Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman

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.

¹ 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,

From every point of the compass, out of the countless
unnamed graves,

In wafted clouds, in myriads large, or squads of twos
or threes, or single ones, they come,

And silently gather round me.

³ Now sound no note, O trumpeters,

Not at the head of my cavalry, parading on spirited
horses,

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,

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;

Nothing from you this time, O drummers, bearing my
warlike drums.

⁵ But aside from these, and the marts of wealth, and
the crowded promenade,

Admitting around me comrades close, unseen by the
rest and voiceless,

The slain elate and alive again—the dust and debris
alive,

I chant this chant of my silent soul in the name of all
dead soldiers.

⁶ Faces so pale, with wondrous eyes, very dear, gather
closer yet;

Draw close, but speak not.

⁷ Phantoms of countless lost,

Invisible to the rest henceforth become my compan-
ions!

Follow me ever—desert me not while I live.

⁸ Sweet are the blooming cheeks of the living! sweet
are the musical voices sounding!

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.

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.

¹² Give me exhaustless—make me a fountain,

That I exhale love from me wherever I go like a moist
perennial dew,

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,)

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,

Shining sweetly, shining down, where we dig the
trenches and gather the heaps,

I dream, I dream, I dream.

3

Long, long have they pass'd—faces and trenches and
fields;

Where through the carnage I moved with a callous com-
posure—or away from the fallen,

Onward I sped at the time—But now of their forms at
night,

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;

Some of us so fatigued, carrying the gun and knapsack,
dropping asleep in our tracks;

Others pitching the little tents, and the fires lit up
began to sparkle,

Outposts of pickets posted, surrounding, alert through
the dark,

And a word provided for countersign, careful for safety;

Till to the call of the drummers at daybreak loudly
beating the drums,

We rose up refresh'd, the night and sleep pass'd over,
and resumed our journey,

Or proceed to battle.

² Lo! the camps of the tents of green,

Which the days of peace keep filling, and the days of
war keep filling,

With a mystic army, (is it too order'd forward? is it
too only halting awhile,

Till night and sleep pass over?)

³ Now in those camps of green—in their tents dotting
the world;

In the parents, children, husbands, wives, in them—in
the old and young,

Sleeping under the sunlight, sleeping under the moon-
light, content and silent there at last,

Behold the mighty bivouac-field and waiting-camp of
all,

Of the corps and generals all, and the President over the
corps and generals all,

And of each of us O soldiers, and of each and all in the ranks we
fought,

(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;

But we need not provide for outposts, nor word for the
countersign,

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?

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;

(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,

With slow wail and convulsive throb, leading the offi-
cer's funeral;)

—What to such as you, anyhow, such a poet as I?—
therefore leave my works,

And go lull yourself with what you can understand—
and with piano-tunes;

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;

(As the last gun ceased—but the scent of the powder-
smoke linger'd;)

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;

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, 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 bodies
absorb—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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