Lyrics:

I Saw The Vision Of Armies (Walt Whitman)



i Saw The Vision Of Armies;

and I Saw, As In Noiseless Dreams, Hundreds Of Battle-Flags,

borne Through The Smoke Of The Battles And Pierced With Missiles, I Saw Them,

and Carried, Hither And Yon Through The Smoke, And Torn And Bloody;

and At Last But A Few Shreds Of 'the Flags Left On The Staffs, (And All In Silence,)

and The Staffs All Splintered And Broken.



i Saw Battle-Corpses, Myriads Of Them,

and The White Skeletons Of Young Men, I Saw Them;

i Saw The Debris And Debris Of All Dead Soldiers,

but I Saw They Were Not As Was Thought;

they Themselves Were Fully At Rest, They Suffered Not;

the Living Remained And Suffered, The Mother Suffered,

and The Wife And The Child And The Musing Comrade Suffered,

and The Armies That Remained Suffered..