Whitman’s Song of Myself.<\/a><\/p>\n…I understand the large hearts of heroes,
\nThe courage of present times and all times,
\nHow the skipper saw the crowded and rudderless wreck of the
\nsteamship, and Death chasing it up and down the storm,
\nHow he knuckled tight and gave not back an inch, and was faithful of
\ndays and faithful of nights,
\nAnd chalk’d in large letters on a board, Be of good cheer, we will
\nnot desert you;
\nHow he follow’d with them and tack’d with them three days and
\nwould not give it up,
\nHow he saved the drifting company at last,
\nHow the lank loose-gown’d women look’d when boated from the
\nside of their prepared graves,
\nHow the silent old-faced infants and the lifted sick, and the
\nsharp-lipp’d unshaved men;
\nAll this I swallow, it tastes good, I like it well, it becomes mine,
\nI am the man, I suffer’d, I was there….<\/em><\/p>\n…I am the mash’d fireman with breast-bone broken, <\/em>
\nTumbling walls buried me in their debris, <\/em>
\nHeat and smoke I inspired, I heard the yelling shouts of my comrades, <\/em>
\nI heard the distant click of their picks and shovels, <\/em>
\nThey have clear’d the beams away, they tenderly lift me forth. <\/em><\/p>\nI lie in the night air in my red shirt, the pervading hush is for my sake, <\/em>
\nPainless after all I lie exhausted but not so unhappy, <\/em>
\nWhite and beautiful are the faces around me, the heads are bared <\/em>
\nof their fire-caps, <\/em>
\nThe kneeling crowd fades with the light of the torches…. <\/em><\/p>\n…I know I have the best of time and space, and was never measured and <\/em>
\nnever will be measured. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In memory of the first responders who, doing\u00a0their duty, rushed into chaos to save others on September 11, 2001. From Whitman’s Song of Myself. …I understand the large hearts of heroes, The courage of present times and all times, How the skipper saw the crowded and rudderless wreck of the steamship, and Death chasing it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[66],"class_list":["post-55773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-01 12:19:26","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55773"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56023,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55773\/revisions\/56023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55773"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=55773"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=55773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}