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 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, O 
         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 ab- 
         sorb—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, centu- 
         ries 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.