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Pensive on Her Dead Gazing
A poem by Walt Whitman (from his book, Leaves of Grass)
A poem by Walt Whitman (from his book, Leaves of Grass)
Pensive on her dead gazing I heard the Mother of All,
Desperate on the torn bodies, on the forms covering the battlefields gazing,
(As the last gun ceased, but the scent of the powder-smoke linger’d,)
As she call’d to her earth with mournful voice while she stalk’d,
Absorb them well O my earth, she cried, I charge you lose not my sons, lose not an atom,
And you streams absorb them well, taking their dear blood,
And you local spots, and you airs that swim above lightly impalpable,
And all you essences of soil and growth, and you my rivers’ depths
,
And you mountain sides, and the woods where my dear children’s blood trickling redden’d,
And you trees down in your roots to bequeath to all future trees,
My dead absorb or South or North—my young men’s bodies absorb, and their precious, precious blood,
Which holding in trust for me faithfully back again give me many a year hence,
In unseen essence and odor of surface and grass, centuries hence,
In blowing airs from the fields back again give me my darlings, give my immortal heroes,
Exhale me them centuries hence, breathe me their breath, let not an atom be lost,
O years and graves! O air and soil! O my dead, an aroma sweet!
Exhale them perennial sweet death, years, centuries hence.
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Walt Whitman wrote this poem after the end of the Civil War. In this poem, Whitman hears the “Mother of All” mourning the loss of the fallen soldiers. The “Mother of All” asks the earth to absorb them well and hold on to them for her so that they are part of the earth for centuries, immortal as part of the air and soil…
The first time I ever came across this poem was when someone read it out loud. I sat there, mesmerized by the sheer beauty and depth of the words. These words move me each and every time I read them, and I feel they are appropriate to share here....
