{
 "id": "walt-whitman/vigil-strange-i-kept-on-the-field-one-night",
 "title": "Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night",
 "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": 156,
 "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": 26,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 117,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Vigil strange I kept on the field one night;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When you my son and my comrade dropt at my side that day,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One look I but gave which your dear eyes return’d with a look I shall never forget,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One touch of your hand to mine O boy, reach’d up as you lay on the ground,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then onward I sped in the battle, the even-contested battle,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till late in the night reliev’d to the place at last again I made my way,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Found you in death so cold dear comrade, found your body son of responding kisses, (never again on earth responding,)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bared your face in the starlight, curious the scene, cool blew the moderate night-wind,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Long there and then in vigil I stood, dimly around me the battlefield spreading,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Vigil wondrous and vigil sweet there in the fragrant silent night,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But not a tear fell, not even a long-drawn sigh, long, long I gazed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then on the earth partially reclining sat by your side leaning my chin in my hands,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Passing sweet hours, immortal and mystic hours with you dearest comrade⁠—not a tear, not a word,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Vigil of silence, love and death, vigil for you my son and my soldier,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As onward silently stars aloft, eastward new ones upward stole,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Vigil final for you brave boy, (I could not save you, swift was your death,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I faithfully loved you and cared for you living, I think we shall surely meet again,)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till at latest lingering of the night, indeed just as the dawn appear’d,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My comrade I wrapt in his blanket, envelop’d well his form,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Folded the blanket well, tucking it carefully over head and carefully under feet,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And there and then and bathed by the rising sun, my son in his grave, in his rude-dug grave I deposited,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ending my vigil strange with that, vigil of night and battle-field dim,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Vigil for boy of responding kisses, (never again on earth responding,)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Vigil for comrade swiftly slain, vigil I never forget, how as day brighten’d,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I rose from the chill ground and folded my soldier well in his blanket,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And buried him where he fell.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}