| ASHES of soldiers! | |
| As I muse, retrospective, murmuring a chant in thought, | |
| Lo! the war resumes—again to my sense your shapes, | |
| And again the advance of armies. | |
| |
| Noiseless as mists and vapors, | 5 |
| From their graves in the trenches ascending, | |
| From the cemeteries all through Virginia and Tennessee, | |
| From every point of the compass, out of the countless unnamed graves, | |
| In wafted clouds, in myraids large, or squads of twos or threes, or single ones, they come, | |
| And silently gather round me. | 10 |
| |
| Now sound no note, O trumpeters! | |
| Not at the head of my cavalry, parading on spirited horses, | |
| With sabres drawn and glist’ning, and carbines by their thighs—(ah, my brave horsemen! | |
| My handsome, tan-faced horsemen! what life, what joy and pride, | |
| With all the perils, were yours!) | 15 |
| |
| Nor you drummers—neither at reveille, 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. | |
| |
| But aside from these, and the marts of wealth, and the crowded promenade, | |
| Admitting around me comrades close, unseen by the rest, and voiceless, | 20 |
| The slain elate and alive again—the dust and debris alive, | |
| I chant this chant of my silent soul, in the name of all dead soldiers. | |
| |
| Faces so pale, with wondrous eyes, very dear, gather closer yet; | |
| Draw close, but speak not. | |
| |
| Phantoms of countless lost! | 25 |
| 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 is over and long gone; | 30 |
| But love is not over—and what love, O comrades! | |
| Perfume from battle-fields rising—up from foetor arising. | |
| |
| Perfume therefore my chant, O love! immortal Love! | |
| Give me to bathe the memories of all dead soldiers, | |
| Shroud them, embalm them, cover them all over with tender pride! | 35 |
| |
| Perfume all! make all wholesome! | |
| Make these ashes to nourish and blossom, | |
| O love! O chant! solve all, fructify all with the last chemistry. | |
| |
| Give me exhaustless—make me a fountain, | |
| That I exhale love from me wherever I go, like a moist perennial dew, | 40 |
| For the ashes of all dead soldiers. | |
