Page:Leaves of Grass (1882).djvu/286

280

But on these days of brightness,

On the far-stretching beauteous landscape, the roads and lanes, the high-piled farm-wagons, and the fruits and barns,

Should the dead intrude?

Ah the dead to me mar not, they fit well in Nature,

They fit very well in the landscape under the trees and grass,

And along the edge of the sky in the horizon's far margin.

Nor do I forget you Departed,

Nor in winter or summer my lost ones,

But most in the open air as now when my soul is rapt and at peace, like pleasing phantoms,

Your memories rising glide silently by me.

I saw the day the return of the heroes,

(Yet the heroes never surpass'd shall never return,

Them that day I saw not.)

I saw the interminable corps, I saw the processions of armies,

I saw them approaching, defihng by with divisions,

Streaming northward, their work done, camping awhile in clusters of mighty camps.

No holiday soldiers—youthful, yet veterans,

Worn, swart, handsome, strong, of the stock of homestead and workshop,

Hardened of many a long campaign and sweaty march,

Inured on many a hard-fought bloody field.

A pause—the armies wait,

A million flush'd embattled conquerors wait,

The world too waits, then soft as breaking night and sure as dawn,

They melt, they disappear.

Exult O lands! victorious lands!

Not there your victory on those red shuddering fields,

But here and hence your victory.

Melt, melt away ye armies—disperse ye blue-clad soldiers,

Resolve ye back again, give up for good your deadly arms,

Other the arms the fields henceforth for you, or South or North,

With saner wars, sweet wars, life-giving wars.