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

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Ebook has 365 lines and 41445 words, and 8 pages

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.

For the son is brought with the father .

Now nearer blow the bugles, And the drums strike more convulsive, And the daylight over the pavement quite has faded, And the strong dead-march enwraps me.

In the eastern sky up-buoying, The sorrowful vast phantom moves illumin'd .

O strong dead-march you please me! O moon immense with your silvery face you soothe me! O my soldiers twain! O my veterans passing to burial! What I have I also give you.

The moon gives you light, And the bugles and the drums give you music, And my heart, O my soldiers, my veterans, My heart gives you love.

FROM FAR DAKOTA'S CA?ONS

From far Dakota's ca?ons, Lands of the wild ravine, the dusky Sioux, the lonesome stretch, the silence, Haply to-day a mournful wail, haply a trumpet-note for heroes.

The battle-bulletin, The Indian ambuscade, the craft, the fatal environment, The cavalry companies fighting to the last in sternest heroism, In the midst of their little circle, with their slaughter'd horses for breastworks, The fall of Custer and all his officers and men.

Continues yet the old, old legend of our race, The loftiest of life upheld by death, The ancient banner perfectly maintain'd, O lesson opportune, O how I welcome thee!

As sitting in dark days, Lone, sulky, through the time's thick murk looking in vain for light, for hope, From unsuspected parts a fierce and momentary proof , Breaks forth a lightning flash.

Thou of the tawny flowing hair in battle, I erewhile saw, with erect head, pressing ever in front, bearing a bright sword in thy hand, Now ending well in death the splendid fever of thy deeds , Desperate and glorious, aye in defeat most desperate, most glorious, After thy many battles in which never yielding up a gun or a colour, Leaving behind thee a memory sweet to soldiers, Thou yieldest up thyself.

OLD WAR-DREAMS

In midnight sleep of many a face of anguish, Of the look at first of the mortally wounded , Of the dead on their backs with arms extended wide, I dream, I dream, I dream.

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.

Long have they pass'd, faces and trenches and fields, Where through the carnage I moved with a callous composure, or away from the fallen, Onward I sped at the time--but now of their forms at night, I dream, I dream, I dream.

DELICATE CLUSTER

Delicate cluster! flag of teeming life! Covering all my lands--all my seashores lining! Flag of death! Flag cerulean--sunny flag, with the orbs of night dappled! Ah my silvery beauty--ah my woolly white and crimson! Ah to sing the song of you, my matron mighty! My sacred one, my mother!

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; ; 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.

ADIEU TO A SOLDIER

Adieu O soldier, You of the rude campaigning , The rapid march, the life of the camp, The hot contention of opposing fronts, the long manoeuvre, Red battles with their slaughter, the stimulus, the strong terrific game, Spell of all brave and manly hearts, the trains of time through you and like of you all fill'd, With war and war's expression.

Adieu dear comrade, Your mission is fulfill'd--but I, more warlike, Myself and this contentious soul of mine, Still on our own campaigning bound, Through untried roads with ambushes opponents lined, Through many a sharp defeat and many a crisis, often baffled, Here marching, ever marching on, a war fight out--aye here, To fiercer, weightier battles give expression.

LONG, TOO LONG AMERICA

Long, too long America, Travelling roads all even and peaceful you learn'd from joys and prosperity only, But now, ah now, to learn from crises of anguish, advancing, grappling with direst fate and recoiling not, And now to conceive and show to the world what your children en-masse really are. .

POEMS OF AFTER-WAR

WEAVE IN, MY HARDY LIFE

Weave in, weave in, my hardy life, Weave yet a soldier strong and full for great campaigns to come, Weave in red blood, weave sinews in like ropes, the senses, sight weave in, Weave lasting sure, weave day and night the weft, the warp, incessant weave, tire not , For great campaigns of peace the same the wiry threads to weave, We know not why or what, yet weave, forever weave.

HOW SOLEMN AS ONE BY ONE

How solemn as one by one, As the ranks returning worn and sweaty, as the men file by where I stand, As the faces the masks appear, as I glance at the faces studying the masks , How solemn the thought of my whispering soul to each in the ranks, and to you! I see behind each mask that wonder a kindred soul, O the bullet could never kill what you really are, dear friend, Nor the bayonet stab what you really are; The soul! yourself I see, great as any, good as the best, Waiting secure and content, which the bullet could never kill, Nor the bayonet stab O friend.

SPIRIT WHOSE WORK IS DONE

Spirit whose work is done--spirit of dreadful hours! Ere departing fade from my eyes your forests of bayonets; Spirit of gloomiest fears and doubts , Spirit of many a solemn day and many a savage scene--electric spirit, That with muttering voice through the war now closed, like a tireless phantom flitted, Rousing the land with breath of flame, while you beat and beat the drum, Now as the sound of the drum, hollow and harsh to the last, reverberates round me, As your ranks, your immortal ranks, return, return from the battles, As the muskets of the young men yet lean over their shoulders, As I look on the bayonets bristling over their shoulders, As those slanted bayonets, whole forests of them appearing in the distance, approach and pass on, returning homeward, Moving with steady motion, swaying to and fro to the right and left, Evenly, lightly rising and falling while the steps keep time; Spirit of hours I knew, all hectic red one day, but pale as death next day, Touch my mouth ere you depart, press my lips close, Leave me your pulses of rage--bequeath them to me--fill me with currents convulsive, Let them scorch and blister out of my chants when you are gone, Let them identify you to the future in these songs.

THE RETURN OF THE HEROES

For the lands and for these passionate days and for myself, Now I awhile retire to thee O soil of autumn fields, Reclining on thy breast, giving myself to thee, Answering the pulses of thy sane and equable heart, Tuning a verse for thee.

O earth that hast no voice, confide to me a voice, O harvest of my lands--O boundless summer growths, O lavish brown parturient earth--O infinite teeming womb, A song to narrate thee.

Ever upon this stage, Is acted God's calm annual drama, Gorgeous processions, songs of birds, Sunrise that fullest feeds and freshens most the soul, The heaving sea, the waves upon the shore, the musical, strong waves, The woods, the stalwart trees, the slender, tapering trees, The liliput countless armies of the grass, The heat, the showers, the measureless pasturages, The scenery of the snows, the winds' free orchestra, The stretching light-hung roof of clouds, the clear cerulean and the silvery fringes, The high-dilating stars, the placid beckoning stars, The moving flocks and herds, the plains and emerald meadows, The shows of all the varied lands and all the growths and products.

Fecund America--to-day, Thou art all over set in births and joys! Thou groan'st with riches, thy wealth clothes thee as a swathing garment, Thou laughest loud with ache of great possessions, A myriad-twining life like interlacing vines binds all thy vast demesne, As some huge ship freighted to water's edge thou ridest into port, As rain falls from the heaven and vapours rise from the earth, so have the precious values fallen upon thee and risen out of thee; Thou envy of the globe! thou miracle! Thou, bathed, choked, swimming in plenty, Thou lucky Mistress of the tranquil barns, Thou Prairie Dame that sittest in the middle and lookest out upon thy world, and lookest East and lookest West, Dispensatress, that by a word givest a thousand miles, a million farms, and missest nothing, Thou all-acceptress--thou hospitable .

When late I sang sad was my voice, Sad were the shows around me with deafening noises of hatred and smoke of war; In the midst of the conflict, the heroes, I stood, Or pass'd with slow step through the wounded and dying.

But now I sing not war, Nor the measur'd march of soldiers, nor the tents of camps, Nor the regiments hastily coming up deploying in line of battle; No more the sad, unnatural shows of war.

Ask'd room those flush'd immortal ranks, the first forth-stepping armies? Ask room alas the ghastly ranks, the armies dread that follow'd.

But on these days of brightness, On the far-stretching beauteous landscape, the roads and lanes, the high-piled farm-wagons, and the fruits and barns, Should the dead intrude?

Ah the dead to me mar not, they fit well in Nature, They fit very well in the landscape under the trees and grass, And along the edge of the sky in the horizon's far margin.

Nor do I forget you Departed, Nor in winter or summer my lost ones, But most in the open air as now when my soul is rapt and at peace, like pleasing phantoms, Your memories rising glide silently by me.

I saw the day the return of the heroes, .

I saw the interminable corps, I saw the processions of armies, I saw them approaching, defiling by with divisions, Streaming northward, their work done, camping awhile in clusters of mighty camps.

No holiday soldiers--youthful, yet veterans, Worn, swart, handsome, strong, of the stock of homestead and workshop, Harden'd of many a long campaign and sweaty march, Inured on many a hard-fought bloody field.

A pause--the armies wait, A million flush'd embattled conquerors wait, The world too waits, then soft as breaking night and sure as dawn, They melt, they disappear.

Exult O lands! victorious lands! Not there your victory on those red shuddering fields, But here and hence your victory.

Melt, melt away ye armies--disperse ye blue-clad soldiers, Resolve ye back again, give up for good your deadly arms, Other the arms the fields henceforth for you, or South or North, With saner wars, sweet wars, life-giving wars.

Loud O my throat, and clear O soul! The season of thanks and the voice of full-yielding, The chant of joy and power for boundless fertility.

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