by Whitman · Cluster: War and its Cost · American Civil War · Battlefield
Abstract
Old workers, sailors and soldiers who merely survived their struggles are the true conquerors over all the rest.
Connections
Archetypes: Wise Old Man Sage Motifs: Sea, Swords and Weapons Themes & Concepts: Heroism, Common Man, War and its Cost Forms & Genres: Epigram
Testo integrale / Full text
Cluster: SANDS AT SEVENTY
Old farmers, travelers, workmen (no matter how crippled or bent,)
Old sailors, out of many a perilous voyage, storm and wreck,
Old soldiers from campaigns, with all their wounds, defeats and scars;
Enough that they’ve survived at all—long life’s unflinching ones!
Forth from their struggles, trials, fights, to have emerged at all—
in that alone,
True conquerors o’er all the rest.