The Patriotic Poems of Walt Whitman. Уолт Уитмен

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      As I sit in twilight late alone by the flickering oak-flame,

      Musing on long-pass'd war-scenes—of the countless buried unknown soldiers,

      Of the vacant names, as unindented air's and sea's—the unreturn'd,

      The brief truce after battle, with grim burial-squads, and the deep-fill'd trenches

      Of gather'd dead from all America, North, South, East, West, whence they came up,

      From wooded Maine, New-England's farms, from fertile Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio,

      From the measureless West, Virginia, the South, the Carolinas, Texas

      (Even here in my room-shadows and half-lights in the noiseless flickering flames,

      Again I see the stalwart ranks on-filing, rising—I hear the rhythmic tramp of the armies);

      You million unwrit names all, all—you dark bequest from all the war,

      A special verse for you—a flash of duty long neglected—your mystic roll strangely gather'd here,

      Each name recall'd by me from out the darkness and death's ashes,

      Henceforth to be, deep, deep within my heart recording, for many a future year,

      Your mystic roll entire of unknown names, or North or South,

      Embalm'd with love in this twilight song.

      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 woollen 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.

      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?

      First O songs for a prelude,

      Lightly strike on the stretch'd tympanum pride and joy in my city,

      How she led the rest to arms, how she gave the cue,

      How at once with lithe limbs unwaiting a moment she sprang,

      (O superb! O Manhattan, my own, my peerless.

      O strongest you in the hour of danger, in crisis! O truer than steel!)

      How you sprang—how you threw off the costumes of peace with indifferent hand,

      How your soft opera-music changed, and the drum and fife were heard intheir stead,

      How you led to the war (that shall serve for our prelude, songs ofsoldiers),

      How Manhattan drum-taps led.

      Forty years had I in my city seen soldiers parading,

      Forty years as a pageant, till unawares the lady of this teeming and turbulent city,

      Sleepless amid her ships, her houses, her incalculable wealth,

      With her million children around her, suddenly,

      At dead of night, at news from the south,

      Incens'd struck with clinch'd hand the pavement.

      A shock electric, the night sustain'd it,

      Till with ominous hum our hive at daybreak pour'd out its myriads.

      From the houses then and the workshops, and through all the doorways,

      Leapt they tumultuous, and lo! Manhattan arming.

      To the drum-taps prompt,

      The young men falling in and arming,

      The mechanics arming (the trowel, the jack-plane, the blacksmith's СКАЧАТЬ