Lyric Poem · War & Remembrance
Ashes of Soldiers
by Walt Whitman
1ASHES of soldiers!
2As I muse, retrospective, murmuring a chant in thought,
3Lo! the war resumes—again to my sense your shapes,
4And again the advance of armies.
5Noiseless as mists and vapors,
6From their graves in the trenches ascending,
7From the cemeteries all through Virginia and Tennessee,
8From every point of the compass, out of the countless unnamed graves,
9In wafted clouds, in myraids large, or squads of twos or threes, or single ones, they
10 come,
11And silently gather round me.
12Now sound no note, O trumpeters!
13Not at the head of my cavalry, parading on spirited horses,
14With sabres drawn and glist’ning, and carbines by their thighs—(ah, my brave
15 horsemen!
16My handsome, tan-faced horsemen! what life, what joy and pride,
17With all the perils, were yours!)
18Nor you drummers—neither at reveille, at dawn,
19Nor the long roll alarming the camp—nor even the muffled beat for a burial;
20Nothing from you, this time, O drummers, bearing my warlike drums.
21But aside from these, and the marts of wealth, and the crowded promenade,
22Admitting around me comrades close, unseen by the rest, and voiceless,
23The slain elate and alive again—the dust and debris alive,
24I chant this chant of my silent soul, in the name of all dead soldiers.
27Phantoms of countless lost!
28Invisible to the rest, henceforth become my companions!
29Follow me ever! desert me not, while I live.
30Sweet are the blooming cheeks of the living! sweet are the musical voices sounding!
31But sweet, ah sweet, are the dead, with their silent eyes.
32Dearest comrades! all is over and long gone;
33But love is not over—and what love, O comrades!
34Perfume from battle-fields rising—up from foetor arising.
35Perfume therefore my chant, O love! immortal Love!
36Give me to bathe the memories of all dead soldiers,
37Shroud them, embalm them, cover them all over with tender pride!
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“Ashes of Soldiers” by Walt Whitman — quilloak.com/poems/ashes-of-soldiers
Quick facts
- Poem
- Ashes of Soldiers
- Poet
- Walt Whitman
- Length
- 43 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem
- Themes
- War & Remembrance, Love, Death & Loss
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 43 lines · 12 stanzas of 2–7 lines
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Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.
- Author record
- Walt Whitman1819–1892
- Source record
- PoetryDBAshes of Soldiers by walt-whitman, PoetryDB transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- Not recorded in the imported source
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 2f83f49613357b8e…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.