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. Approach, encompassing Death-strong deliveress! When it is so--when thou hast taken them, I joyously sing the dead, Lost in the loving, floating ocean of thee, Laved in the flood of thy bliss, O Death. From me to thee glad serenades, Dances for thee I propose, saluting thee--adornments and feastings for thee; And the sights of the open landscape, and the high-spread sky, are fitting, And life and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful night. The night, in silence, under many a star; The ocean shore, and the husky whispering wave, whose voice I know; And the soul turning to thee, O vast and well-veiled Death, And the body gratefully nestling close to thee. Over the tree-tops I float thee a song! Over the rising and sinking waves--over the myriad fields, and the prairies wide; Over the dense-packed cities all, and the teeming wharves and ways, I float this carol with joy, with joy, to thee, O Death! 17. To the tally of my soul Loud and strong kept up the grey-brown bird, With pure, deliberate notes, spreading, filling the night. Loud in the pines and cedars dim, Clear in the freshness moist, and the swamp-perfume, And I with my Comrades there in the night. While my sight that was bound in my eyes unclosed, As to long panoramas of visions. 18. I saw the vision of armies; And I saw, as in noiseless dreams, hundreds of battle-flags; Borne through the smoke of the battles, and pierced with missiles, I saw them, And carried hither and yon through the smoke, and torn and bloody; And at last but a few shreds of the flags 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 dead soldiers. But I saw they were not as was thought; They themselves were fully at rest--they suffered not; The living remained and suffered--the mother suffered, And the wife and the child, and the musing comrade suffered, And the armies that remained suffered. 19. Passing the visions, passing the night; Passing, unloosing the hold of my Comrades' hands; Passing the song of the hermit bird, and the tallying song of my soul; Victorious song, Death's outlet song, yet varying, ever-altering song; As low and wailing, yet clear, the notes, rising and falling, flooding the night, Sadly sinking and fainting, as warning and warning, and yet again bursting with joy. Covering the earth, and filling the spread of the heaven, As that powerful psalm in the night, I heard from recesses. 20. Must I leave thee, lilac with heart-shaped leaves? Must I leave thee there in the door-yard, blooming, returning with spring?