Published Works

Books by Whitman

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A MARCH IN THE RANKS HARD-PREST, AND
THE ROAD UNKNOWN.

A MARCH in the ranks hard-prest, and the road unknown;

A route through a heavy wood, with muffled steps in
the darkness;

Our army foil'd with loss severe, and the sullen remnant
retreating;

Till after midnight glimmer upon us, the lights of a
dim-lighted building;

We come to an open space in the woods, and halt by
the dim-lighted building;

'Tis a large old church at the crossing roads—'tis now
an impromptu hospital;

—Entering but for a minute, I see a sight beyond all
the pictures and poems ever made;

Shadows of deepest, deepest black, just lit by moving
candles and lamps,

And by one great pitchy torch, stationary, with wild red
flame, and clouds of smoke;

By these, crowds, groups of forms, vaguely I see, on the
floor, some in the pews laid down;

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At my feet more distinctly, a soldier, a mere lad, in
danger of bleeding to death, (he is shot in the
abdomen;)

I staunch the blood temporarily, (the youngster's face
is white as a lily;)

Then before I depart I sweep my eyes o'er the scene,
fain to absorb it all;

Faces, varieties, postures beyond description, most in
obscurity, some of them dead;

Surgeons operating, attendants holding lights, the smell
of ether, the odor of blood;

The crowd, O the crowd of the bloody forms of soldiers
—the yard outside also fill'd;

Some on the bare ground, some on planks or stretchers,
some in the death-spasm sweating;

An occasional scream or cry, the doctor's shouted orders
or calls;

The glisten of the little steel instruments catching the
glint of the torches;

These I resume as I chant—I see again the forms, I
smell the odor;

Then hear outside the orders given, Fall in, my men,
Fall in;

But first I bend to the dying lad—his eyes open—a
half-smile gives he me;

Then the eyes close, calmly close, and I speed forth to
the darkness,

Resuming, marching, ever in darkness marching, on in
the ranks,

The unknown road still marching.

Distributed under a Creative Commons License. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price, editors.