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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=535152" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Centerarian's Story</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">GIVE me your hand, old Revolutionary;<br> The hill-top is nigh--but a few steps, (make room, gentlemen;)<br> Up the path you have follow'd me well, spite of your hundred and<br> extra years;<br> You can walk, old man, though your eyes are almost done;<br> Your faculties serve you, and presently I must have them serve me.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Rest, while I tell what the crowd around us means;<br> On the plain below, recruits are drilling and exercising;<br> There is the camp--one regiment departs to-morrow;<br> Do you hear the officers giving the orders?<br> Do you hear the clank of the muskets?  10</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Why, what comes over you now, old man?<br> Why do you tremble, and clutch my hand so convulsively?<br> The troops are but drilling--they are yet surrounded with smiles;<br> Around them, at hand, the well-drest friends, and the women;<br> While splendid and warm the afternoon sun shines down;<br> Green the midsummer verdure, and fresh blows the dallying breeze,<br> O'er proud and peaceful cities, and arm of the sea between.<br> But drill and parade are over--they march back to quarters;<br> Only hear that approval of hands! hear what a clapping!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> As wending, the crowds now part and disperse--but we, old man, 20<br> Not for nothing have I brought you hither--we must remain;<br> You to speak in your turn, and I to listen and tell.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">  THE CENTENARIAN.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> When I clutch'd your hand, it was not with terror;<br> But suddenly, pouring about me here, on every side,<br> And below there where the boys were drilling, and up the slopes they<br> ran,<br> And where tents are pitch'd, and wherever you see, south and south-<br> east and south-west,<br> Over hills, across lowlands, and in the skirts of woods,<br> And along the shores, in mire (now fill'd over), came again, and<br> suddenly raged,<br> As eighty-five years agone, no mere parade receiv'd with applause of<br> friends,<br> But a battle, which I took part in myself--aye, long ago as it is, I<br> took part in it,   30<br> Walking then this hill-top, this same ground.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Aye, this is the ground;<br> My blind eyes, even as I speak, behold it re-peopled from graves;<br> The years recede, pavements and stately houses disappear;<br> Rude forts appear again, the old hoop'd guns are mounted;<br> I see the lines of rais'd earth stretching from river to bay;<br> I mark the vista of waters, I mark the uplands and slopes:<br> Here we lay encamp'd--it was this time in summer also.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> As I talk, I remember all--I remember the Declaration;<br> It was read here--the whole army paraded--it was read to us here; 40<br> By his staff surrounded, the General stood in the middle--he held up<br> his unsheath'd sword,<br> It glitter'd in the sun in full sight of the army.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> 'Twas a bold act then;<br> The English war-ships had just arrived--the king had sent them from<br> over the sea;<br> We could watch down the lower bay where they lay at anchor,<br> And the transports, swarming with soldiers.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> A few days more, and they landed--and then the battle.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Twenty thousand were brought against us,<br> A veteran force, furnish'd with good artillery.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> I tell not now the whole of the battle;  50<br> But one brigade, early in the forenoon, order'd forward to engage the<br> red-coats;<br> Of that brigade I tell, and how steadily it march'd,<br> And how long and how well it stood, confronting death.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Who do you think that was, marching steadily, sternly confronting<br> death?<br> It was the brigade of the youngest men, two thousand strong,<br> Rais'd in Virginia and Maryland, and many of them known personally to<br> the General.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Jauntily forward they went with quick step toward Gowanus' waters;<br> Till of a sudden, unlook'd for, by defiles through the woods, gain'd<br> at night,<br> The British advancing, wedging in from the east, fiercely playing<br> their guns,<br> That brigade of the youngest was cut off, and at the enemy's<br> mercy.    60</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> The General watch'd them from this hill;<br> They made repeated desperate attempts to burst their environment;<br> Then drew close together, very compact, their flag flying in the<br> middle;<br> But O from the hills how the cannon were thinning and thinning them!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> It sickens me yet, that slaughter!<br> I saw the moisture gather in drops on the face of the General;<br> I saw how he wrung his hands in anguish.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Meanwhile the British maneuver'd to draw us out for a pitch'd battle;<br> But we dared not trust the chances of a pitch'd battle.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> We fought the fight in detachments;  70<br> Sallying forth, we fought at several points--but in each the luck was<br> against us;<br> Our foe advancing, steadily getting the best of it, push'd us back to<br> the works on this hill;<br> Till we turn'd, menacing, here, and then he left us.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> That was the going out of the brigade of the youngest men, two<br> thousand strong;<br> Few return'd--nearly all remain in Brooklyn.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> That, and here, my General's first battle;<br> No women looking on, nor sunshine to bask in--it did not conclude<br> with applause;<br> Nobody clapp'd hands here then.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> But in darkness, in mist, on the ground, under a chill rain,<br> Wearied that night we lay, foil'd and sullen;  80<br> While scornfully laugh'd many an arrogant lord, off against us<br> encamp'd,<br> Quite within hearing, feasting, klinking wine-glasses together over<br> their victory.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> So, dull and damp, and another day;<br> But the night of that, mist lifting, rain ceasing,<br> Silent as a ghost, while they thought they were sure of him, my<br> General retreated.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> I saw him at the river-side,<br> Down by the ferry, lit by torches, hastening the embarcation;<br> My General waited till the soldiers and wounded were all pass'd over;<br> And then, (it was just ere sunrise,) these eyes rested on him for the<br> last time.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Every one else seem'd fill'd with gloom;  90<br> Many no doubt thought of capitulation.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> But when my General pass'd me,<br> As he stood in his boat, and look'd toward the coming sun,<br> I saw something different from capitulation.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">  TERMINUS.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Enough--the Centenarian's story ends;<br> The two, the past and present, have interchanged;<br> I myself, as connecter, as chansonnier of a great future, am now<br> speaking.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> And is this the ground Washington trod?<br> And these waters I listlessly daily cross, are these the waters he<br> cross'd,<br> As resolute in defeat, as other generals in their proudest<br> triumphs?    100</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> It is well--a lesson like that, always comes good;<br> I must copy the story, and send it eastward and westward;<br> I must preserve that look, as it beam'd on you, rivers of Brooklyn.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> See! as the annual round returns, the phantoms return;<br> It is the 27th of August, and the British have landed;<br> The battle begins, and goes against us--behold! through the smoke,<br> Washington's face;<br> The brigade of Virginia and Maryland have march'd forth to intercept<br> the enemy;<br> They are cut off--murderous artillery from the hills plays upon them;<br> Rank after rank falls, while over them silently droops the flag,<br> Baptized that day in many a young man's bloody wounds, 110<br> In death, defeat, and sisters', mothers' tears.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Ah, hills and slopes of Brooklyn! I perceive you are more valuable<br> than your owners supposed;<br> Ah, river! henceforth you will be illumin'd to me at sunrise with<br> something besides the sun.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Encampments new! in the midst of you stands an encampment very old;<br> Stands forever the camp of the dead brigade.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Walt+Whitman">Walt Whitman</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=535152" data-title="The Centerarian's Story de Walt Whitman" data-description="GIVE me your hand, old Revolutionary;
 The hill-top is nigh--but a few steps, (make room, gentlemen;)
 Up the path you have follow'd me well, spite of your hundred and
 extra years;
 You can walk, old man, though your eyes are almost done;
 Your f..."></div>
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