Battle-Retrospect, and Other Poems/To the Fallen
TO THE FALLEN. (NOVEMBER.)
No more for them time's dark events
Charging like ceaseless clouds across the sky,[1]
No more old fate—they are gone hence—
No more the sombre, hurrying destiny.
No more for them November skies,
The mighty changes of the dying year,
They shall not know earth on this wise,
Nor the tumultuous forests hear.
With flying cloud and wind
And uproar in the trees that toss and bend
The old year races on its blind
Accelerating voyage towards the end.
No more for them earth's fleet career
Hastening down the runways of the dark,
No more the phantoms of the year
Coursing like mindless winds through treetops stark.
No more for them the fleeting suns
Breeding new fret and stir upon the earth,
No more the din, the oaths, the guns,
These throb not past the gates of death and birth.
No more for them time's dark events
Charging like ceaseless clouds across the sky,
The fury of the elements
No more shall rage upon them where they lie.
- ↑ From Walt Whitman, "Hush'd Be the Camps To-day" (transposed).