The Dresser by Walt Whitman — Read

1. An old man bending, I come among new faces, / Years, looking backward, resuming, in answer to children, / "Come tell us, old man," (as from young men and maidens that love me, Years / hence) "of these scenes, of these furious passions, these chances, / Of unsurpassed heroes -- (was one side so brave? the other was equally brave) / Now be witness again -- paint the mightiest armies of earth; / Of those armies, so rapid, so wondrous, what saw you to tell us? / What stays with you latest and deepest? of curious panics, / Of hard-fought engagements, or sieges tremendous, what deepest remains?"

2. O maidens and young men I love, and that love me, / What you ask of my days, those the strangest and sudden your talking recalls, / Soldier alert I arrive, after a long march, covered with sweat and dust; / In the nick of time I come, plunge in the fight, loudly shout in the rush / of successful charge; / Enter the captured works,...yet lo! like a swift-running river, they fade, / Pass, and are gone; they fade -- I dwell not on soldiers' perils or soldiers' joys; / (Both I remember well -- many the hardships, few the joys, yet I was content.)