Book XXI. Drum-Taps: As I Lay With my Head in Your Lap Camerado
As I lay with my head in your lap, camerado,
The confession I made I resume—what I said to you and
the open air I resume:
I know I am restless, and make others so;
I know my words are weapons, full of danger, full of death;
(Indeed I am myself the real soldier;
It is not he, there, with his bayonet, and not the red-striped
artilleryman;)
For I confront peace, security, and all the settled laws, to
unsettle them;
I am more resolute because all have denied me, than I could
ever have been had all accepted me;
I heed not, and have never heeded, either experience, cau–
tions, majorities, nor ridicule;
And the threat of what is call’d hell is little or nothing to
me;
And the lure of what is call’d heaven is little or nothing
to me;
Dear camerado! I confess I have urged you onward
with me, and still urge you, without the least idea
what is our destination,
Or whether we shall be victorious, or utterly quell’d and
defeated.
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