I Saw The Vision Of Armies Lyrics - Joan Baez

I SAW THE VISION OF ARMIES (Walt Whitman) 

I saw the vision of armies; 

and I saw, as in noiseless dreams, hundreds of battle-flags, 

borne through the smoke of the battles and pierced with missiles, I saw them, 

and carried, hither and yon through the smoke, and torn and bloody; 

and at last but a few shreds of 'the flags left on the staffs, (and all in silence,) 

and the staffs all splintered 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 dead soldiers, 

But I saw they were not as was thought; 

they themselves were fully at rest, they suffered not; 

the living remained and suffered, the mother suffered, 

and the wife and the child and the musing comrade suffered, 

and the armies that remained suffered. 

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