Walt Whitman at Dupont Circle

My regular exit from the Dupont Circle Metro has closed for eight months for the rebuilding of its enormous escalators (how can it possibly take eight months to rebuild three escalators?), so I switched to the other exit. I haven't used that one in many years, so I did not know about the lines from Walt Whitman that in 2007 were carved in granite around the opening:

Thus in silence in dreams' projections,
Returning, resuming, I thread my way through the hospitals;
The hurt and wounded I pacify with soothing hand,
I sit by the restless all the dark night - some are so young;
Some suffer so much - I recall the experience sweet and sad. . . .

These lines are from The Wound Dresser, a poem about Whitman's experience as a nurse in the Civil War. It is, shall we say, an interesting choice for a public monument. It describes Whitman's shifting attitude toward the war he at first enthusiastically supported:

Arous'd and angry, I'd thought to beat the alarum, and urge relentless war,
But soon my fingers fail'd me, my face droop'd and I resign'd myself,
To sit by the wounded and soothe them, or silently watch the dead

For Whitman the glory receded, and the war came to be more and more about the experience of tending for the dying.

And for Whitman, that experience was not only sad but also profoundly erotic. The carved quotation politely omits the next two lines, which are the last of the poem:

(Many a soldier's loving arms about this neck have cross'd and rested,
Many a soldier's kiss dwells on these bearded lips.)

Caring for beautiful young men, horribly wounded and near to death, was for Whitman an act of love, not just love for life or humanity or god, but passionate love for the men he cared for. The people who chose that quotation for the Metro knew this, and the inscription thus becomes, not just an anti-war message, but an affirmation of homosexuality.

It is clever, tasteful, and beautiful, affirming the values of peace without mocking war or warriors, pointing to a bit of local history -- the hospitals where Whitman served were in Washington -- and giving public acknowledgment to the many gay inhabitants of the neighborhood without needlessly offending anyone who doesn't know the rest of the poem.

More Whitman:

But in silence, in dreams' projections,
While the world of gain and appearance and mirth goes on,
So soon what is over forgotten, and waves wash the imprints off the sand,
With hinged knees returning I enter the doors, (while for you up there,
Whoever you are, follow without noise and be of strong heart.)
Bearing the bandages, water and sponge,
Straight and swift to my wounded I go,
Where they lie on the ground after the battle brought in,
Where their priceless blood reddens the grass the ground,
Or to the rows of the hospital tent, or under the roof'd hospital,
To the long rows of cots up and down each side I return,
To each and all one after another I draw near, not one do I miss,
An attendant follows holding a tray, he carries a refuse pail,
Soon to be fill'd with clotted rags and blood, emptied, and fill'd again.
I onward go, I stop,
With hinged knees and steady hand to dress wounds,
I am firm with each, the pangs are sharp yet unavoidable,
One turns to me his appealing eyes--poor boy! I never knew you,
Yet I think I could not refuse this moment to die for you, if that
would save you.