{
 "id": "walt-whitman/the-wound-dresser",
 "title": "The Wound-Dresser",
 "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": 162,
 "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": 65,
  "n_stanzas": 11,
  "n_parts": 4,
  "longest_line_chars": 95,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [
  {
   "ordinal": "1",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    0,
    1
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "2",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    1,
    5
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "3",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    5,
    10
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "4",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    10,
    11
   ]
  }
 ],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "An old man bending I come among new faces,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Years looking backward resuming in answer to children,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Come tell us old man, as from young men and maidens that love me,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(Arous’d and angry, I’d thought to beat the alarum, and urge relentless war,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But soon my fingers fail’d me, my face droop’d and I resign’d myself,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To sit by the wounded and soothe them, or silently watch the dead;)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Years hence of these scenes, of these furious passions, these chances,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of unsurpass’d heroes, (was one side so brave? the other was equally brave;)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Now be witness again, paint the mightiest armies of earth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of those armies so rapid so wondrous what saw you to tell us?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What stays with you latest and deepest? of curious panics,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of hard-fought engagements or sieges tremendous what deepest remains?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O maidens and young men I love and that love me,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What you ask of my days those the strangest and sudden your talking recalls,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Soldier alert I arrive after a long march cover’d with sweat and dust,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the nick of time I come, plunge in the fight, loudly shout in the rush of successful charge,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Enter the captur’d works⁠—yet lo, like a swift-running river they fade,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pass and are gone they fade⁠—I dwell not on soldiers’ perils or soldiers’ joys,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(Both I remember well⁠—many the hardships, few the joys, yet I was content.)",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But in silence, in dreams’ projections,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While the world of gain and appearance and mirth goes on,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So soon what is over forgotten, and waves wash the imprints off the sand,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With hinged knees returning I enter the doors, (while for you up there,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whoever you are, follow without noise and be of strong heart.)",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Bearing the bandages, water and sponge,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Straight and swift to my wounded I go,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where they lie on the ground after the battle brought in,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where their priceless blood reddens the grass the ground,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or to the rows of the hospital tent, or under the roof’d hospital,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To the long rows of cots up and down each side I return,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To each and all one after another I draw near, not one do I miss,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "An attendant follows holding a tray, he carries a refuse pail,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Soon to be fill’d with clotted rags and blood, emptied, and fill’d again.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I onward go, I stop,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With hinged knees and steady hand to dress wounds,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I am firm with each, the pangs are sharp yet unavoidable,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One turns to me his appealing eyes⁠—poor boy! I never knew you,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet I think I could not refuse this moment to die for you, if that would save you.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "On, on I go, (open doors of time! open hospital doors!)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The crush’d head I dress, (poor crazed hand tear not the bandage away,)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The neck of the cavalry-man with the bullet through and through I examine,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hard the breathing rattles, quite glazed already the eye, yet life struggles hard,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(Come sweet death! be persuaded O beautiful death!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In mercy come quickly.)",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "From the stump of the arm, the amputated hand,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I undo the clotted lint, remove the slough, wash off the matter and blood,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Back on his pillow the soldier bends with curv’d neck and side falling head,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His eyes are closed, his face is pale, he dares not look on the bloody stump,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And has not yet look’d on it.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I dress a wound in the side, deep, deep,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But a day or two more, for see the frame all wasted and sinking,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the yellow-blue countenance see.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I dress the perforated shoulder, the foot with the bullet-wound,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Cleanse the one with a gnawing and putrid gangrene, so sickening, so offensive,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While the attendant stands behind aside me holding the tray and pail.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I am faithful, I do not give out,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The fractur’d thigh, the knee, the wound in the abdomen,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "These and more I dress with impassive hand, (yet deep in my breast a fire, a burning flame.)",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Thus in silence in dreams’ projections,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Returning, resuming, I thread my way through the hospitals,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The hurt and wounded I pacify with soothing hand,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I sit by the restless all the dark night, some are so young,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some suffer so much, I recall the experience sweet and sad,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(Many a soldier’s loving arms about this neck have cross’d and rested,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Many a soldier’s kiss dwells on these bearded lips.)",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}