The Essential Works of Walt Whitman - Walt Whitman

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With artillery interspers’d — the wheels rumble, the horses sweat,

       As the army corps advances.

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      By the bivouac’s fitful flame,

       A procession winding around me, solemn and sweet and slow — but

       first I note,

       The tents of the sleeping army, the fields’ and woods’ dim outline,

       The darkness lit by spots of kindled fire, the silence,

       Like a phantom far or near an occasional figure moving,

       The shrubs and trees, (as I lift my eyes they seem to be stealthily

       watching me,)

       While wind in procession thoughts, O tender and wondrous thoughts,

       Of life and death, of home and the past and loved, and of those that

       are far away;

       A solemn and slow procession there as I sit on the ground,

       By the bivouac’s fitful flame.

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      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.

      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 trellis’d 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.

      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 hair nor adjust her cap.

      Open the envelope quickly,

       O this is not our son’s writing, yet his name is sign’d,

       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, gunshot wound in the breast, cavalry skirmish,

       taken to hospital,

       At present low, but will soon be better.

      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.

      Grieve not so, dear mother, (the just-grown daughter speaks through

       her sobs,

       The little sisters huddle around speechless and dismay’d,)

       See, dearest mother, the letter says Pete will soon be better.

      Alas poor boy, he will never be better, (nor may-be 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 drest in black,

       By day her meals untouch’d, 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.

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      Vigil strange I kept on the field one night;

       When you my son and my comrade dropt at my side that day,

       One look I but gave which your dear eyes return’d with a look I

       shall never forget,

       One touch of your hand to mine O boy, reach’d up as you lay on the ground,

       Then onward I sped in the battle, the even-contested battle,

       Till late in the night reliev’d to the place at last again I made my way,

       Found you in death so cold dear comrade, found your body son of

       responding kisses, (never again on earth responding,)

       Bared your face in the starlight, curious the scene, cool blew the

       moderate night-wind,

       Long there and then in vigil I stood, dimly around me the

       battlefield spreading,

       Vigil wondrous and vigil sweet there in the fragrant silent night,

       But not a tear fell, not even a long-drawn sigh, long, long I gazed,

       Then on the earth partially reclining sat by your side leaning my

       chin in my hands,

       Passing sweet hours, immortal and mystic hours with you dearest

       comrade — not a tear, not a word,

       Vigil of silence, love and death, vigil for you my son and my soldier,

       As onward silently stars aloft, eastward new ones upward stole,

       Vigil final for you brave boy, (I could not save you, swift was your death,

       I faithfully loved you and cared for you living, I think we shall

       surely meet again,)

       Till at latest lingering of the night, indeed just as the dawn appear’d,

       My comrade I wrapt in his blanket, envelop’d well his form,

       Folded the blanket well, tucking it carefully over head and

       carefully under feet,

       And there and then and bathed by the rising sun, my son in his

       grave, in his rude-dug grave I deposited,

       Ending my vigil strange with that, vigil of night and battle-field dim,

       Vigil for boy of responding kisses, (never again on earth responding,)

       Vigil for comrade swiftly slain, vigil I never forget, how as day

       brighten’d,

       I rose from the chill ground and folded my soldier well in his blanket,

       And buried him where he fell.

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