Poem by Walt Whitman

Leaves of Grass. 35. Good-Bye My Fancy. 19. A 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 unknown
  soldiers,
Of the vacant names, as unindented air's and sea's--the unreturn'd,
The brief truce after battle, with grim burial-squads, and the
  deep-fill'd trenches
Of gather'd dead from all America, North, South, East, West, whence
  they 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 noiseless
  flickering flames,
Again I see the stalwart ranks on-filing, rising--I hear the rhythmic
  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 mystic
  roll 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 many a
  future year,
Your mystic roll entire of unknown names, or North or South,
Embalm'd with love in this twilight song.

1. Leaves of Grass. 34. Sands at Seventy. 42. While Not the Past Forgetting
2. Leaves of Grass. 21. Drum-Taps. 35. How Solemn As One by One [Washington City, 1865]
3. Leaves of Grass. 30. Whispers of Heavenly Death. 5. Yet, Yet, Ye Downcast Hours
4. Leaves of Grass. 35. Good-Bye My Fancy. 7. The Pallid Wreath
5. Leaves of Grass. 35. Good-Bye My Fancy. 17. A Christmas Greeting

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