The Patriotic Poems of Walt Whitman E-Book

Walt Whitman

• Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

In "The Patriotic Poems of Walt Whitman," the esteemed poet transcends the boundaries of conventional verse to capture the profound essence of American identity and spirit during a tumultuous era. Drawing heavily from his experiences in the Civil War, Whitman's literary style is characterized by free verse and a fervent emotional resonance, blending the personal with the collective. The social and political backdrop of 19th-century America infuses these poems with a sense of urgency, as they reflect themes of democracy, unity, and the human experience amidst conflict and change. The language is both monumental and intimate, a hallmark of Whitman's broader body of work, which celebrates the interconnectedness of all individuals within the nation. Walt Whitman, often regarded as the father of free verse, was deeply influenced by the democratic ideals of his time and the varied lives of everyday Americans. His encounters as a volunteer nurse during the Civil War shaped his perspective on mortality and sacrifice, compelling him to articulate a vision of America that embraced both its grandeur and its struggles. This unique intersection of personal narrative and national consciousness drives the poetic urgency found in this collection. Readers are invited to immerse themselves in "The Patriotic Poems of Walt Whitman," a collection that resonates with contemporary themes of national identity and collective memory. The work is essential for anyone seeking to understand not only Whitman's profound literary contributions but also the tumultuous era of the American landscape during the 19th century. Whitman's voice'Äîpassionate, inclusive, and visionary'Äîinvites reflection on the enduring ideals of freedom and unity.

Leseprobe

Walt Whitman

The Patriotic Poems of Walt Whitman

Published by Good Press, 2022

[email protected]

EAN 4057664625892

Table of Contents

I

POEMS OF WAR

THICK-SPRINKLED BUNTING

BEAT! BEAT! DRUMS!

CITY OF SHIPS

A MARCH IN THE RANKS HARD-PREST, AND THE ROAD UNKNOWN

COME UP FROM THE FIELDS FATHER

A TWILIGHT SONG

A SIGHT IN CAMP IN THE DAYBREAK GRAY AND DIM

YEAR THAT TREMBLED AND REEL'D BENEATH ME

FIRST O SONGS FOR A PRELUDE

SONG OF THE BANNER AT DAYBREAK

THE DYING VETERAN

THE WOUND-DRESSER

DIRGE FOR TWO VETERANS

FROM FAR DAKOTA'S CAÑONS

OLD WAR-DREAMS

DELICATE CLUSTER

TO A CERTAIN CIVILIAN

ADIEU TO A SOLDIER

LONG, TOO LONG AMERICA

II

POEMS OF AFTER-WAR

WEAVE IN, MY HARDY LIFE

HOW SOLEMN AS ONE BY ONE

SPIRIT WHOSE WORK IS DONE

THE RETURN OF THE HEROES

MEMORIES OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN

WHEN LILACS LAST IN THE DOORYARD BLOOM'D

O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!

HUSH'D BE THE CAMPS TO-DAY

ASHES OF SOLDIERS

PENSIVE ON HER DEAD GAZING

III

POEMS OF AMERICA

I HEAR AMERICA SINGING

PIONEERS! O PIONEERS!

SONG OF THE BROAD-AXE

GIVE ME THE SPLENDID SILENT SUN

FACES

O MAGNET-SOUTH

BY BROAD POTOMAC'S SHORE

OUR OLD FEUILLAGE!

A BROADWAY PAGEANT

THE PRAIRIE STATES

IV

POEMS OF DEMOCRACY

TO FOREIGN LANDS

TO THEE OLD CAUSE

FOR YOU O DEMOCRACY

THOU MOTHER WITH THY EQUAL BROOD

WHAT BEST I SEE IN THEE

AS I WALK THESE BROAD MAJESTIC DAYS

THE UNITED STATES TO OLD WORLD CRITICS

YEARS OF THE MODERN

O STAR OF FRANCE

THOUGHTS

BY BLUE ONTARIO'S SHORE

EPILOGUE

RISE O DAYS FROM YOUR FATHOMLESS DEEPS

I

POEMS OF WAR

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THICK-SPRINKLED BUNTING

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Thick-sprinkled bunting! flag of stars!Long yet your road, fateful flag—long yet your road, and lined with bloody death,For the prize I see at issue at last is the world,All its ships and shores I see interwoven with your threads greedy banner;Dream'd again the flags of kings, highest borne, to flaunt unrival'd?O hasten flag of man—O with sure and steady step, passing highest flags of kings,Walk supreme to the heavens mighty symbol—run up above them all,Flag of stars! thick-sprinkled bunting!

BEAT! BEAT! DRUMS!

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Beat! beat! drums!—blow! bugles! blow!Through the windows—through doors—burst like a ruthless force,Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation,Into the school where the scholar is studying;Leave not the bridegroom quiet—no happiness must he have now with his bride,Not the peaceful farmer any peace, ploughing his field or gathering his grain,So fierce you whirr and pound you drums—so shrill you bugles blow.

Beat! beat! drums!—blow! bugles! blow!Over the traffic of cities—over the rumble of wheels in the streets;Are beds prepared for sleepers at night in the houses? no sleepers must sleep in those beds,No bargainers' bargains by day—no brokers or speculators—would they continue?Would the talkers be talking? would the singer attempt to sing?Would the lawyer rise in the court to state his case before the judge?Then rattle quicker, heavier drums—you bugles wilder blow.

Beat! beat! drums!—blow! bugles! blow!Make no parley—stop for no expostulation,Mind not the timid—mind not the weeper or prayer,Mind not the old man beseeching the young man,Let not the child's voice be heard, nor the mother's entreaties,Make even the trestles to shake the dead where they lie awaiting the hearses,So strong you thump O terrible drums—so loud you bugles blow.

CITY OF SHIPS

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City of ships!(O the black ships! O the fierce ships!O the beautiful sharp-bow'd steam-ships and sail-ships!)City of the world! (for all races are here,All the lands of the earth make contributions here);City of the sea! city of hurried and glittering tides!City whose gleeful tides continually rush or recede, whirling in and out with eddies and foam!City of wharves and stores—city of tall façades of marble and iron!Proud and passionate city—mettlesome, mad, extravagant city!Spring up O city—not for peace alone, but be indeed yourself, warlike!Fear not—submit to no models but your own, O city!Behold me—incarnate me as I have incarnated you!

I have rejected nothing you offer'd me—whom you adopted I have adopted,Good or bad I never question you—I love all—I do not condemn anything,I chant and celebrate all that is yours—yet peace no more,In peace I chanted peace, but now the drum of war is mine,War, red war is my song through your streets, O city!

A MARCH IN THE RANKS HARD-PREST, AND THE ROAD UNKNOWN

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A march in the ranks hard-prest, and the road unknown,A route through a heavy wood with muffled steps in the darkness,Our army foil'd with loss severe, and the sullen remnant retreating,Till after midnight glimmer upon us the lights of a dim-lighted building,We come to an open space in the woods, and halt by the dim-lighted building,'Tis a large old church at the crossing roads, now an impromptu hospital,Entering but for a minute I see a sight beyond all the pictures and poems ever made,Shadows of deepest, deepest black, just lit by moving candles and lamps,And by one great pitchy torch stationary with wild red flame and clouds of smoke,By these, crowds, groups of forms vaguely I see on the floor, some in the pews laid down,At my feet more distinctly a soldier, a mere lad, in danger of bleeding to death (he is shot in the abdomen),I stanch the blood temporarily (the youngster's face is white as a lily),Then before I depart I sweep my eyes o'er the scene fain to absorb it all,Faces, varieties, postures beyond description, most in obscurity, some of them dead,Surgeons operating, attendants holding lights, the smell of ether, the odour of blood,The crowd, O the crowd of the bloody forms, the yard outside also fill'd,Some on the bare ground, some on planks or stretchers, some in the death-spasm sweating,An occasional scream or cry, the doctor's shouted orders or calls,The glisten of the little steel instruments catching the glint of the torches,These I resume as I chant, I see again the forms, I smell the odour,Then hear outside the orders given, Fall in, my men, fall in;But first I bend to the dying lad, his eyes open, a half-smile gives he me,Then the eyes close, calmly close, and I speed forth to the darkness,Resuming, marching, ever in darkness marching, on in the ranks,The unknown road still marching.

COME UP FROM THE FIELDS FATHER

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Come up from the fields father, here's a letter from our Pete,And come to the front door mother, here's a letter from thy dear son.

Lo, 'tis autumn,Lo, where the trees, deeper green, yellower and redder,Cool and sweeten Ohio's villages with leaves fluttering in the moderate wind,Where apples ripe in the orchards hang and grapes on the trellis'd vines(Smell you the smell of the grapes on the vines?Smell you the buckwheat where the bees were lately buzzing?),Above all, lo, the sky so calm, so transparent after the rain, and with wondrous clouds,Below too, all calm, all vital and beautiful, and the farm prospers well.

Down in the fields all prospers well,But now from the fields come father, come at the daughter's call,And come to the entry mother, to the front door come right away.

Fast as she can she hurries, something ominous, her steps trembling,She does not tarry to smooth her hair nor adjust her cap.

Open the envelope quickly,O this is not our son's writing, yet his name is sign'd,O a strange hand writes for our dear son, O stricken mother's soul!All swims before her eyes, flashes with black, she catches the main words only,Sentences broken, gunshot wound in the breast, cavalry skirmish, taken to hospital,At present low, but will soon be better.

Ah now the single figure to me,Amid all teeming and wealthy Ohio with all its cities and farms,Sickly white in the face and dull in the head, very faint,By the jamb of a door leans.

Grieve not so, dear mother (the just-grown daughter speaks through her sobs,The little sisters huddle around speechless and dismay'd),See, dearest mother, the letter says Pete will soon be better.

Alas poor boy, he will never be better (nor may be needs to be better, that brave and simple soul),While they stand at home at the door he is dead already,The only son is dead.

But the mother needs to be better,She with thin form presently drest in black,By day her meals untouch'd, then at night fitfully sleeping, often waking,In the midnight waking, weeping, longing with one deep longing,O that she might withdraw unnoticed, silent from life escape and withdraw,To follow, to seek, to be with her dear dead son.

A TWILIGHT SONG

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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 trenchesOf 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.

A SIGHT IN CAMP IN THE DAYBREAK GRAY AND DIM

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A sight in camp in the daybreak gray and dim,As from my tent I emerge so early sleepless,As slow I walk in the cool fresh air the path near by the hospital tent,Three forms I see on stretchers lying, brought out there untended lying,Over each the blanket spread, ample brownish woollen blanket,Gray and heavy blanket, folding, covering all.

Curious I halt and silent stand,Then with light fingers I from the face of the nearest the first just lift the blanket;Who are you elderly man so gaunt and grim, with well-gray'd hair, and flesh all sunken about the eyes?Who are you my dear comrade?

Then to the second I step—and who are you my child and darling?Who are you sweet boy with cheeks yet blooming?

Then to the third—a face nor child nor old, very calm, as of beautiful yellow-white ivory;Young man I think I know you—I think this face is the face of the Christ himself,Dead and divine and brother of all, and here again he lies.

YEAR THAT TREMBLED AND REEL'D BENEATH ME

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Year that trembled and reel'd beneath me!Your summer wind was warm enough, yet the air I breathed froze me,A thick gloom fell through the sunshine and darken'd me,Must I change my triumphant songs? said I to myself,Must I indeed learn to chant the cold dirges of the baffled,And sullen hymns of defeat?

FIRST O SONGS FOR A PRELUDE

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First O songs for a prelude,Lightly strike on the stretch'd tympanum pride and joy in my city,How she led the rest to arms, how she gave the cue,How at once with lithe limbs unwaiting a moment she sprang,(O superb! O Manhattan, my own, my peerless.O strongest you in the hour of danger, in crisis! O truer than steel!)How you sprang—how you threw off the costumes of peace with indifferent hand,How your soft opera-music changed, and the drum and fife were heard in their stead,How you led to the war (that shall serve for our prelude, songs of soldiers),How Manhattan drum-taps led.

Forty years had I in my city seen soldiers parading,Forty years as a pageant, till unawares the lady of this teeming and turbulent city,Sleepless amid her ships, her houses, her incalculable wealth,With her million children around her, suddenly,At dead of night, at news from the south,Incens'd struck with clinch'd hand the pavement.