While Not the Past Forgetting

While not the past forgetting,
To-day, at least, contention sunk entire⁠—peace, brotherhood uprisen;
For sign reciprocal our Northern, Southern hands,
Lay on the graves of all dead soldiers, North or South,
(Nor for the past alone⁠—for meanings to the future,)
Wreaths of roses and branches of palm.

Where this text comes from

First published in November Boughs (Philadelphia: David McKay, 1888). Printed in “Sands at Seventy,” the verse section of November Boughs, and gathered into Leaves of Grass as the First Annex in 1891–92, which is the arrangement the corpus text follows. First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established. [1] [2]

Structure read from the source's markup; the words have not been compared against a page scan. Last checked 2026-08-12.

Taken from Standard Ebooks, standardebooks/walt-whitman_leaves-of-grass, sands-at-seventy.xhtml. Rights: public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931).

Earlier sources (2)

This poem as JSON or plain text. Line anchors #L1–#L6.

Cite this poem

Walt Whitman (1819–1892). “While Not the Past Forgetting.” First published in November Boughs (Philadelphia: David McKay, 1888). Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/walt-whitman/while-not-the-past-forgetting/. Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.

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