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. PENSIVE ON HER DEAD GAZING 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 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 odor 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. CAMPS OF GREEN Not alone those camps of white, old comrades of the wars, When as order'd forward, after a long march, Footsore and weary, soon as the light lessens we halt for the night, Some of us so fatigued carrying the gun and knapsack, dropping asleep in our tracks, Others pitching the little tents, and the fires lit up begin to sparkle, Outposts of pickets posted surrounding alert through the dark, And a word provided for countersign, careful for safety, Till to the call of the drummers at daybreak loudly beating the drums, We rise up refresh'd, the night and sleep pass'd over, and resume our journey, Or proceed to battle. Lo, the camps of the tents of green, Which the days of peace keep filling, and the days of war keep filling, With a mystic army, (is it too order'd forward? is it too only halting awhile, Till night and sleep pass over?)