Delicate Cluster
by Walt Whitman
· 1871
Published 01/07/1871
DELICATE cluster! flag of teeming life!
Covering all my lands! all my sea-shores lining!
Flag of death! (how I watch'd you through the smoke of battle pressing!
How I heard you flap and rustle, cloth defiant!)
Flag cerulean! sunny flag! with the orbs of night dap-pleddappled!
Ah my silvery beauty! ah my woolly white and crim-soncrimson!
Ah to sing the song of you, my matron mighty!
My sacred one, my mother.