... And I saw askant the armies, I saw as in noiseless dreams hundreds of battle-flags, Borne through the smoke of the battles and pierc'd with missiles I saw them, And carried hither and yon through the smoke, and torn and bloody, And at last but a few shreds left on the staffs (and all in silence), And the staffs all splintered and broken. I saw battle-corpses, myriads of them, And the white skeletons of young men, I saw them, I saw the debris and debris of all the slain soldiers of the war, But I saw they were not as was thought, They themselves were fully at rest, they suffer'd not, The living remain'd and suffer'd, the mother suffer'd, And the wives and the child and the musing comrade suffer'd, And the armies that remain'd suffer'd.... _Come lovely and soothing death, Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving, In the night, in the day, to all, to each, Sooner or later delicate death._ _Prais'd be the fathomless universe, For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious, And for love, sweet love--but praise! praise! praise! For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death._ _Dark mother always gliding near with soft feet Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome? Then I chant it for thee, I glorify thee above all, I bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, come unfalteringly._ DRUM-TAPS FIRST O SONGS FOR A PRELUDE. 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, still 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. A shock electric, the night sustain'd it, Till with ominous hum our hive at daybreak pour'd out its myriads. From the houses then and the workshops, and through all the doorways, Leapt they tumultuous, and lo! Manhattan arming.