Word over all, beautiful as the sky!
Beautiful that war, and all its deeds of carnage, must in time be utterly lost;
That the hands of the sisters Death and Night, incessantly softly wash again, and ever again, this soil’d world:
... For my enemy is dead—a man divine as myself is dead;
I look where he lies, white-faced and still, in the coffin—I draw near; I bend down, and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin.
--Walt Whitman
I don't know the context for this. I'm sure it's from Leaves of Grass, which I haven't read completely. Sadly, this is one of the poems where I can't remember why I liked it or even when I put this in the planner. I think it was the part about a guy seeing his enemy in the coffin - it's what happens after the final battle. It's the let down of victory, I think.
Now, what strikes me is the image of Death and Night washing the world, that entropy is really a kindness. All things pass away. Even enmity. This is a blessing.
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