Apology tour

I close this season

of political comment

as any of us would.

We, I believe, know
the unveiled bigotry
in the stab-in-the-
back mode of polit-
ical address; and we
know the endless vul-
garity of its thrill.

Humanity recoils in
prayer for our angels.

   

               We have seen this race proved

               by wholesale, by drearier, yet

               more fearful tests - the wound,

               the amputation, the shatter'd

               face or limb, the slow hot fever,

               long impatient anchorage in bed,

               and all the forms of maiming,

               operation and disease. Alas!

               America have we seen, though 

               only in her early youth, already

               to hospital brought. There have

               we watched these soldiers, many

               of them only boys in years -

               mark'd their decorum, their re-

               ligious nature and fortitude,

               and their sweet affection.

               Wholesale, truly. For at the 

               front, and through the camps,

               in countless tents, stood the

               regimental, brigade and division

               hospitals; while everywhere amid

               the land, in or near cities, rose

               clusters of huge, white-wash'd, 

               crowded, one-story wooden barracks;

               and there ruled agony with bitter

               scourge, yet seldom brought a cry;

               and there stalked death by day and

               night along the narrow aisles be-

               tween the rows of cots, or by the 

               blankets on the ground, and touch'd

               lightly many a poor sufferer, often

               with blessèd, welcome touch.

                                         

Walt Whitman

Collect

  Democratic Vistas

1892

Complete Poetry and

  Collected Prose

Justin Kaplan, editor

Library of America, 1982©