A Voice from Death
Key
| Textual Feature | Appearance |
|---|---|
| Overwritten | brown with strikethrough |
| Added inline | purple with double underline |
| Uncertain | gray with wavy underline |
| Supplied from another source | turquoise with brackets |
| Metamark | |
| Long deletion | gray background with top and bottom border |
[begin leaf 1 recto]
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. [begin leaf 2 recto]
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. 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. [begin leaf 3 recto]
War, death, cataclysm like this, America,
Take deep to thy proud, prosperous heart.
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 humanad aid moves on;
And from within a thought and lesson yet.
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, [begin leaf 4 recto]
Holding humanity as in thy open hand,
as some ephemeral toy. How ill to e'er forget thee! For I too have forgotten, (wrapt in these little potencies 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 ofus us is buoyed.
Walt Whitman
A Voice from Death
A voice from Death, solemn andstrange, 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, A
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. [begin leaf 2 recto]
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. 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. [begin leaf 3 recto]
War, death, cataclysm like this, America,
Take deep to thy proud, prosperous heart.
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
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, [begin leaf 4 recto]
Holding humanity as in thy open hand,
as some ephemeral toy. How ill to e'er forget thee! For I too have forgotten, (wrapt in these little potencies 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