To those who’ve fail’d, in aspiration vast,
To unnam’d soldiers fallen in front on the lead,
To calm, devoted engineers—to over-ardent travelers—to pilots on
their ships,
To many a lofty song and picture without recognition—I’d rear laurel–
cover’d monument,
High, high above the rest—To all cut off before their time,
Possess’d by some strange spirit of fire,
Quench’d by an early death.
Other works by Walt Whitman...
