postmodern putin’s Reviews > Leaves of Grass > Status Update

Memories of President Lincoln:

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

With its cloud of skirmishers in advance,
With now the sound of a single shot snapping like a whip, and now an irregular volley,
The swarming ranks press on and on, the dense brigades press on, Glittering dimly, toiling under the sun -- the dust cover'd men,
In columns rise and fall to the undulations of the ground,
With artillery interspers'd -- the wheels rumble, the horses sweat,
As the army corps advances.

Gliding o'er all, through all,
Through Nature, Time, and Space,
As a ship on the waters advancing,
The voyage of the soul -- not life alone,
Death, many deaths I'll sing.

Of the turbid pool that lies in the autumn forest,
Of the moon that descends the steeps of the soughing twilight,
Toss, sparkles of day and dusk -- toss on the black stems that decay in the muck,
Toss to the moaning gibberish of the dry limbs.