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Text
Reconciliation
English source:
Walt Whitman
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.
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.
Composer
Ned Rorem
Ned Rorem is an American composer and diarist.
Poet
Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman (May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist, and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most…