Leaves of Grass · Chapter
The Artilleryman’s Vision explained
A veteran artilleryman, lying in bed at home beside his sleeping wife and infant, is overtaken by a vivid sensory vision of a past battle.
What happens
A veteran artilleryman, lying in bed at home beside his sleeping wife and infant, is overtaken by a vivid sensory vision of a past battle. He relives the sounds, sights, and emotions of combat—the crack of rifles, the shriek of shells, the smoke, the chaos, and the strange exhilaration that still stirs in his soul.
Themes in this chapter
Death and Immortality
The vision confronts the soldier with the chaos and mortality of battle, yet the memory persists beyond the war's end.
Individuality and Self
The personal, internal nature of the vision highlights the individual soldier's enduring psychological experience.
Characters to notice
- Narrator
The artilleryman who experiences the haunting vision of battle while at home.
- My Captain
The young colonel who leads the charge with a brandished sword.
Key passages
“While my wife at my side lies slumbering, and the wars are over long, And my head on the pillow rests at home, and the vacant midnight passes, And through the stillness, through the dark, I hear, just hear, the breath of my infant, There in the room as I wake from sleep this vision presses upon me”
As I lie in bed at home with my sleeping wife and the war long finished, I wake in the quiet night to the sound of my baby's breathing, and suddenly a vivid dream of battle overwhelms me.
The contrast between domestic peace and the intrusive war memory is established.
“And ever the sound of the cannon far or near, (rousing even in dreams a devilish exultation and all the old mad joy in the depths of my soul,)”
The distant or nearby cannon fire stirs up a dark, ecstatic thrill and the wild excitement that still lives deep inside me.
The soldier admits to a conflicted, almost guilty pleasure in the memory of combat.