Pensive on Her Dead Gazing I Heard the Mother of All

 PENSIVE, on her dead gazing, I heard the Mother of All, 
Desperate, on the torn bodies, on the forms covering the battle-fields gazing; 
(As the last gun ceased—but the scent of the powder-smoke linger’d;) 
As she call’d to her earth with mournful voice while she stalk’d: 
Absorb them well, O my earth, she cried—I charge you, lose not my sons! lose not an
 atom;
And you streams, absorb them well, taking their dear blood; 
And you local spots, and you airs that swim above lightly, 
And all you essences of soil and growth—and you, my rivers’ depths; 
And you, mountain sides—and the woods where my dear children’s blood, trickling,
 redden’d; 
And you trees, down in your roots, to bequeath to all future trees,
My dead absorb—my young men’s beautiful bodies absorb—and their precious,
 precious, precious blood; 
Which holding in trust for me, faithfully back again give me, many a year hence, 
In unseen essence and odor of surface and grass, centuries hence; 
In blowing airs from the fields, back again give me my darlings—give my immortal
 heroes; 
Exhale me them centuries hence—breathe me their breath—let not an atom be lost;
O years and graves! O air and soil! O my dead, an aroma sweet! 
Exhale them perennial, sweet death, years, centuries hence.

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