Long have they pass'd, faces and trenches and fields, Where through the carnage I moved with a callous composure, or away from the fallen, Onward I sped at the time--but now of their forms at night, I dream, I dream, I dream.
Delicate cluster! flag of teeming life! Covering all my lands--all my seashores lining! Flag of death! (how I watch'd you through the smoke of battle pressing! How I heard you flap and rustle, cloth defiant!) Flag cerulean--sunny flag, with the orbs of night dappled! Ah my silvery beauty--ah my woolly white and crimson! Ah to sing the song of you, my matron mighty! My sacred one, my mother!
Did you ask dulcet rhymes from me? Did you seek the civilian's peaceful and languishing rhymes? Did you find what I sang erewhile so hard to follow? Why I was not singing erewhile for you to follow, to understand--nor am I now; (I have been born of the same as the war was born, The drum-corps' rattle is ever to me sweet music, I love well the martial dirge, With slow wail and convulsive throb leading the officer's funeral); What to such as you anyhow such a poet as I? therefore leave my works, And go lull yourself with what you can understand, and with piano-tunes, For I lull nobody, and you will never understand me.
Adieu O soldier, You of the rude campaigning (which we shared), The rapid march, the life of the camp, The hot contention of opposing fronts, the long manoeuvre, Red battles with their slaughter, the stimulus, the strong terrific game, Spell of all brave and manly hearts, the trains of time through you and like of you all fill'd, With war and war's expression.
Adieu dear comrade, Your mission is fulfill'd--but I, more warlike, Myself and this contentious soul of mine, Still on our own campaigning bound, Through untried roads with ambushes opponents lined, Through many a sharp defeat and many a crisis, often baffled, Here marching, ever marching on, a war fight out--aye here, To fiercer, weightier battles give expression.
Long, too long America, Travelling roads all even and peaceful you learn'd from joys and prosperity only, But now, ah now, to learn from crises of anguish, advancing, grappling with direst fate and recoiling not, And now to conceive and show to the world what your children en-masse really are. (For who except myself has yet conceiv'd what your children en-masse really are?).