Year That Trembled

A poem by Walt Whitman

Year that trembled and reel'd beneath me!
Your summer wind was warm enough, yet the air I breathed froze me;
A thick gloom fell through the sunshine and darken'd me;
Must I change my triumphant songs? said I to myself;
Must I indeed learn to chant the cold dirges of the baffled?
And sullen hymns of defeat?