Pensive on her dead gazing I heard the Mother of All,
Desperate on the torn bodies, on the forms covering the
battlefields gazing
(As the last gun ceased, but the
scent of the powder-smoke linger'd),
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 impalpable,
And all you
essences of soil and growth, and you 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 or South or North--my young men's bodies absorb, and
their precious, precious blood,
Which holding in trust
for me faithfully back again give me many a year hence,
In unseen essence and odour of surface and grass, centuries
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. |
