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Poem by Walt Whitman


Leaves of Grass. 35. Good-Bye My Fancy. 19. A Twilight Song


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.



Walt Whitman


Walt Whitman's other poems:
  1. Leaves of Grass. 34. Sands at Seventy. 28. Old Salt Kossabone
  2. Leaves of Grass. 35. Good-Bye My Fancy. 7. The Pallid Wreath
  3. Leaves of Grass. 34. Sands at Seventy. 47. Orange Buds by Mail from Florida
  4. Leaves of Grass. 34. Sands at Seventy. Fancies at Navesink. 6. Proudly the Flood Comes In
  5. Leaves of Grass. 34. Sands at Seventy. 15. To-Day and Thee


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