Weekly Whitman: In Clouds Descending, In Midnight Sleep

Sleeping? Dead? Ill? Until brought by the medics sometimes it was impossible to tell. It still is, whether we are looking at old photos, drone footage, or the latest breaking news. I do not know what more to say, but Walt Whitman did.

In Clouds Descending, In Midnight Sleep

In clouds descending, in midnight sleep, of many a face of
anguish,

Of the look at first of the mortally wounded—of that indescribable look;

Of the dead on their backs, with arms extended wide,

I dream, I dream, I dream.

Of scenes of nature, the fields and the mountains;

Of the skies, so beauteous after the storm—and at night the
moon so unearthly bright,

Shining sweetly, shining down, where we dig the trenches
and gather the heaps,

I dream, I dream, I dream.

Long have they pass’d, long lapsed—faces and trenches and
fields;

Long through the carnage I moved with a callous composure
—or away from the fallen,

Onward I sped at the time—But now of their forms at night,

I dream, I dream, I dream.