Chapter 11
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 fractured 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.
3.
Thus in silence, in dreams' projections, Returning, resuming, I thread my way through the hospitals; The hurt and the 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 crossed and rested, Many a soldier's kiss dwells on these bearded lips.
_A LETTER FROM CAMP._
1.
"Come up from the fields, father, here's a letter from our Pete; And come to the front door, mother--here's a letter from thy dear son."
2.
Lo, 'tis autumn; Lo, where the trees, deeper green, yellower and redder, Cool and sweeten Ohio's villages, with leaves fluttering in the moderate wind; Where apples ripe in the orchards hang, and grapes on the trellised vines; Smell you the smell of the grapes on the vines? Smell you the buckwheat, where the bees were lately buzzing?
Above all, lo, the sky, so calm, so transparent after the rain, and with wondrous clouds; Below, too, all calm, all vital and beautiful--and the farm prospers well.
3.
Down in the fields all prospers well; But now from the fields come, father--come at the daughter's call; And come to the entry, mother--to the front door come, right away.
Fast as she can she hurries--something ominous--her steps trembling; She does not tarry to smooth her white hair, nor adjust her cap.
4.
Open the envelope quickly; O this is not our son's writing, yet his name is signed; O a strange hand writes for our dear son--O stricken mother's soul! All swims before her eyes--flashes with black--she catches the main words only; Sentences broken--"_gun-shot wound in the breast, cavalry skirmish, taken to hospital, At present low, but will soon be better_."
5.
Ah, now the single figure to me, Amid all teeming and wealthy Ohio, with all its cities and farms, Sickly white in the face and dull in the head, very faint, By the jamb of a door leans.
6.
"Grieve not so, dear mother," the just-grown daughter speaks through her sobs; The little sisters huddle around, speechless and dismayed; "See, dearest mother, the letter says Pete will soon be better."
7.
Alas! poor boy, he will never be better, (nor maybe needs to be better, that brave and simple soul;) While they stand at home at the door, he is dead already; The only son is dead.
But the mother needs to be better; She, with thin form, presently dressed in black; By day her meals untouched--then at night fitfully sleeping, often waking, In the midnight waking, weeping, longing with one deep longing, O that she might withdraw unnoticed--silent from life escape and withdraw, To follow, to seek, to be with her dear dead son!
_WAR DREAMS._
1.
In clouds descending, in midnight sleep, of many a face in battle, Of the look at first of the mortally wounded, of that indescribable look, Of the dead on their backs, with arms extended wide-- I dream, I dream, I dream.
2.
Of scenes of nature, the fields and the mountains, Of the skies so beauteous after the 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.
3.
Long have they passed, long lapsed--faces, and trenches, and fields: Long through the carnage I moved with a callous composure, or away from the fallen Onward I sped at the time. But now of their faces and forms, at night, I dream, I dream, I dream.
_THE VETERAN'S VISION._
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 mystic midnight passes, And through the stillness, through the dark, I hear, just hear, the breath of my infant, There in the room, as I wake from sleep, this vision presses upon me. The engagement opens there and then, in my busy brain unreal; The skirmishers begin--they crawl cautiously ahead--I hear the irregular snap! snap! I hear the sound of the different missiles--the short _t-h-t! t-h-t!_ of the rifle-balls; I see the shells exploding, leaving small white clouds--I hear the great shells shrieking as they pass; The grape, like the hum and whirr of wind through the trees, (quick, tumultuous, now the contest rages!) All the scenes at the batteries themselves rise in detail before me again; The crashing and smoking--the pride of the men in their pieces; The chief gunner ranges and sights his piece, and selects a fuse of the right time; After firing, I see him lean aside, and look eagerly off to note the effect; --Elsewhere I hear the cry of a regiment charging--the young colonel leads himself this time, with brandished sword; I see the gaps cut by the enemy's volleys, quickly filled up--no delay; I breathe the suffocating smoke--then the flat clouds hover low, concealing all; Now a strange lull comes for a few seconds, not a shot fired on either side; Then resumed, the chaos louder than ever, with eager calls, and orders of officers; While from some distant part of the field the wind wafts to my ears a shout of applause, (some special success;) And ever the sound of the cannon, far or near, rousing, even in dreams, a devilish exultation, and all the old mad joy, in the depths of my soul; And ever the hastening of infantry shifting positions--batteries, cavalry, moving hither and thither; The falling, dying, I heed not--the wounded, dripping and red, I heed not-- some to the rear are hobbling; Grime, heat, rush--aides-de-camp galloping by, or on a full run: With the patter of small arms, the warning _s-s-t_ of the rifles, (these in my vision I hear or see,) And bombs bursting in air, and at night the vari-coloured rockets.
_O TAN-FACED PRAIRIE BOY._
O tan-faced prairie boy! Before you came to camp came many a welcome gift; Praises and presents came, and nourishing food--till at last, among the recruits, You came, taciturn, with nothing to give--we but looked on each other, When lo! more than all the gifts of the world you gave me.
_MANHATTAN FACES._
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 unmowed grass grows; Give me an arbour, give me the trellised 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 undisturbed; Give me for marriage a sweet-breathed 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, relieved, 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 racked 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 enchained a certain time, refusing to give me up, Yet giving to make me glutted, enriched of soul--you give me for ever faces; O I see what I sought to escape, confronting, reversing my cries; I see my own soul trampling down what it asked 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, flushed and reckless; Some, their time up, returning, with thinned ranks--young, yet very old, worn, marching, noticing nothing; --Give me the shores and the wharves heavy-fringed with the black ships! O such for me! O an intense life! O 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 waggons following; People, endless, streaming, with strong voices, passions, pageants; Manhattan streets, with their powerful throbs, with the 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--with varied chorus and light of the sparkling eyes; Manhattan faces and eyes for ever for me!
_OVER THE CARNAGE._
1.
Over the carnage rose prophetic a voice,-- Be not disheartened--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! You shall yet laugh to scorn the attacks of all the remainder of the earth.
No danger shall baulk 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.
2.
Were you looking to be held together by the lawyers? Or by an agreement on a paper? or by arms? --Nay--nor the world nor any living thing will so cohere.
_THE MOTHER OF ALL._
Pensive, on her dead gazing, I heard the Mother of all, Desperate, on the torn bodies, on the forms covering the battlefields, gazing; As she called to her earth with mournful voice while she stalked. "Absorb them well, O my earth!" she cried--"I charge you, lose not my sons! lose not an atom; And you, streams, absorb them well, taking their dear blood; And you local spots, and you airs that swim above lightly, And all you essences of soil and growth--and you, O my rivers' depths; And you mountain-sides--and the woods where my dear children's blood, trickling, reddened; And you trees, down in your roots, to bequeath to all future trees, My dead absorb--my young men's beautiful bodies absorb--and their precious, precious, precious blood; Which, holding in trust for me, faithfully back again give me, many a year hence, In unseen essence and odour of surface and grass, centuries hence; In blowing airs from the fields, back again give me my darlings--give my immortal heroes; Exhale me them centuries hence--breathe me their breath--let not an atom be lost. O years and graves! O air and soil! O my dead, an aroma sweet! Exhale them, perennial, sweet death, years, centuries hence."
_CAMPS OF GREEN._
1.
Not alone our camps of white, O soldiers, When, as ordered forward, after a long march, Footsore and weary, soon as the light lessens, we halt for the night; Some of us so fatigued, carrying the gun and knapsack, dropping asleep in our tracks; Others pitching the little tents, and the fires lit up begin to sparkle; Outposts of pickets posted, surrounding, alert through the dark, And a word provided for countersign, careful for safety; Till to the call of the drummers at daybreak loudly beating the drums, We rise up refreshed, the night and sleep passed over, and resume our journey, Or proceed to battle.
2.
Lo! the camps of the tents of green, Which the days of peace keep filling, and the days of war keep filling, With a mystic army, (is it too ordered forward? is it too only halting a while, Till night and sleep pass over?)
Now in those camps of green--in their tents dotting the world; In the parents, children, husbands, wives, in them--in the old and young, Sleeping under the sunlight, sleeping under the moonlight, content and silent there at last; Behold the mighty bivouac-field and waiting-camp of us and ours and all, Of our corps and generals all, and the President over the corps and generals all, And of each of us, O soldiers, and of each and all in the ranks we fight, There without hatred we shall all meet.
For presently, O soldiers, we too camp in our place in the bivouac-camps of green; But we need not provide for outposts, nor word for the countersign, Nor drummer to beat the morning drum.
_DIRGE FOR TWO VETERANS._
1.
The last sunbeam Lightly falls from the finished Sabbath On the pavement here--and, there beyond, it is looking Down a new-made double grave.
2.
Lo! the moon ascending! Up from the east, the silvery round moon; Beautiful over the house-tops, ghastly, phantom moon; Immense and silent moon.
3.
I see a sad procession, And I hear the sound of coming full-keyed bugles; All the channels of the city streets they're flooding, As with voices and with tears.
4.
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.
5.
For the son is brought with the father; In the foremost ranks of the fierce assault they fell; Two veterans, son and father, dropped together, And the double grave awaits them.
6.
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.
7.
In the eastern sky up-buoying, The sorrowful vast phantom moves illumined, 'Tis some mother's large, transparent face, In heaven brighter growing.
8.
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.
9.
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.
_SURVIVORS._
How solemn, as one by one, As the ranks returning, all 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; As I glance upward out of this page, studying you, dear friend, whoever you are;-- 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!
_HYMN OF DEAD SOLDIERS._
1.
One breath, O my silent soul! A perfumed thought--no more I ask, for the sake of all dead soldiers.
2.
Buglers off in my armies! At present I ask not you to sound; Not at the head of my cavalry, all on their spirited horses, With their sabres drawn and glistening, and carbines clanking by their thighs--(ah, my brave horsemen! My handsome, tan-faced horsemen! what life, what joy and pride, With all the perils, were yours!)
Nor you drummers--neither at _reveillé_, at dawn, Nor the long roll alarming the camp--nor even the muffled beat for a burial; Nothing from you, this time, O drummers, bearing my warlike drums.
3.
But aside from these, and the crowd's hurrahs, and the land's congratulations, Admitting around me comrades close, unseen by the rest, and voiceless, I chant this chant of my silent soul, in the name of all dead soldiers.
4.
Faces so pale, with wondrous eyes, very dear, gather closer yet; Draw close, but speak not. Phantoms, welcome, divine and tender! Invisible to the rest, henceforth become my companions; Follow me ever! desert me not, while I live!
Sweet are the blooming cheeks of the living, sweet are the musical voices sounding; But sweet, ah sweet, are the dead, with their silent eyes.
Dearest comrades! all now is over; But love is not over--and what love, O comrades! Perfume from battlefields rising--up from foetor arising.
Perfume therefore my chant, O love! immortal love! Give me to bathe the memories of all dead soldiers.
Perfume all! make all wholesome! O love! O chant! solve all with the last chemistry.
Give me exhaustless--make me a fountain, That I exhale love from me wherever I go, For the sake of all dead soldiers.
_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, yet onward ever unfaltering pressing! Spirit of many a solemn day, and many a savage scene! Electric spirit! That with muttering voice, through the years 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; While the muskets of the young men yet lean over their shoulders; While I look on the bayonets bristling over their shoulders; While 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, as 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!
_RECONCILIATION._
Word over all, beautiful as the sky! Beautiful that war, and all its deeds of carnage, must in time be utterly lost; That the hands of the sisters Death and Night incessantly, softly wash again, and ever again, this soiled world. For my enemy is dead--a man divine as myself is dead. I look where he lies, white-faced and still, in the coffin--I draw near; I bend down and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin.
_AFTER THE WAR._
To the leavened soil they trod, calling, I sing, for the last; Not cities, nor man alone, nor war, nor the dead: But forth from my tent emerging for good--loosing, untying the tent-ropes; In the freshness, the forenoon air, in the far-stretching circuits and vistas, again to peace restored; To the fiery fields emanative, and the endless vistas beyond--to the south and the north; To the leavened soil of the general Western World, to attest my songs, To the average earth, the wordless earth, witness of war and peace, To the Alleghanian hills, and the tireless Mississippi, To the rocks I, calling, sing, and all the trees in the woods, To the plain of the poems of heroes, to the prairie spreading wide, To the far-off sea, and the unseen winds, and the sane impalpable air. And responding they answer all, (but not in words,) The average earth, the witness of war and peace, acknowledges mutely; The prairie draws me close, as the father, to bosom broad, the son:-- The Northern ice and rain, that began me, nourish me to the end; But the hot sun of the South is to ripen my songs.
WALT WHITMAN
_ASSIMILATIONS._
1.
There was a child went forth every day; And the first object he looked upon, that object he became; And that object became part of him for the day, or a certain part of the day, or for many years, or tretching cycles of years.
2.
The early lilacs became part of this child, And grass, and white and red morning-glories,[1] and white and red clover, and the song of the phoebe-bird,[2] And the Third-month lambs, and the sow's pink-faint litter, and the mare's foal, and the cow's calf, And the noisy brood of the barn-yard, or by the mire of the pond-side, And the fish suspending themselves so curiously below there--and the beautiful, curious liquid, And the water-plants with their graceful fiat heads--all became part of him. The field-sprouts of Fourth-month and Fifth-month became part or him;
3. Winter-grain sprouts, and those of the light-yellow corn, and the esculent roots of the garden, And the apple-trees covered with blossoms, and the fruit afterward, and wood-berries, and the commonest weeds by the road; And the old drunkard staggering home from the outhouse of the tavern, whence he had lately risen, And the schoolmistress that passed on her way to the school, And the friendly boys that passed, and the quarrelsome boys, And the tidy and fresh-cheeked girls, and the barefoot negro boy and girl, And all the changes of city and country, wherever he went.