Leaves of Grass eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 476 pages of information about Leaves of Grass.
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Leaves of Grass eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 476 pages of information about Leaves of Grass.

     The moon gives you light,
And the bugles and the drums give you music,
And my heart, O my soldiers, my veterans,
     My heart gives you love.

} Over the Carnage Rose Prophetic a Voice

Over the carnage rose prophetic a voice,
Be not dishearten’d, affection shall solve the problems of freedom yet,
Those who love each other shall become invincible,
They shall yet make Columbia victorious.

Sons of the Mother of All, you shall yet be victorious,
You shall yet laugh to scorn the attacks of all the remainder of the earth.

No danger shall balk Columbia’s lovers,
If need be a thousand shall sternly immolate themselves for one.

One from Massachusetts shall be a Missourian’s comrade,
From Maine and from hot Carolina, and another an Oregonese, shall
    be friends triune,
More precious to each other than all the riches of the earth.

To Michigan, Florida perfumes shall tenderly come,
Not the perfumes of flowers, but sweeter, and wafted beyond death.

It shall be customary in the houses and streets to see manly affection,
The most dauntless and rude shall touch face to face lightly,
The dependence of Liberty shall be lovers,
The continuance of Equality shall be comrades.

These shall tie you and band you stronger than hoops of iron,
I, ecstatic, O partners!  O lands! with the love of lovers tie you.

(Were you looking to be held together by lawyers? 
Or by an agreement on a paper? or by arms? 
Nay, nor the world, nor any living thing, will so cohere.)

} I Saw Old General at Bay

I saw old General at bay,
(Old as he was, his gray eyes yet shone out in battle like stars,)
His small force was now completely hemm’d in, in his works,
He call’d for volunteers to run the enemy’s lines, a desperate emergency,
I saw a hundred and more step forth from the ranks, but two or three
    were selected,
I saw them receive their orders aside, they listen’d with care, the
    adjutant was very grave,
I saw them depart with cheerfulness, freely risking their lives.

} The Artilleryman’s Vision

While my wife at my side lies slumbering, and the wars are over long,
And my head on the pillow rests at home, and the vacant midnight passes,
And through the stillness, through the dark, I hear, just hear, the
    breath of my infant,
There in the room as I wake from sleep this vision presses upon me;
The engagement opens there and then in fantasy unreal,
The skirmishers begin, they crawl cautiously ahead, I hear the
    irregular snap! snap! 
I hear the sounds of the different missiles, the short t-h-t! t-h-t!
    of the rifle-balls,
I see the shells exploding leaving small white clouds, I hear the
    great shells shrieking as they pass,
The grape like the hum and whirr of wind through the

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
Leaves of Grass from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.