LiederNet logo

CONTENTS

×
  • Home | Introduction
  • Composers (20,111)
  • Text Authors (19,486)
  • Go to a Random Text
  • What’s New
  • A Small Tour
  • FAQ & Links
  • Donors
  • DONATE

UTILITIES

  • Search Everything
  • Search by Surname
  • Search by Title or First Line
  • Search by Year
  • Search by Collection

CREDITS

  • Emily Ezust
  • Contributors (1,114)
  • Contact Information
  • Bibliography

  • Copyright Statement
  • Privacy Policy

Follow us on Facebook

by Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892)

When late I sang, sad was my voice
Language: English 
When late I sang, sad was my voice;
Sad were the shows around me, with deafening
  noises of hatred, and smoke of conflict;
In the midst of the armies, the Heroes, I stood,
Or pass’d with slow step through the wounded and dying.
  
But now I sing not War,
Nor the measur’d march of soldiers, nor the tents of camps,
Nor the regiments hastily coming up, deploying in line of battle.
  
No more the dead and wounded;
No more the sad, unnatural shows of War.
  
Ask’d room those flush’d immortal ranks?
   the first forth-stepping armies? 
Ask room, alas, the ghastly ranks -- 
  the armies dread that follow’d.

About the headline (FAQ)

Confirmed with Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, Philadelphia: David McKay, c1900.


Text Authorship:

  • by Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892), no title, appears in Leaves of Grass, in A Carol of Harvest, for 1867, no. 5 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

    [ None yet in the database ]


Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2022-04-18
Line count: 14
Word count: 106

Gentle Reminder

This website began in 1995 as a personal project by Emily Ezust, who has been working on it full-time without a salary since 2008. Our research has never had any government or institutional funding, so if you found the information here useful, please consider making a donation. Your help is greatly appreciated!
–Emily Ezust, Founder

Donate

We use cookies for internal analytics and to earn much-needed advertising revenue. (Did you know you can help support us by turning off ad-blockers?) To learn more, see our Privacy Policy. To learn how to opt out of cookies, please visit this site.

I acknowledge the use of cookies

Contact
Copyright
Privacy

Copyright © 2025 The LiederNet Archive

Site redesign by Shawn Thuris