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Dirge for Two Veterans
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from Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman (1900)
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         1

   The last sunbeam
Lightly falls from the finish’d Sabbath,
On the pavement here—and there beyond, it is looking,
   Down a new-made double grave.

         2

   Lo! the moon ascending!
Up from the east, the silvery round moon;
Beautiful over the house tops, ghastly phantom moon;
   Immense and silent moon.

         3

   I see a sad procession,
And I hear the sound of coming full-key’d bugles;
All the channels of the city streets they’re flooding,
   As with voices and with tears.

         4

   I hear the great drums pounding,
And the small drums steady whirring;
And every blow of the great convulsive drums,
   Strikes me through and through.

         5

   For the son is brought with the father;
In the foremost ranks of the fierce assault they fell;
Two veterans, son and father, dropt together,
   And the double grave awaits them.

         6

   Now nearer blow the bugles,
And the drums strike more convulsive;
And the day-light o’er the pavement quite has faded,
   And the strong dead-march enwraps me.

         7

   In the eastern sky up-buoying,
The sorrowful vast phantom moves illumin’d;
(’Tis some mother’s large, transparent face,
   In heaven brighter growing.)

         8

   O strong dead-march, you please me!
O moon immense, with your silvery face you soothe me!
O my soldiers twain! O my veterans, passing to burial!
   What I have I also give you.

         9

   The moon gives you light,
And the bugles and the drums give you music;
And my heart, O my soldiers, my veterans,
   My heart gives you love.
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Next page > “In Time of ‘The Breaking of Nations’” & “The Man He Killed” by Thomas Hardy (1915)...
Poems of War collection > table of contents

Profile of the author > American bard of liberation Walt Whitman
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