Walt Whitman on Memorial Day
1819–1892 United States
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4 quotes
Nothing can happen more beautiful than death.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed (1919)
O, I see now that life cannot exhibit all to me, as day cannot,
I see that I am to wait for what will be exhibited by death.
Joy, shipmate, joy
(Pleas'd to my soul at death I cry,)
Our life is closed, our life begins,
The long, long anchorage we leave,
The ship is clear at last, she leaps!
Joy, shipmate, joy!
Oh, a strange hand writes for our dear son—O, stricken mother's soul!
All swims before her eyes—flashes with black—she catches the main words only;
Sentences broken—gun-shot wound in the breast, cavalry skirmish, taken to hospital;
At present low, but will soon be better.