Walt Whitman (1819–1892). Leaves of Grass. 1900.

117. An Army Corps on the March

WITH its cloud of skirmishers in advance,

With now the sound of a single shot, snapping like a whip, and now an irregular volley,

The swarming ranks press on and on, the dense brigades press on;

Glittering dimly, toiling under the sun—the dust-cover’d men,

In columns rise and fall to the undulations of the ground,

With artillery interspers’d—the wheels rumble, the horses sweat,

As the army corps advances.