Poetry Against War II: Old War-Dreams

(1865-66)

In midnight sleep of many a face of anguish,
Of the look at first of the mortally wounded, (of that indescribable look,)
Of the dead on their backs with arms extended wide,
          I dream, I dream, I dream.

Of scenes of Nature, fields and mountains,
Of skies so beauteous after a storm, and at night the moon so unearthly bright,
Shining sweetly, shining down, where we dig the trenches and gather the heaps,
          I dream, I dream, I dream.

Long have they pass’d, faces and trenches and fields,
Where through the carnage I moved with a callous composure, or away from the fallen,
Onward I sped at the time – but now of their forms at night,
          I dream, I dream, I dream.

                                                                                                            Walt Whitman
                                                                                                             (1819-1892)