The Essential Works of Walt Whitman - Walt Whitman

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March in the Ranks Hard-Prest, and the Road Unknown

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      A march in the ranks hard-prest, and the road unknown,

       A route through a heavy wood with muffled steps in the darkness,

       Our army foil’d with loss severe, and the sullen remnant retreating,

       Till after midnight glimmer upon us the lights of a dim-lighted building,

       We come to an open space in the woods, and halt by the dim-lighted building,

       ’Tis a large old church at the crossing roads, now an impromptu hospital,

       Entering but for a minute I see a sight beyond all the pictures and

       poems ever made,

       Shadows of deepest, deepest black, just lit by moving candles and lamps,

       And by one great pitchy torch stationary with wild red flame and

       clouds of smoke,

       By these, crowds, groups of forms vaguely I see on the floor, some

       in the pews laid down,

       At my feet more distinctly a soldier, a mere lad, in danger of

       bleeding to death, (he is shot in the abdomen,)

       I stanch the blood temporarily, (the youngster’s face is white as a lily,)

       Then before I depart I sweep my eyes o’er the scene fain to absorb it all,

       Faces, varieties, postures beyond description, most in obscurity,

       some of them dead,

       Surgeons operating, attendants holding lights, the smell of ether,

       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.

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      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.

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      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

       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.

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      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

       march for these States,

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

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      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?

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       An old man bending I come among new faces,

       Years looking backward resuming in answer to children,

      

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