Leaves of grass. | ||
PENSIVE ON HER DEAD GAZING, I HEARD
THE MOTHER OF ALL.
PENSIVE, on her dead gazing, I heard
the Mother of All,
Desperate, on the torn bodies, on the forms covering the battle-fields gazing;
As she call'd to her earth with mournful voice while she stalk'd:
Absorb them well, O my earth, she cried — I charge you, lose not my sons! lose not an atom;
And you streams, absorb them well, taking their dear blood;
And you local spots, and you airs that swim above lightly,
And all you essences of soil and growth — and you, O my rivers' depths;
And you mountain sides — and the woods where my dear children's blood, trickling, redden'd;
And you trees, down in your roots, to bequeath to all future trees,
My dead absorb — my young men's beautiful bodies ab- sorb — and their precious, precious, precious blood;
Which holding in trust for me, faithfully back again give me, many a year hence,
In unseen essence and odor of surface and grass, centu- ries hence;
In blowing airs from the fields, back again give me my darlings — give my immortal heroes;
Exhale me them centuries hence — breathe me their breath — let not an atom be lost;
O years and graves! O air and soil! O my dead, an aroma sweet!
Exhale them perennial, sweet death, years, centuries hence.
Desperate, on the torn bodies, on the forms covering the battle-fields gazing;
As she call'd to her earth with mournful voice while she stalk'd:
Absorb them well, O my earth, she cried — I charge you, lose not my sons! lose not an atom;
And you streams, absorb them well, taking their dear blood;
And you local spots, and you airs that swim above lightly,
And all you essences of soil and growth — and you, O my rivers' depths;
And you mountain sides — and the woods where my dear children's blood, trickling, redden'd;
And you trees, down in your roots, to bequeath to all future trees,
My dead absorb — my young men's beautiful bodies ab- sorb — and their precious, precious, precious blood;
Which holding in trust for me, faithfully back again give me, many a year hence,
In unseen essence and odor of surface and grass, centu- ries hence;
In blowing airs from the fields, back again give me my darlings — give my immortal heroes;
Exhale me them centuries hence — breathe me their breath — let not an atom be lost;
O years and graves! O air and soil! O my dead, an aroma sweet!
Exhale them perennial, sweet death, years, centuries hence.
72a
Leaves of grass. | ||