by Whitman · Cluster: Stars · Night · Military Camp
Abstract
An imagistic night-camp scene: a halting army, scattered camp-fires, shadowy men and horses, and over all the eternal stars; war set against cosmic permanence.
Connections
Motifs: Stars, Night, Fire, Nature Themes & Concepts: War and its Cost Settings: Military Camp
Testo integrale / Full text
Cluster: DRUM-TAPS
I see before me now a traveling army halting, Below a fertile valley spread, with barns and the orchards of summer, Behind, the terraced sides of a mountain, abrupt, in places rising high, Broken, with rocks, with clinging cedars, with tall shapes dingily seen, The numerous camp-fires scatter’d near and far, some away up on the mountain, The shadowy forms of men and horses, looming, large-sized, flickering, And over all the sky—the sky! far, far out of reach, studded, breaking out, the eternal stars.