AN old man bending I come among new faces, Years

looking backward resuming in answer to children,

1 See the letter in Bucke's Whitman, pp. 38-40. With this, and all the poems relating to the Civil War, should be read the book entitled The WoundDresser, a collection of letters written from the field and from the hospitals in Washington; and the parts of Specimen Days picturing Whitman's experiences in the war and in the hospitals, in his Complete Prose Works, pp. 15-75. A few passages may be quoted:

The men, whatever their condition, lie there, and patiently wait till their turn comes to be taken up. Near by, the ambulances are now arriving in clusters, and one after another is call'd to back up and take its load. Extreme cases are sent off on stretchers. The men generally make little or no ado, whatever their sufferings. A few groans that cannot be suppress'd, and occasionally a scream of pain as they lift a man into the ambulance. To-day, as I write, hundreds more are expected, and to-morrow and the next day more, and so on for many days. Quite often they arrive at the rate of 1000 a day.

It is Sunday afternoon, middle of summer, hot and oppressive, and very silent through the ward. I am taking care of a critical case, now lying in a half lethargy. Near where I sit is a suffering rebel, from the 8th Louisiana; his name is Irving. He has been here a long time, badly wounded, and lately had his leg amputated; it is not doing very well. Right opposite me is a sick soldier-boy, laid down with his clothes on, sleeping, looking much wasted, his pallid face on his arm. I see by the yellow trimming on his jacket that he is a cavalry boy. I step softly over and find by his card that he is named William Cone, of the 1st Maine cavalry, and his folks live in Skowhegan.

'One hot day toward the middle of June, I gave the inmates of Carver hospital a general ice cream treat, purchasing a large quantity, and, under convoy of the doctor or head nurse, going around personally through the wards to see to its distribution.

Come tell us old man, as from young men and maidens that love me,

(Arous'd and angry, I'd thought to beat the alarum, and urge relentless war,

wounded and dying; but I cannot leave them. Once in a while some youngster holds on to me convulsively, and I do what I can for him; at any rate, stop with him and sit near him for hours, if he wishes it.

... I soon get acquainted anywhere in camp, with officers or men, and am always well used. Sometimes I go down on picket with the regiments I know best.

In these wards, or on the field, as I thus continue to go round, I have come to adapt myself to each emergency, after its kind or call, however trivial, however solemn, every one justified and made real under its circumstances -not only visits and cheering talk and little gifts-not only washing and dressing wounds (I have some cases where the patient is unwilling any one should do this but me)-but passages from the Bible, expounding them, prayer at the bedside, explanations of doctrine, &c. (I think I see my friends smiling at this confession, but I was never more in earnest in my life.) In camp and everywhere, I was in the habit of reading or giving recitations to the men. ...

. . . I went through the rooms, downstairs and up. Some of the men were dying. I had nothing to give at that visit, but wrote a few letters to folks home, mothers, &c. Also talk'd to three or four, who seem'd most susceptible to it, and needing it.

In one bed a young man, Marcus Small, company K, 7th Maine-sick with dysentery and typhoid fever pretty critical case - I talk with him often - he thinks he will die looks like it indeed. I write a letter for him home to East Livermore, Maine I let him talk to me a little, but not much, advise him to keep very quiet-do most of the talking myself -stay quite a while with him, as he holds on to my hand-talk to him in a cheering, but slow, low, and measured manner- talk about his furlough, and going home as soon as he is able to travel.'

[From a letter to a dead soldier's mother];

I will write you a few lines as a casual friend that sat by his death-bed. Your son, Corporal Frank H. Irwin, was wounded near Fort Fisher, Virginia, March 25th, 1865-the wound was in the left knee, pretty bad... I visited and sat by him frequently, as he was fond of having me. The last ten or twelve days of April I saw that his case was critical. He previously had some fever, with cold spells. The last week in April he was much of the time flighty- but always mild and gentle. He died first of May. The actual cause of death was pyæmia (the absorption of the matter in the system instead of its discharge). Frank, as far as I saw, had everything requisite in surgical treatment, nursing, &c. He had watches much of the time. He was so good and well-behaved and affectionate, I myself liked him very much. I was in the habit of coming in afternoons and sitting by him, and soothing him, and he liked to have me- liked to put his arm out and lay his hand on my knee - would keep it so a long while. Toward the last he was more restless and flighty at night. . . . All the time he was out of his head not one single bad word or idea escaped him. It was remark'd that many a man's conversation in his senses was not half as good as Frank's delirium. He seem'd quite willing to die - he had become very weak and had suffer'd a good deal, and was perfectly resign'd, poor boy. I do not know his past life, but I feel as if it must have been good. At any rate what I saw of him here, under the most trying circumstances, with a painful wound, and among strangers, I can say that he behaved so brave, so composed, and so sweet and af

fectionate, it could not be surpass'd. And now like many other noble and good men, after serving his country as a soldier, he has yielded up his young life at the very outset in her service. Such things are gloomy yet there is a text, God doeth all things well the meaning of which, after due time, appears to the soul.

I thought perhaps a few words, though from a stranger, about your son, from one who was with him. at the last, might be worth while for I loved the young man, though I but saw him immediately to lose him. W. W.

1 The grand soldiers are not comprised in those of one side, any more than the other. Here is a sample of an unknown Southerner, a lad of seventeen. At the War Department, a few days ago, I witness'd a presentation of captured flags to the Secretary. Among others a soldier named Gant, of the 104th Ohio Volunteers, presented a rebel battle-flag, which one of the officers stated to me was borne to the mouth of our cannon and planted there by a boy but seventeen years of age, who actually endeavor'd to stop the muzzle of the gun with fence-rails. He was kill'd in the effort, and the flag-staff was sever'd by a shot from one of our men. (Specimen Days, p. 27.)

So soon what is over forgotten, and waves wash the imprints off the sand, With hinged knees returning I enter the doors (while for you up there, Whoever you are, follow without noise and be of strong heart).

Bearing the bandages, water and sponge, Straight and swift to my wounded I go, Where they lie on the ground after the battle brought in,

Where their priceless blood reddens the grass the ground,

Or to the rows of the hospital tent, or under the roof'd hospital,

To the long rows of cots up and down each side I return,

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To each and all one after another I draw near, not one do I miss,

An attendant follows holding a tray, he carries a refuse pail,

Soon to be fill'd with clotted rags and blood, emptied, and fill'd again.

GIVE me the splendid silent sun with all his beams full-dazzling,

Give me juicy autumnal fruit ripe and red from the orchard,

Give me a field where the unmow'd grass grows,

Give me an arbor, give me the trellis'd grape,

Give me fresh corn and wheat, give me se

rene-moving animals teaching content, Give me nights perfectly quiet as on high plateaus west of the Mississippi, and I looking up at the stars,

Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers where I can walk undisturb'd,

Give me for marriage a sweet-breath'd woman of whom I should never tire, Give me a perfect child, give me away aside from the noise of the world a rural domestic life,

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Give me to warble spontaneous songs recluse by myself, for my own ears only, Give me solitude, give me Nature, give me again O Nature your primal sanities!

These demanding to have them (tired with ceaseless excitement, and rack'd by the war-strife),

These to procure incessantly asking, rising in cries from my heart,

While yet incessantly asking still I adhere to my city,

Day upon day and year upon year O city, walking your streets,

Where you hold me enchain'd a certain time refusing to give me up,

Yet giving to make me glutted, enrich'd of soul, you give me forever faces;

(Oh I see what I sought to escape, confronting, reversing my cries,

I see my own soul trampling down what it ask'd for.)

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Keep your splendid silent sun, Keep your woods O Nature, and the quiet places by the woods,

Keep your fields of clover and timothy, and your corn-fields and orchards, Keep the blossoming buckwheat fields where the Ninth-month bees hum; Give me faces and streets-give me these phantoms incessant and endless along the trottoirs!

Give me interminable eyes - give me

women - give me comrades and lovers by the thousand!

Let me see new ones every day - let me

hold new ones by the hand every day! Give me such shows -give me the streets of Manhattan !

Give me Broadway, with the soldiers marching give me the sound of the trumpets and drums!

Give me the shores and wharves heavyfringed with black ships!

O such for me! O an intense life, full to repletion and varied !

The life of the theatre, bar-room, huge hotel, for me!

The saloon of the steamer! the crowded excursion for me! the torchlight procession! The dense brigade bound for the war, with high piled military wagons following; People, endless, streaming, with strong voices, passions, pageants, Manhattan streets with their powerful throbs, with beating drums as now, The endless and noisy chorus, the rustle and clank of muskets (even the sight of the wounded),

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1

Manhattan crowds, with their turbulent musical chorus ! Manhattan faces and eyes forever for me. 1865. LONG, TOO LONG AMERICA 2

LONG, too long America,

Traveling roads all even and peaceful you learn'd from joys and prosperity only, But now, ah now, to learn from crises of anguish, advancing, grappling with direst fate and recoiling not,

And now to conceive and show to the world what your children en-masse really are, (For who except myself has yet conceiv'd what your children en-masse really are ?) 1865.

OVER THE CARNAGE ROSE PROPHETIC A VOICE

OVER the carnage rose prophetic a voice, Be not dishearten'd, affection shall solve the problems of freedom yet,

1 Compare Whitman's Collect (Complete Prose Works, Small, Maynard & Co., p. 205): —

Always and more and more, as I cross the East and North rivers, the ferries, or with the pilots in their pilot-houses, or pass an hour in Wall Street, or the gold exchange, I realize (if we must admit such partialisms), that not Nature alone is great in her fields of freedom and the open air, in her storms, the shows of night and day, the mountains, forests, seas— but in the artificial, the work of man too is equally great in this profusion of teeming humanity in these ingenuities, streets, goods, houses, ships-these hurrying, feverish, electric crowds of men, their complicated business genius, (not least among the geniuses), and all this mighty, manythreaded wealth and industry concentrated here.'

In the original edition the title and first line read: Long, too long, O land.

Those who love each other shall become invincible,

They shall yet make Columbia victorious.

Sons of the Mother of All, you shall yet be victorious,

You shall yet laugh to scorn the attacks of all the remainder of the earth.

No danger shall balk Columbia's lovers, If need be a thousand shall sternly immolate themselves for one.

One from Massachusetts shall be a Missourian's comrade,

From Maine and from hot Carolina, and another an Oregonese, shall be friends triune,

More precious to each other than all the riches of the earth.

To Michigan, Florida perfumes shall tenderly come,

Not the perfumes of flowers, but sweeter, and wafted beyond death.

It shall be customary in the houses and streets to see manly affection,

The most dauntless and rude shall touch face to face lightly,

The dependence of Liberty shall be lovers, The continuance of Equality shall be comrades.3

These shall tie you and band you stronger than hoops of iron,

I, ecstatic, O partners! O lands! with the love of lovers tie you.

(Were you looking to be held together by lawyers?

Or by an agreement on a paper? or by arms?

Nay, nor the world, nor any living thing, will so cohere.)

1865.

OUT OF THE ROLLING OCEAN THE CROWD 4

OUT of the rolling ocean the crowd came a drop gently to me,

Whispering I love you, before long I die,

3 Taken in part from the poem 'States,' of the 1800 edition, quoted in the note on p. 561.

Originally in Drum-Taps, but now included in the 'Children of Adam' section of Leaves of Grass.