The Walt Whitman Archive
Published Works
Books by Whitman
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [begin page 397] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
TRUE CONQUERORS.
Old farmers, travelers, workmen (no matter how crippled or
bent,)
bent,)
Old sailors, out of many a perilous voyage, storm and wreck,
Old soldiers from campaigns, with all their wounds, defeats and
scars;
scars;
Enough that they've survived at all—long life's unflinching ones!
Forth from their struggles, trials, fights, to have emerged at all
—in that alone,
—in that alone,
True conquerors o'er all the rest.