Pensive on Her Dead Gazing
Pensive on her dead gazing I heard the Mother of All, / Desperate on the torn bodies, on the forms covering the battlefields gazing,
I Hear It Was Charged Against Me
❦
I hear it was charged against me that I sought to destroy institutions,
But really I am neither for nor against institutions,
(What indeed have I in common with them? or what with the
destruction of them?)
Only I will establish in the Mannahatta and in every city of these
States inland and seaboard,
And in the fields and woods, and above every keel little or large
that dents the water,
Without edifices or rules or trustees or any argument,
The institution of the dear love of comrades.
More poems by Walt Whitman
To Thee Old Cause
To thee old cause! / Thou peerless, passionate, good cause,
To Those Who've Fail'd
To those who've fail'd, in aspiration vast, / To unnam'd soldiers fallen in front on the lead,
As I Ponder'd in Silence
As I ponder'd in silence, / Returning upon my poems, considering, lingering long,