[I]1 saw askant the armies,
[And]2 I saw, as in noiseless dreams, hundreds of battle-flags;
Borne through the smoke of the battles, and pierc'd with missiles, I saw them,
And carried hither and yon through the smoke, and torn and bloody;
And at last [but]3 a few shreds left on the staffs, (all in silence,)
And the staffs all splinter'd and broken.

I saw battle-corpses, myriads of them,
And the white skeletons of young men -- I saw them,
I saw the debris and debris of all the dead soldiers of the war;
[But I]4 saw they were not as was thought,
They themselves were fully at rest -- they suffer'd not;
The living remain'd and suffer'd -- the mother suffer'd,
And the wife and the child, and the musing comrade suffer'd,
And the armies that remain'd suffer'd.