A Twilight SongAs I sit in twilight late alone by the flickering oak-flame,Musing on long-pass’d war-scenes—of the countless buried unknownsoldiers,Of the vacant names, as unindented air’s and sea’s—the unreturn’d,The brief truce after battle, with grim burial-squads, and thedeep-fill’d trenchesOf gather’d from dead all America, North, South, East, West, whencethey came up,From wooded Maine, New-England’s farms, from fertile Pennsylvania,Illinois, Ohio,From the measureless West, Virginia, the South, the Carolinas, Texas,(Even here in my room-shadows and half-lights in the noiselessflickering flames,Again I see the stalwart ranks on-filing, rising—I hear therhythmic tramp of the armies;)You million unwrit names all, all—you dark bequest from all the war,A special verse for you—a flash of duty long neglected—your mysticroll strangely gather’d here,Each name recall’d by me from out the darkness and death’s ashes,Henceforth to be, deep, deep within my heart recording, for manyfuture year,Your mystic roll entire of unknown names, or North or South,Embalm’d with love in this twilight song.
As I sit in twilight late alone by the flickering oak-flame,Musing on long-pass’d war-scenes—of the countless buried unknownsoldiers,Of the vacant names, as unindented air’s and sea’s—the unreturn’d,The brief truce after battle, with grim burial-squads, and thedeep-fill’d trenchesOf gather’d from dead all America, North, South, East, West, whencethey came up,From wooded Maine, New-England’s farms, from fertile Pennsylvania,Illinois, Ohio,From the measureless West, Virginia, the South, the Carolinas, Texas,(Even here in my room-shadows and half-lights in the noiselessflickering flames,Again I see the stalwart ranks on-filing, rising—I hear therhythmic tramp of the armies;)You million unwrit names all, all—you dark bequest from all the war,A special verse for you—a flash of duty long neglected—your mysticroll strangely gather’d here,Each name recall’d by me from out the darkness and death’s ashes,Henceforth to be, deep, deep within my heart recording, for manyfuture year,Your mystic roll entire of unknown names, or North or South,Embalm’d with love in this twilight song.