The Walt Whitman Archive
Published Works
Books by Whitman
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [begin page 385] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
TO THOSE WHO'VE FAIL'D.
To those who've fail'd, in aspiration vast,
To unnam'd soldiers fallen in front on the lead,
To calm, devoted engineers—to over-ardent travelers—to pilots
on their ships,
on their ships,
To many a lofty song and picture without recognition—I'd rear
a laurel-cover'd monument,
a laurel-cover'd monument,
High, high above the rest—To all cut off before their time,
Possess'd by some strange spirit of fire,
Quench'd by an early death.