The Veteran's Vision. by Walt Whitman — Read

While my wife at my side lies slumbering, and the wars are over long, / And my head on the pillow rests at home, and the mystic midnight passes, / And through the stillness, through the dark, I hear, just hear, the breath / of my infant, / There in the room, as I wake from sleep, this vision presses upon me. / The engagement opens there and then, in my busy brain unreal; / The skirmishers begin -- they crawl cautiously ahead -- I hear the irregular / snap! snap! / I hear the sound of the different missiles -- the short _t-h-t! t-h-t! _ of / the rifle-balls; / I see the shells exploding, leaving small white clouds -- I hear the great / shells shrieking as they pass; / The grape, like the hum and whirr of wind through the trees, (quick, / tumultuous, now the contest rages! ).

All the scenes at the batteries themselves rise in detail before me again; / The crashing and smoking -- the pride of the men in their pieces; / The chief gunner ranges and sights his piece, and selects a fuse of the / right time; / After firing, I see him lean aside, and look eagerly off to note the effect; / -- Elsewhere I hear the cry of a regiment charging -- the young colonel leads / himself this time, with brandished sword; / I see the gaps cut by the enemy's volleys, quickly filled up -- no delay; / I breathe the suffocating smoke -- then the flat clouds hover low, concealing all; / Now a strange lull comes for a few seconds, not a shot fired on either side; / Then resumed, the chaos louder than ever, with eager calls, and orders of / officers; / While from some distant part of the field the wind wafts to my ears a shout / of applause, (some special success; ) / And ever the sound of the cannon, far or near, rousing, even in dreams, a / devilish exultation, and all the old mad joy, in the depths of my soul; / And ever the hastening of infantry shifting positions -- batteries, cavalry, / moving hither and thither; / The falling, dying, I heed not -- the wounded, dripping and red, I heed not -- / some to the rear are hobbling; / Grime, heat, rush -- aides-de-camp galloping by, or on a full run: / With the patter of small arms, the warning _s-s-t_ of the rifles, (these in / my vision I hear or see,) / And bombs bursting in air, and at night the vari-coloured rockets.