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A Voice from Death

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A VOICE FROM DEATH.

A voice from Death, solemn and 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 con- 
 tinuing on,
(Amid the rest, amid the rushing, whirling, wild 
  debris,
A suffering 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.
Yes, 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 our- 
  selves—America itself bends low,
Silent, resign'd, submissive.
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 
  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 resist- 
  less, sleepless, calm,
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 everyone of us is buoy'd.
WALT WHITMAN.
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