That is the chess and the scheme of the wooden blocks Set down on the contour map. Having learned so much, Forget it now, while the ripple-lines of the map Arise into bouldered ridges, tree-grown, bird-visited, Where the gnats buzz, and the wren builds a hollow nest And the rocks are grey in the sun and black in the rain, And the jacks-in-the-pulpit grow in the cool, damp hollows. See no names of leaders painted upon the blocks Such as “Hill,” or “Hancock,” or “Pender”⁠— but see instead Three miles of living men⁠—three long double miles Of men and guns and horses and fires and wagons, Teamsters, surgeons, generals, orderlies, A hundred and sixty thousand living men Asleep or eating or thinking or writing brief Notes in the thought of death, shooting dice or swearing, Groaning in hospital wagons, standing guard While the slow stars walk through heaven in silver mail, Hearing a stream or a joke or a horse cropping grass