O TAN-FACED PRAIRIE-BOY

O tan-faced prairie-boy,
Before you came to camp came many a welcome gift,
Praises and presents came and nourishing food, till at last
     among the recruits,
You came, taciturn, with nothing to give — we but look'd on
     each other,
When lo! more than all the gifts of the world you gave me.

1865 1867

LOOK DOWN FAIR MOON

Look down fair moon and bathe this scene,
Pour softly down night's nimbus floods on faces ghastly,
     swollen, purple,
On the dead on their backs with arms toss'd wide,
Pour down your unstinted nimbus sacred moon.

1865 1867

RECONCILIATION

Word over all, beautiful as the sky,
Beautiful that war and all its deeds of carnage must in time
     be utterly lost,
That the hands of the sisters Death and Night incessantly
     softly wash again, and ever again, this soil'd world;
For my enemy is dead, a man divine as myself is dead,
I look where he lies white-faced and still in the coffin — I
     draw near,
Bend down and touch lightly with my lips the white face in
     the coffin.

1865-6 1881

HOW SOLEMN AS ONE BY ONE

(Washington City, 1865)

How solemn as one by one,
As the ranks returning worn and sweaty, as the men file by
     where I stand,
As the faces the masks appear, as I glance at the faces studying
     the masks,
(As I glance upward out of this page studying you, dear friend,
     whoever you are,)
How solemn the thought of my whispering soul to each in the ranks,
     and to you!
I see behind each mask that wonder a kindred soul,
O the bullet could never kill what you really are, dear friend,
Nor the bayonet stab what you really are;
The soul! yourself I see, great as any, good as the best,
Waiting secure and content, which the bullet could never
     kill,
Nor the bayonet stab O friend.

(1865?) 1871

AS I LAY WITH MY HEAD IN YOUR LAP CAMERADO

As I lay with my head in your lap camerado,
The confession I made I resume, what I said to you and the
     open air I resume,
I know I am restless and make others so,
I know my words are weapons full of danger, full of death,
For I confront peace, security, and all the settled laws, to
     unsettle them,
I am more resolute because all have denied me than I could
     ever have been had all accepted me,
I heed not and have never heeded either experience, cautions,
     majorities, nor ridicule,
And the threat of what is call'd hell is little or nothing to me,
And the lure of what is call'd heaven is little or nothing to me;
Dear camerado! I confess I have urged you onward with me,
     and still urge you, without the least idea what is our
     destination,
Or whether we shall be victorious, or utterly quell'd and
     defeated.

1865-6 1881

DELICATE CLUSTER

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