Memories of Lincoln

by Walt Whitman

On, on I go, (open doors of time! open
hospital doors!)
The crush'd head I dress, (poor crazed
hand tear not the bandage
away,)
The neck of the cavalry-man with the
bullet through and through I
examine,
Hard the breathing rattles, quite glazed
already the eye, yet life struggles
hard,
(Come sweet death! be persuaded O
beautiful death!
In mercy come quickly.)
From the stump of the arm, the amputated
hand,
I undo the clotted lint, remove the
slough, wash off the matter and
blood,
Back on his pillow the soldier bends with
curv'd neck and side-falling head,
His eyes are closed, his face is pale, he
dares not look on the bloody
stump,
And has not yet look'd on it.
I dress a wound in the side, deep, deep,
But a day or two more, for see the frame
all wasted and sinking,
And the yellow-blue countenance see.
I dress the perforated shoulder, the foot
with the bullet-wound,
Cleanse the one with a gnawing and
putrid gangrene, so sickening, so
offensive,
While the attendant stands behind aside
me holding the tray and pail.
I am faithful, I do not give out,
The fractur'd thigh, the knee, the wound
in the abdomen,
These and more I dress with impassive
hand, (yet deep in my breast a
fire, a burning flame.)

4

Thus in silence in dreams' projections,
Returning, resuming, I thread my way
through the hospitals,
The hurt and wounded I pacify with
soothing hand,
I sit by the restless all the dark night,
some are so young,
Some suffer so much, I recall the experience
sweet and sad,
(Many a soldier's loving arms about this
neck have cross'd and rested,
Many a soldier's kiss dwells on these
bearded lips.)

---

[SPIRIT WHOSE WORK IS DONE]

(Washington City, 1865)

Spirit whose work is done—spirit of
dreadful hours!
Ere departing fade from my eyes your
forests of bayonets;
Spirit of gloomiest fears and doubts,
(yet onward ever unfaltering
pressing,)
Spirit of many a solemn day and many
a savage scene—electric spirit,
That with muttering voice through the
war now closed, like a tireless
phantom flitted,
Rousing the land with breath of flame,
while you beat and beat the drum,
Now as the sound of the drum, hollow
and harsh to the last, reverberates
round me,
As your ranks, your immortal ranks, return,
return from the battles,
As the muskets of the young men yet
lean over their shoulders,
As I look on the bayonets bristling over
their shoulders,
As those slanted bayonets, whole forests
of them appearing in the distance,
approach and pass on, returning
homeward,
Moving with steady motion, swaying to
and fro to the right and left,
Evenly lightly rising and falling while
the steps keep time;
Spirit of hours I knew, all hectic red one
day, but pale as death next day,
Touch my mouth ere you depart, press
my lips close,
Leave me your pulses of rage—bequeath
them to me—fill me with currents
convulsive,
Let them scorch and blister out of my
chants when you are gone,
Let them identify you to the future in
these songs.

---

[ASHES OF SOLDIERS]

Ashes of soldiers South or North,
As I muse retrospective murmuring a
chant in thought,
The war resumes, again to my sense
your shapes,
And again the advance of the armies.
Noiseless as mists and vapors,
From their graves in the trenches
ascending,
From cemeteries all through Virginia
and Tennessee,
From every point of the compass out of
the countless graves,
In wafted clouds, in myriads large, or
squads of twos or threes or single
ones they come,
And silently gather round me.
Now sound no note O trumpeters,
Not at the head of my cavalry parading
on spirited horses,
With sabres drawn and glistening, 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.)
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,
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,
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,
But love is not over—and what love, O
comrades!
Perfume from battle-fields rising, up
from the fœtor 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.
Perfume all—make all wholesome,
Make these ashes to nourish and
blossom,
O love, 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,
For the ashes of all dead soldiers South
or North.