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.
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