{
 "id": "walt-whitman/the-centenarians-story",
 "title": "The Centenarian’s Story",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Walt Whitman",
 "poet_slug": "walt-whitman",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Leaves of Grass",
 "book_slug": "leaves-of-grass",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 150,
 "container": "Drum-Taps",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1865,
  "venue": "Drum-Taps (New York, 1865)",
  "note": "Located in this edition by matching this text's lines against the 1865 Drum-Taps scan. The corpus text follows the 1891–92 arrangement, by which the poem had been revised. First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/waltwhitmansdrum00whit"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/walt-whitman_leaves-of-grass",
  "file": "drum-taps.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1322",
   "https://archive.org/details/leavesgrass03whitgoog"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-12"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 112,
  "n_stanzas": 30,
  "n_parts": 2,
  "longest_line_chars": 93,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [
  {
   "ordinal": null,
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    5,
    25
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": null,
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    25,
    30
   ]
  }
 ],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Give me your hand old Revolutionary,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The hill-top is nigh, but a few steps, (make room gentlemen,)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Up the path you have follow’d me well, spite of your hundred and extra years,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You can walk old man, though your eyes are almost done,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your faculties serve you, and presently I must have them serve me.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Rest, while I tell what the crowd around us means,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On the plain below recruits are drilling and exercising,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "There is the camp, one regiment departs to-morrow,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Do you hear the officers giving their orders?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Do you hear the clank of the muskets?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Why what comes over you now old man?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Why do you tremble and clutch my hand so convulsively?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The troops are but drilling, they are yet surrounded with smiles,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Around them at hand the well-drest friends and the women,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While splendid and warm the afternoon sun shines down,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Green the midsummer verdure and fresh blows the dallying breeze,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O’er proud and peaceful cities and arm of the sea between.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But drill and parade are over, they march back to quarters,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Only hear that approval of hands! hear what a clapping!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "As wending the crowds now part and disperse⁠—but we old man,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not for nothing have I brought you hither⁠—we must remain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You to speak in your turn, and I to listen and tell.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "When I clutch’d your hand it was not with terror,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But suddenly pouring about me here on every side,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And below there where the boys were drilling, and up the slopes they ran,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And where tents are pitch’d, and wherever you see south and south-east and south-west,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Over hills, across lowlands, and in the skirts of woods,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And along the shores, in mire (now fill’d over) came again and suddenly raged,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As eighty-five years a-gone no mere parade receiv’d with applause of friends,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But a battle which I took part in myself⁠—aye, long ago as it is, I took part in it,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Walking then this hilltop, this same ground.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Aye, this is the ground,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My blind eyes even as I speak behold it re-peopled from graves,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The years recede, pavements and stately houses disappear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rude forts appear again, the old hoop’d guns are mounted,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I see the lines of rais’d earth stretching from river to bay,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I mark the vista of waters, I mark the uplands and slopes;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Here we lay encamp’d, it was this time in summer also.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "As I talk I remember all, I remember the Declaration,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It was read here, the whole army paraded, it was read to us here,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By his staff surrounded the General stood in the middle, he held up his unsheath’d sword,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It glitter’d in the sun in full sight of the army.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "’Twas a bold act then⁠—the English war-ships had just arrived,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We could watch down the lower bay where they lay at anchor,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the transports swarming with soldiers.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "A few days more and they landed, and then the battle.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Twenty thousand were brought against us,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A veteran force furnish’d with good artillery.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I tell not now the whole of the battle,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But one brigade early in the forenoon order’d forward to engage the red-coats,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of that brigade I tell, and how steadily it march’d,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And how long and well it stood confronting death.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Who do you think that was marching steadily sternly confronting death?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It was the brigade of the youngest men, two thousand strong,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rais’d in Virginia and Maryland, and most of them known personally to the General.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Jauntily forward they went with quick step toward Gowanus’ waters,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till of a sudden unlook’d for by defiles through the woods, gain’d at night,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The British advancing, rounding in from the east, fiercely playing their guns,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That brigade of the youngest was cut off and at the enemy’s mercy.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The General watch’d them from this hill,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They made repeated desperate attempts to burst their environment,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then drew close together, very compact, their flag flying in the middle,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But O from the hills how the cannon were thinning and thinning them!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "It sickens me yet, that slaughter!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I saw the moisture gather in drops on the face of the General.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I saw how he wrung his hands in anguish.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Meanwhile the British manoeuvr’d to draw us out for a pitch’d battle,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But we dared not trust the chances of a pitch’d battle.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "We fought the fight in detachments,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sallying forth we fought at several points, but in each the luck was against us,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our foe advancing, steadily getting the best of it, push’d us back to the works on this hill,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till we turn’d menacing here, and then he left us.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "That was the going out of the brigade of the youngest men, two thousand strong,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Few return’d, nearly all remain in Brooklyn.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "That and here my General’s first battle,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No women looking on nor sunshine to bask in, it did not conclude with applause,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nobody clapp’d hands here then.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But in darkness in mist on the ground under a chill rain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wearied that night we lay foil’d and sullen,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While scornfully laugh’d many an arrogant lord off against us encamp’d,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Quite within hearing, feasting, clinking wineglasses together over their victory.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "So dull and damp and another day,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But the night of that, mist lifting, rain ceasing,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Silent as a ghost while they thought they were sure of him, my General retreated.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I saw him at the river-side,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Down by the ferry lit by torches, hastening the embarcation;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My General waited till the soldiers and wounded were all pass’d over,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And then, (it was just ere sunrise,) these eyes rested on him for the last time.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Every one else seem’d fill’d with gloom,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Many no doubt thought of capitulation.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But when my General pass’d me,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As he stood in his boat and look’d toward the coming sun,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I saw something different from capitulation.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Enough, the Centenarian’s story ends,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The two, the past and present, have interchanged,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I myself as connecter, as chansonnier of a great future, am now speaking.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And is this the ground Washington trod?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And these waters I listlessly daily cross, are these the waters he cross’d,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As resolute in defeat as other generals in their proudest triumphs?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I must copy the story, and send it eastward and westward,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I must preserve that look as it beam’d on you rivers of Brooklyn.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "See⁠—as the annual round returns the phantoms return,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It is the 27th of August and the British have landed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The battle begins and goes against us, behold through the smoke Washington’s face,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The brigade of Virginia and Maryland have march’d forth to intercept the enemy,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They are cut off, murderous artillery from the hills plays upon them,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rank after rank falls, while over them silently droops the flag,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Baptized that day in many a young man’s bloody wounds,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In death, defeat, and sisters’, mothers’ tears.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Ah, hills and slopes of Brooklyn! I perceive you are more valuable than your owners supposed;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the midst of you stands an encampment very old,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Stands forever the camp of that dead brigade.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}