Explore "The Bivouac's Flame" by Walt Whitman on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
By the bivouac's fitful flame, / A procession winding around me, solemn and sweet and slow; -- but first I note / The tents of the sleeping army, the fields' and woods' dim outline, / The darkness, lit by spots of kindled fire -- the silence; / Like a phantom far or near an occasional figure moving; / The shrubs and trees, (as I lift my eyes they seem to be stealthily watching me; ) / While wind in procession thoughts, O tender and wondrous thoughts, / Of life and death -- of home and the past and loved, and of those that are far away; / A solemn and slow procession there as I sit on the ground, / By the bivouac's fitful flame.