In Clouds Descending, in Midnight Sleep

by Walt Whitman · 1865
Published 01/07/1865

IN clouds descending, in midnight sleep, of many a face of anguish,

Of the look at first of the mortally wounded—of that inde-scribableindescribable look;

Of the dead on their backs, with arms extended wide,

I dream, I dream, I dream.


Of scenes of nature, the fields and the mountains;

Of the skies, so beauteous after the storm—and at night the moon so unearthly bright,

Shining sweetly, shining down, where we dig the trenches and gather the heaps,

I dream, I dream, I dream.


Long have they pass'd, long lapsed—faces and trenches and fields;

Long through the carnage I moved with a callous compos-urecomposure—or away from the fallen,

Onward I sped at the time—But now of their forms at night,

I dream, I dream, I dream.

#death #nightmare #remembrance #trauma #walt whitman #war

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