeping under the moon-
light, content and silent there at last,
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Behold the mighty bivouac-field and waiting-camp of
all,
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Of the corps and generals all, and the President over the
corps and generals all,
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And of each of us O soldiers, and of each and all in the ranks we
fought,
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(There without hatred we all, all meet.) |
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4 For presently, O soldiers, we too camp in our place in
the bivouac-camps of green;
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But we need not provide for outposts, nor word for the
countersign,
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Nor drummer to beat the morning drum. |
TO A CERTAIN CIVILIAN.
DID you ask dulcet rhymes from me? |
Did you seek the civilian's peaceful and languishing
rhymes?
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Did you find what I sang erewhile so hard to follow? |
Why I was not singing erewhile for you to follow, to
understand—nor am I now;
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(I have been born of the same as the war was born; |
The drum-corps' harsh rattle is to me sweet music—I
love well the martial dirge,
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With slow wail and convulsive throb, leading the offi-
cer's funeral;)
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—What to such as you, anyhow, such a poet as I?—
therefore leave my works,
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And go lull yourself with what you can understand—
and with piano-tunes;
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For I lull nobody—and you will never understand me. |
PENSIVE ON HER DEAD GAZING, I HEARD THE MOTHER OF ALL.
PENSIVE, on the torn bodies, on the forms covering
the battle-fields gazing;
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(As the last gun ceased—but the scent of the powder-
smoke linger'd;)
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As she call'd to her earth with mournful voice while she
stalk'd:
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Absorb them well, O my earth, she cried—I charge you,
lose not my sons! lose not an atom;
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And you streams, absorb them well, taking their dear
blood;
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And you local spots, and you airs that swim above
lightly
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And all you essences of soil and growth—and you, my
rivers' depths;
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And you, mountain sides—and the woods where my
dear children's blood, trickling, redden'd;
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And you trees, down in your roots, to bequeath to all
future trees,
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My dead absorb—my young men's bodies
absorb—and their precious, precious, precious
blood;
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Which holding in trust for me, faithfully back again
give me, many a year hence,
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In unseen essence and odor of surface and grass, centu-
ries hence;
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In blowing airs from the fields, back again give me my
darlings—give my immortal heroes;
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Exhale me them centuries hence—breathe me their
breath—let not an atom be lost;
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O years and graves! O air and soil! O my dead, an
aroma sweet!
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Exhale them perennial sweet death, years, centuries
hence.
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