Leaves of Grass: First and Death-Bed Editions

by Walt Whitman

  the odor of blood,

  The crowd, O the crowd of the bloody forms, the yard outside

  also fill‘d,

  Some on the bare ground, some on planks or stretchers, some in

  the death-spasm sweating,

  An occasional scream or cry, the doctor’s shouted orders or calls,

  The glisten of the little steel instruments catching the glint of the

  torches,

  These I resume as I chant, I see again the forms, I smell the odor,

  Then hear outside the orders given, Fall in, my men, fall in;

  But first I bend to the dying lad, his eyes open, a half-smile gives

  he me,

  Then the eyes close, calmly close, and I speed forth to the

  darkness,

  Resuming, marching, ever in darkness marching, on in the ranks,

  The unknown road still marching.

  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 woolen 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.

  AS TOILSOME I WANDER’D VIRGINIA’S WOODS

  As toilsome I wander’d Virginia’s woods,

  To the music of rustling leaves kick’d by my feet, (for ‘twas

  autumn,)

  I mark’d at the foot of a tree the grave of a soldier;

  Mortally wounded he and buried on the retreat, (easily all could I

  understand,)

  The halt of a mid-day hour, when up! no time to lose—yet this

  sign left,

  On a tablet scrawl’d and nail’d on the tree by the grave,

  Bold, cautious, true, and my loving comrade.

  Long, long I muse, then on my way go wandering,

  Many a changeful season to follow, and many a scene of life,

  Yet at times through changeful season and scene, abrupt, alone,

  or in the crowded street,

  Comes before me the unknown soldier’s grave, comes the

  inscription rude in Virginia’s woods,

  Bold, cautious, true, and my loving comrade.

  NOT THE PILOT

  Not the pilot has charged himself to bring his ship into port,

  though beaten back and many times baffled;

  Not the pathfinder penetrating inland weary and long,

  By deserts parch‘d, snows chill’d, rivers wet, perseveres till he

  reaches his destination,

  More than I have charged myself, heeded or unheeded, to

  compose a march for these States,

  For a battle-call, rousing to arms if need be, years, centuries hence.

  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?

  THE WOUND-DRESSER64

  —1—

  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,

  (Arous’d and angry, I’d thought to beat the alarum, and urge

  relentless war,

  But soon my fingers fail’d me, my face droop’d and I resign’d

  myself,

  To sit by the wounded and soothe them, or silently watch the dead;)

  Years hence of these scenes, of these furious passions, these

  chances,

  Of unsurpass’d heroes, (was one side so brave? the other was

  equally brave;)

  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?

  —2—

  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,

  (Both I remember well—many the hardships, few the joys, yet I

  was content.)

  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, (while for you

  up there,

  Whoever you are, follow without noise and be of strong heart.)

  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.

  —3—

  On, on I go, (open doors of time! open hospital doors!)

  The crush’d head I dress, (poor crazed hand tear not the bandage

  away,)

  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,

  (Come sweet death! be persuaded O beautiful death!

  In mercy come quickly.)

  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, (yet deep in my

  breast a fire, a burning flame.)

  -4-

  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,

  (Many a soldier’s loving arms about this neck have cross’d and

  rested,

  Many a soldier’s kiss dwells on these bearded lips.)

  LONG, TOO LONG AMERICA

  Long, too long America,

  Traveling 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,

  (For who except myself has yet conceiv’d what your children en

  masse really are?)

  GIVE ME THE SPLENDID SILENT SUN

  —1—

  Give me the splendid silent sun with all his beams full-dazzling,

  Give me juicy autumnal fruit ripe and red from the orchard,

  Give me a field where the unmow’d grass grows,

  Give me an arbor, give me the trellis’d grape,

  Give me fresh corn and wheat, give me serene-moving animals

  teaching content,

  Give me nights perfectly quiet as on high plateaus west of the

  Mississippi, and I looking up at the stars,

  Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers where I

  can walk undisturb‘d,

  Give me for marriage a sweet-breath’d woman of whom I should

  never tire,

  Give me a perfect child, give me away aside from the noise of the

  world a rural domestic life,

  Give me to warble spontaneous songs recluse by myself, for my

  own ears only,

  Give me solitude, give me Nature, give me again O Nature your

  primal sanities!

  These demanding to have them, (tired with ceaseless excitement,

  and rack’d by the war-strife,)

  These to procure incessantly asking, rising in cries from my heart,

  While yet incessantly asking still I adhere to my city,

  Day upon day and year upon year O city, walking your streets,

  Where you hold me enchain’d a certain time refusing to give

  me up,

  Yet giving to make me glutted, enrich’d of soul, you give me

  forever faces;

  (O I see what I sought to escape, confronting, reversing my cries,

  I see my own soul trampling down what it ask’d for.)

  —2—

  Keep your splendid silent sun,

  Keep your woods O Nature, and the quiet places by the woods,

  Keep your fields of clover and timothy, and your cornfields and

  orchards,

  Keep the blossoming buckwheat fields where the Ninth-month

  bees hum;

  Give me faces and streets—give me these phantoms incessant and

  endless along the trottoirs!

  Give me interminable eyes—give me women—give me comrades

  and lovers by the thousand!

  Let me see new ones every day—let me hold new ones by the

  hand every day!

  Give me such shows—give me the streets of Manhattan!

  Give me Broadway, with the soldiers marching—give me the

  sound of the trumpets and drums!

  (The soldiers in companies or regiments—some starting away,

  flush’d and reckless,

  Some, their time up, returning with thinn’d ranks, young, yet very

  old, worn, marching, noticing nothing;)

  Give me the shores and wharves heavy-fringed with black ships!

  O such for me! O an intense life, full to repletion and varied!

  The life of the theatre, bar-room, huge hotel, for me!

  The saloon of the steamer! the crowded excursion for me! the

  torchlight procession!

  The dense brigade bound for the war, with high piled military

  wagons following;

  People, endless, streaming, with strong voices, passions,

  pageants,

  Manhattan streets with their powerful throbs, with beating drums

  as now,

  The endless and noisy chorus, the rustle and clank of muskets,

  (even the sight of the wounded,)

  Manhattan crowds, with their turbulent musical chorus,

  Manhattan faces and eyes forever for me.

  DIRGE FOR TWO VETERANS65

  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.

  For the son is brought with the father,

  (In the foremost ranks of the fierce assault they fell,

  Two veterans son and father dropt together,

  And the double grave awaits them.)

  Now nearer blow the bugles,

  And the drums strike more convulsive,

  And the daylight o‘er 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,

  (’Tis some mother’s large transparent face,

  In heaven brighter growing.)

  O strong dead-march you please me!

  O moon immense with your silvey 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.

  OVER THE CARNAGE ROSE PROPHETIC A VOICE

  Over the carnage rose prophetic a voice,

  Be not dishearten‘d, affection shall solve the problems of freedom

  yet,

  Those who love each other shall become invincible,

  They shall yet make Columbia victorious.

  Sons of the Mother of All, you shall yet be victorious,
r />   You shall yet laugh to scorn the attacks of all the remainder of the

  earth.

  No danger shall balk Columbia’s lovers,

  If need be a thousand shall sternly immolate themselves for one.

  One from Massachusetts shall be a Missourian’s comrade,

  From Maine and from hot Carolina, and another an Oregonese,

  shall be friends triune,

  More precious to each other than all the riches of the earth.

  To Michigan, Florida perfumes shall tenderly come,

  Not the perfumes of flowers, but sweeter, and wafted beyond death.

  It shall be customary in the houses and streets to see manly

  affection,

  The most dauntless and rude shall touch face to face lightly,

  The dependence of Liberty shall be lovers,

  The continuance of Equality shall be comrades.

  These shall tie you and band you stronger than hoops of iron,

  I, ecstatic, O partners! O lands! with the love of lovers tie you.

  (Were you looking to be held together by lawyers?

  Or by an agreement on a paper? or by arms?

  Nay, nor the world, nor any living thing, will so cohere.)

  I SAW OLD GENERAL AT BAY

  I saw old General at bay,

  (Old as he was, his gray eyes yet shone out in battle like stars,)

  His small force was now completely hemm’d in, in his works,

  He call’d for volunteers to run the enemy’s lines, a desperate

  emergency,

  I saw a hundred and more step forth from the ranks, but two or

  three were selected,

  I saw them receive their orders aside, they listen’d with care, the

  adjutant was very grave,

  I saw them depart with cheerfulness, freely risking their lives.

  THE ARTILLERYMAN’S VISION66

  While my wife at my side lies slumbering, and the wars are over

  long,

  And my head on the pillow rests at home, and the vacant

  midnight passes,

  And through the stillness, through the dark, I hear, just hear, the