PENSIVE, on her dead gazing, I heard the Mother of All,
 Desperate, on the torn bodies, on the forms covering the battle-
 fields gazing;
 (As the last gun ceased--but the scent of the powder-smoke linger'd;)
 As she call'd to her earth with mournful voice while she stalk'd:
 Absorb them well, O my earth, she cried--I charge you, lose not my
 sons! lose not an atom;
 And you streams, absorb them well, taking their dear blood;
 And you local spots, and you airs that swim above lightly,
 And all you essences of soil and growth--and you, my rivers' depths;
 And you, mountain sides--and the woods where my dear children's
 blood, trickling, redden'd;
 And you trees, down in your roots, to bequeath to all future
 trees, 10
 My dead absorb--my young men's beautiful bodies absorb--and their
 precious, precious, precious blood;
 Which holding in trust for me, faithfully back again give me, many a
 year hence,
 In unseen essence and odor of surface and grass, centuries hence;
 In blowing airs from the fields, back again give me my darlings--give
 my immortal heroes;
 Exhale me them centuries hence--breathe me their breath--let not an
 atom be lost;
 O years and graves! O air and soil! O my dead, an aroma sweet!
 Exhale them perennial, sweet death, years, centuries hence.