Secular
This piece was conceived as the second of a two song set along with “We Made a Grave For Him.”

Choral score

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Text:

Et mors ultra non erit, neque luctus, neque clamor, neque dolor erit ultra.
(And there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain.)

Ashes of soldiers South or North,
As I muse retrospective murmuring a chant in thought,
The war resumes, again to my sense your shapes,
And again the advance of the armies.
Noiseless as mists and vapors,
From their graves in the trenches ascending,
In wafted clouds, they come,
And silently gather round me.

Faces so pale with wondrous eyes, very dear, gather closer yet,
Draw close, but speak not.
Phantoms of countless lost,
Follow me ever -- desert me not while I live.

Et iterum dixerunt: Alleluia.
(And again they said: Alleluia.)
Dearest comrades, all is over and long gone,
But love is not over -- and what love, O comrades
Perfume from battlefields rising, up from the foetor arising.
Et fumus ejus ascendit in sæcula sæculorum.
(And her smoke rose up forever and ever.)

Perfume therefore my chant, O love, immortal love,
Give me to bathe the memories of all dead soldiers,

Et mors ultra non erit, neque luctus, neque clamor, neque dolor erit ultra.
(And there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain.)
Give me exhaustless, make me a fountain,
That I exhale love from me wherever I go,
For the ashes of all dead soldiers South or North.
Et iterum dixerunt: Alleluia. Et fumus ejus ascendit in sæcula sæculorum.
(And again they said, Alleluia. And her smoke rose up forever and ever.)

- Walt Whitman - Revelation 19:3, 21:4