Explore "Camps of Green" by Walt Whitman on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
1. Not alone our camps of white, O soldiers, / When, as ordered forward, after a long march, / Footsore and weary, soon as the light lessens, we halt for the night; / Some of us so fatigued, carrying the gun and knapsack, dropping asleep in / our tracks; / Others pitching the little tents, and the fires lit up begin to sparkle; / Outposts of pickets posted, surrounding, alert through the dark, / And a word provided for countersign, careful for safety; / Till to the call of the drummers at daybreak loudly beating the drums, / We rise up refreshed, the night and sleep passed over, and resume our journey, / Or proceed to battle.
2. Lo! the camps of the tents of green, / Which the days of peace keep filling, and the days of war keep filling, / With a mystic army, (is it too ordered forward? is it too only halting a while, / Till night and sleep pass over? )