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Title: As One by One Withdraw the Lofty Actors
Creator: Walt Whitman
Date: May 16, 1885
Whitman Archive ID: per.00025
Source: Harper's Weekly 4 (16 May 1885): 310. Our transcription is based on a digital image of an original issue. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the periodical poems, see our statement of editorial policy.
Contributors to digital file: Elizabeth Lorang, April Lambert, Heather Morton, Leslie Ianno, Ramon Guerra, and Susan Belasco
 image 1 |  cropped image 1 |
AS ONE BY ONE WITHDRAW THE LOFTY ACTORS.1
I.
AS one by one withdraw the lofty actors
From that great play on history's stage eterne,
That lurid, partial act of war and peace—of old
and new contending,
and new contending,
Fought out through wrath, fears, dark dismays,
and many a long suspense,
and many a long suspense,
All past—and since, in countless graves reced-
ing, mellowing,
ing, mellowing,
Victor's and vanquish'd—Lincoln's and Lee's—
now thou with them,
now thou with them,
Man of the mighty days—and equal to the days!
Thou from the prairies!—tangled and many-
vein'd and hard has been thy part,
vein'd and hard has been thy part,
To admiration has it been enacted!
II.
And still shall be; resume again, thou hero
heart!
heart!
Strengthen to firmest day, O rosy dawn of hope!
Thou dirge I started first, to joyful shout reverse!
and thou, O grave,
and thou, O grave,
Wait long and long!
WALT WHITMAN.
Notes:
1. Reprinted as "Grant" in Critic 7 (15 August 1885): 80; and revised as "Death of General Grant" in the "Sands at Seventy" annex to Leaves of Grass (1888). [back]