Walt Whitman in 2007

At the dance and supper room I could not help thinking, what a different scene they presented to my view a while since, fill'd with a crowded mass of the worst wounded of the war. Tonight, beautiful women, perfumes, the violins' sweetness, the polka and the waltz; then the amputation, the blue face, the groan, the glassy eye of the dying, the clotted rag, the odor of blood, and many a mother's son amid strangers, passing away untended there.

—Walt Whitman, Specimen Days, a diary of the American Civil War (1882)

Gratitude to Gerald Finley and Julius Drake for offering Ned Rorem's setting of these words at their SF Performances recital in March

Comments

[Patrick]

Thanks for this, and for the Finley reference, since I was trying to remember where I had heard that passage recently. His performance of the Rorem setting was not only a highlight of that concert, but of the recital season for me.