Read Ebook: The Patriotic Poems of Walt Whitman by Whitman Walt

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never be better , While they stand at home at the door he is dead already, The only son is dead.

A TWILIGHT SONG

As I sit in twilight late alone by the flickering oak-flame, Musing on long-pass'd war-scenes--of the countless buried unknown soldiers, Of the vacant names, as unindented air's and sea's--the unreturn'd, The brief truce after battle, with grim burial-squads, and the deep-fill'd trenches Of gather'd dead from all America, North, South, East, West, whence they came up, From wooded Maine, New-England's farms, from fertile Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, From the measureless West, Virginia, the South, the Carolinas, Texas ; You million unwrit names all, all--you dark bequest from all the war, A special verse for you--a flash of duty long neglected--your mystic roll strangely gather'd here, Each name recall'd by me from out the darkness and death's ashes, Henceforth to be, deep, deep within my heart recording, for many a future year, Your mystic roll entire of unknown names, or North or South, Embalm'd with love in this twilight song.

A SIGHT IN CAMP IN THE DAYBREAK GRAY AND DIM

A sight in camp in the daybreak gray and dim, As from my tent I emerge so early sleepless, As slow I walk in the cool fresh air the path near by the hospital tent, Three forms I see on stretchers lying, brought out there untended lying, Over each the blanket spread, ample brownish woollen blanket, Gray and heavy blanket, folding, covering all.

Curious I halt and silent stand, Then with light fingers I from the face of the nearest the first just lift the blanket; Who are you elderly man so gaunt and grim, with well-gray'd hair, and flesh all sunken about the eyes? Who are you my dear comrade?

Then to the second I step--and who are you my child and darling? Who are you sweet boy with cheeks yet blooming?

Then to the third--a face nor child nor old, very calm, as of beautiful yellow-white ivory; Young man I think I know you--I think this face is the face of the Christ himself, Dead and divine and brother of all, and here again he lies.

YEAR THAT TREMBLED AND REEL'D BENEATH ME

Year that trembled and reel'd beneath me! Your summer wind was warm enough, yet the air I breathed froze me, A thick gloom fell through the sunshine and darken'd me, Must I change my triumphant songs? said I to myself, Must I indeed learn to chant the cold dirges of the baffled, And sullen hymns of defeat?

FIRST O SONGS FOR A PRELUDE

First O songs for a prelude, Lightly strike on the stretch'd tympanum pride and joy in my city, How she led the rest to arms, how she gave the cue, How at once with lithe limbs unwaiting a moment she sprang, How you sprang--how you threw off the costumes of peace with indifferent hand, How your soft opera-music changed, and the drum and fife were heard in their stead, How you led to the war , How Manhattan drum-taps led.

Forty years had I in my city seen soldiers parading, Forty years as a pageant, till unawares the lady of this teeming and turbulent city, Sleepless amid her ships, her houses, her incalculable wealth, With her million children around her, suddenly, At dead of night, at news from the south, Incens'd struck with clinch'd hand the pavement.

A shock electric, the night sustain'd it, Till with ominous hum our hive at daybreak pour'd out its myriads. From the houses then and the workshops, and through all the doorways, Leapt they tumultuous, and lo! Manhattan arming.

To the drum-taps prompt, The young men falling in and arming, The mechanics arming , The lawyer leaving his office and arming, the judge leaving the court, The driver deserting his wagon in the street, jumping down, throwing the reins abruptly down on the horses' backs, The salesman leaving the store, the boss, book-keeper, porter, all leaving; Squads gather everywhere by common consent and arm, The new recruits, even boys, the old men show them how to wear their accoutrements, they buckle the straps carefully, Outdoors arming, indoors arming, the flash of the musket-barrels, The white tents cluster in camps, the arm'd sentries around, the sunrise cannon and again at sunset, Arm'd regiments arrive every day, pass through the city, and embark from the wharves The blood of the city up--arm'd! arm'd! the cry everywhere, The flags flung out from the steeples of churches and from all the public buildings and stores, The tearful parting, the mother kisses her son, the son kisses his mother , The tumultuous escort, the ranks of policemen preceding, clearing the way, The unpent enthusiasm, the wild cheers of the crowd for their favourites, The artillery, the silent cannons bright as gold, drawn along, rumble lightly over the stones ; All the mutter of preparation, all the determin'd arming, The hospital service, the lint, bandages, and medicines, The women volunteering for nurses, the work begun for in earnest, no mere parade now; War! an arm'd race is advancing, the welcome for battle, no turning away; War! be it weeks, months, or years, an arm'd race is advancing to welcome it.

Mannahatta a-march--and it's O to sing it well! It's O for a manly life in the camp.

And the sturdy artillery The guns bright as gold, the work for giants, to serve well the guns, Unlimber them!

And you lady of ships, you Mannahatta, Old matron of this proud, friendly, turbulent city, Often in peace and wealth you were pensive or covertly frown'd amid all your children, But now you smile with joy exulting old Mannahatta.

SONG OF THE BANNER AT DAYBREAK

Words! book-words! what are you? Words no more, for hearken and see, My song is there in the open air, and I must sing, With the banner and pennant a-flapping.

I'll weave the chord and twine in, Man's desire and babe's desire, I'll twine them in, I'll put in life, I'll put the bayonet's flashing point, I'll let bullets and slugs whizz I'll pour the verse with streams of blood, full of volition, full of joy, Then loosen, launch forth, to go and compete, With the banner and pennant a-flapping.

Come up here, bard, bard, Come up here, soul, soul, Come up here, dear little child, To fly in the clouds and winds with me, and play with the measureless light.

Father what is that in the sky beckoning to me with long finger? And what does it say to me all the while?

Nothing my babe you see in the sky, And nothing at all to you it says--but look you my babe, Look at these dazzling things in the houses, and see you the money-shops opening, And see you the vehicles preparing to crawl along the streets with goods; These, ah these, how valued and toil'd for these! How envied by all the earth!

Fresh and rosy red the sun is mounting high, On floats the sea in distant blue careering through its channels, On floats the wind over the breast of the sea setting in toward land, The great steady wind from west to west-by-south. Floating so buoyant with milk-white foam on the waters. But I am not the sea nor the red sun, I am not the wind with girlish laughter, Not the immense wind which strengthens, not the wind which lashes, Not the spirit that ever lashes its own body to terror and death, But I am that which unseen comes and sings, sings, sings, Which babbles in brooks and scoots in showers on the land, Which the birds know in the woods mornings and evenings, And the shore-sands know and the hissing wave, and that banner and pennant, Aloft there flapping and flapping.

O father it is alive--it is full of people--it has children, O now it seems to me it is talking to its children, I hear it--it talks to me--O it is wonderful! O it stretches--it spreads and runs so fast--O my father, It is so broad it covers the whole sky.

Cease, cease, my foolish babe, What you are saying is sorrowful to me, much it displeases me; Behold with the rest again I say, behold not banners and pennants aloft, But the well-prepared pavements behold, and mark the solid-wall'd houses.

Speak to the child O bard out of Manhattan, To our children all, or north or south of Manhattan, Point this day, leaving all the rest, to us over all--and yet we know not why, For what are we, mere strips of cloth profiting nothing, Only flapping in the wind?

I hear and see not strips of cloth alone, I hear the tramp of armies, I hear the challenging sentry, I hear the jubilant shouts of millions of men, I hear Liberty! I hear the drums beat and the trumpets blowing, I myself move abroad swift-rising flying then, I use the wings of the land-bird and use the wings of the sea-bird, and look down as from a height, I do not deny the precious results of peace, I see populous cities with wealth incalculable, I see numberless farms, I see the farmers working in their fields or barns, I see mechanics working, I see buildings everywhere founded, going up, or finish'd, I see trains of cars swiftly speeding along railroad tracks drawn by the locomotives, I see the stores, depots, of Boston, Baltimore, Charleston, New Orleans, I see far in the West the immense area of grain, I dwell awhile hovering, I pass to the lumber forests of the North, and again to the Southern plantation, and again to California; Sweeping the whole I see the countless profit, the busy gatherings, earn'd wages, See the Identity formed out of thirty-eight spacious and haughty States , See forts on the shores of harbours, see ships sailing in and out; Then over all my little and lengthen'd pennant shaped like a sword, Runs swiftly up indicating war and defiance--and now the halyards have rais'd it, Side of my banner broad and blue, side of my starry banner, Discarding peace over all the sea and land.

Yet louder, higher, stronger, bard! yet farther, wider cleave! No longer let our children deem us riches and peace alone, We may be terror and carnage, and are so now, Not now are we any one of these spacious and haughty States , Nor market nor depot we, nor money-bank in the city, But these and all, and the brown and spreading land, and the mines below, are ours, And the shores of the sea are ours, and the rivers great and small, And the fields they moisten, and the crops and the fruits are ours, Bays and channels and ships sailing in and out are ours--while we over all, Over the area spread below, the three or four millions of square miles, the capitals, The forty millions of people--O bard! in life and death supreme, We, even we, henceforth flaunt out masterful, high up above, Not for the present alone, for a thousand years chanting through you, This song to the soul of one poor little child.

O my father I like not the houses, They will never to me be anything, nor do I like money, But to mount up there I would like, O father dear, that banner I like, That pennant I would be and must be.

Child of mine you fill me with anguish, To be that pennant would be too fearful, Little you know what it is this day, and after this day, forever, It is to gain nothing, but risk and defy everything, Forward to stand in front of wars--and O, such wars!--what have you to do with them? With passions of demons, slaughter, premature death?

Demons and death then I sing, Put in all, aye all will I, sword-shaped pennant for war, And a pleasure new and ecstatic, and the prattled yearning of children, Blent with the sounds of the peaceful land and the liquid wash of the sea, And the black ships fighting on the sea envelop'd in smoke, And the icy cool of the far, far north, with rustling cedars and pines, And the whirr of drums and the sound of soldiers marching, and the hot sun shining south, And the beach-waves combing over the beach on my Eastern shore, and my Western shore the same, And all between those shores, and my ever running Mississippi with bends and chutes, And my Illinois fields, and my Kansas fields, and my fields of Missouri, The Continent, devoting the whole identity without reserving an atom, Pour in! whelm that which asks, which sings, with all and the yield of all, Fusing and holding, claiming, devouring the whole, No more with tender lip, nor musical labial sound, But out of the night emerging for food, our voice persuasive no more, Croaking like crows here in the wind.

THE DYING VETERAN

THE WOUND-DRESSER

An old man bending I come among new faces, Years looking backward resuming in answer to children, Come tell us old man, as from young men and maidens that love me ; Years hence of these scenes, of these furious passions, these chances, Of unsurpass'd heroes ; Now be witness again, paint the mightiest armies of earth, Of those armies so rapid so wondrous what saw you to tell us? What stays with you latest and deepest? of curious panics, Of hard-fought engagements or sieges tremendous what deepest remains?

O maidens and young men I love and that love me, What you ask of my days those the strangest and sudden your talking recalls, Soldier alert I arrive after a long march cover'd with sweat and dust, In the nick of time I come, plunge in the fight, loudly shout in the rush of successful charge, Enter the captur'd works--yet lo, like a swift-running river they fade, Pass and are gone they fade--I dwell not on soldiers' perils or soldiers' joys .

But in silence, in dreams' projections, While the world of gain and appearance and mirth goes on, So soon what is over forgotten, and waves wash the imprints off the sand, With hinged knees returning I enter the doors .

Bearing the bandages, water and sponge, Straight and swift to my wounded I go, Where they lie on the ground after the battle brought in, Where their priceless blood reddens the grass, the ground, Or to the rows of the hospital tent, or under the roof'd hospital, To the long rows of cots up and down each side I return, To each and all one after another I draw near, not one do I miss, An attendant follows holding a tray, he carries a refuse pail, Soon to be fill'd with clotted rags and blood, emptied, and fill'd again.

I onward go, I stop, With hinged knees and steady hand to dress wounds, I am firm with each, the pangs are sharp yet unavoidable, One turns to me his appealing eyes--poor boy! I never knew you, Yet I think I could not refuse this moment to die for you, if that would save you.

On, on I go The crush'd head I dress , The neck of the cavalry-man with the bullet through and through I examine, Hard the breathing rattles, quite glazed already the eye, yet life struggles hard, .

From the stump of the arm, the amputated hand, I undo the clotted lint, remove the slough, wash off the matter and blood, Back on his pillow the soldier bends with curv'd neck and side-falling head, His eyes are closed, his face is pale, he dares not look on the bloody stump, And has not yet look'd on it.

I dress a wound in the side, deep, deep, But a day or two more, for see the frame all wasted and sinking, And the yellow-blue countenance see.

I dress the perforated shoulder, the foot with the bullet-wound, Cleanse the one with a gnawing and putrid gangrene, so sickening, so offensive, While the attendant stands behind aside me holding the tray and pail.

I am faithful, I do not give out, The fractur'd thigh, the knee, the wound in the abdomen, These and more I dress with impassive hand .

Thus in silence in dreams' projections, Returning, resuming, I thread my way through the hospitals, The hurt and wounded I pacify with soothing hand, I sit by the restless all the dark night, some are so young, Some suffer so much, I recall the experience sweet and sad .

DIRGE FOR TWO VETERANS

The last sunbeam Lightly falls from the finish'd Sabbath, On the pavement here, and there beyond it is looking Down a new-made double grave

Lo, the moon ascending, Up from the east the silvery round moon, Beautiful over the house-tops, ghastly, phantom moon, Immense and silent moon.

I see a sad procession, And I hear the sound of coming full-key'd bugles, All the channels of the city streets they're flooding, As with voices and with tears.

I hear the great drums pounding, And the small drums steady whirring, And every blow of the great convulsive drums, Strikes me through and through.

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