Leaves of Grass

Bivouac on a Mountain Side

  I see before me now a traveling army halting,
  Below a fertile valley spread, with barns and the orchards of summer,
  Behind, the terraced sides of a mountain, abrupt, in places rising high,
  Broken, with rocks, with clinging cedars, with tall shapes dingily seen,
  The numerous camp-fires scatter’d near and far, some away up on the
      mountain,
  The shadowy forms of men and horses, looming, large-sized, flickering,
  And over all the sky—the sky! far, far out of reach, studded,
      breaking out, the eternal stars.