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    Drum-Taps
    Drum-Taps
    Drum-Taps
    Ebook126 pages1 hour

    Drum-Taps

    By Walt Whitman

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateJan 1, 1865
    Author

    Walt Whitman

    Walt Whitman (1819-1892) was an American writer famously known for his poetry collection, Leaves of Grass. In addition to his poetry, Whitman was also a prominent essayist, journalist, and humanist with works centering mainly around the topics of transcendentalism and realism. Born in New York in 1819, Whitman worked at a printing press where he then transitioned to a full-time journalist. During his time in journalism, Whitman developed many important beliefs, many of them formed after having witnessed the auctioning of enslaved individuals. Over the course of his career, Whitman remained very politically aware, disavowing the bloody nature of the Civil War and dedicating resources to help the wounded in various hospitals in New York City. Whitman spent his declining years working on revisions for Leaves of Grass, which was largely thereafter referred to as his “Deathbed Edition.”

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      Drum-Taps - Walt Whitman

      The Project Gutenberg EBook of Drum Taps, by Walt Whitman

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

      Title: Drum Taps

      Author: Walt Whitman

      Release Date: September, 2005 [EBook #8801] This file was first posted on August 10, 2003 Last updated: May 2, 2013

      Language: English

      *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DRUM TAPS ***

      Produced by Distributed Proofreading

      DRUM-TAPS

      By Walt Whitman

      CONTENTS

      INTRODUCTION

      FIRST O SONGS FOR A PRELUDE

      EIGHTEEN SIXTY-ONE

      BEAT! BEAT! DRUMS!

      FROM PAUMANOK STARTING I FLY LIKE A BIRD

      SONG OF THE BANNER AT DAYBREAK

      RISE O DAYS FROM YOUR FATHOMLESS DEEPS

      VIRGINIA—THE WEST

      CITY OF SHIPS

      THE CENTENARIAN'S STORY

      CAVALRY CROSSING A FORD

      BIVOUAC ON A MOUNTAIN SIDE

      AN ARMY CORPS ON THE MARCH

      BY THE BIVOUAC'S FITFUL FLAME

      COME UP FROM THE FIELDS FATHER

      VIGIL STRANGE I KEPT ON THE FIELD ONE NIGHT

      A MARCH IN THE RANKS HARD-PREST, AND THE ROAD UNKNOWN

      A SIGHT IN CAMP IN THE DAYBREAK GRAY AND DIM

      AS TOILSOME I WANDER'D VIRGINIA'S WOODS

      NOT THE PILOT

      YEAR THAT TREMBLED AND REEL'D BENEATH ME

      THE WOUND-DRESSER

      LONG, TOO LONG AMERICA

      GIVE ME THE SPLENDID SILENT SUN

      DIRGE FOR TWO VETERANS

      OVER THE CARNAGE ROSE PROPHETIC A VOICE

      I SAW OLD GENERAL AT BAY

      THE ARTILLERYMAN'S VISION

      ETHIOPIA SALUTING THE COLOURS

      NOT YOUTH PERTAINS TO ME

      RACE OF VETERANS

      WORLD TAKE GOOD NOTICE

      O TAN-FACED PRAIRIE-BOY

      LOOK DOWN FAIR MOON

      RECONCILIATION

      HOW SOLEMN AS ONE BY ONE

      AS I LAY WITH MY HEAD IN YOUR LAP CAMERADO

      DELICATE CLUSTER

      TO A CERTAIN CIVILIAN

      LO, VICTRESS ON THE PEAKS

      SPIRIT WHOSE WORK IS DONE

      ADIEU TO A SOLDIER

      TURN O LIBERTAD

      TO THE LEAVEN'D SOIL THEY TROD

      NOTE

      The Introduction is reprinted, by permission, from The Times Literary

      Supplement of April 1, 1915.

      INTRODUCTION

      When the first days of August loured over the world, time seemed to stand still. A universal astonishment and confusion fell, as upon a flock of sheep perplexed by strange dogs. But now, though never before was a St. Lucy's Day so black with absence, darkness, death, Christmas is gone. Spring comes swiftly, the almond trees flourish. Easter will soon be here. Life breaks into beauty again and we realize that man may bring hell itself into the world, but that Nature ever patiently waits to be his natural paradise. Yet still a kind of instinctive blindness blots out the prospect of the future. Until the long horror of the war is gone from our minds, we shall be able to think of nothing that has not for its background a chaotic darkness. Like every obsession, it gnaws at thought, follows us into our dreams and returns with the morning. But there have been other wars. And humanity, after learning as best it may their brutal lesson, has survived them. Just as the young soldier leaves home behind him and accepts hardship and danger as to the manner born, so, when he returns again, life will resume its old quiet wont. Nature is not idle even in the imagination. It is man's salvation to forget no less than it is his salvation to remember. And it is wise even in the midst of the conflict to look back on those that are past and to prepare for the returning problems of the future.

      When Whitman wrote his Democratic Vistas, the long embittered war between the Northern and Southern States of America was a thing only of yesterday. It is a headlong amorphous production—a tangled meadow of leaves of grass in prose. But it is as cogent to-day as it was when it was written:

      To the ostent of the senses and eyes [he writes], the influences which stamp the world's history are wars, uprisings, or downfalls of dynasties…. These, of course, play their part; yet, it may be, a single new thought, imagination, abstract principle … put in shape by some great literatus, and projected among mankind, may duly cause changes, growths, removals, greater than the longest and bloodiest war, or the most stupendous merely political, dynastic, or commercial overturn.

      The literatus who realized this had his own message in mind. And yet, justly. For those who might point to the worldly prosperity and material comforts of his country, and ask, Are not these better indeed than any utterances even of greatest rhapsodic, artist, or literatus? he has his irrefutable answer. He surveys the New York of 1870, its façades of marble and iron, of original grandeur and elegance of design, etc., in his familiar catalogical jargon, and shutting his eyes to its glow and grandeur, inquires in return, Are there indeed men here worthy the name? Are there perfect women? Is there a pervading atmosphere of beautiful manners? Are there arts worthy freedom and a rich people? Is there a great moral and religious civilization—the only justification of a great material one? We ourselves in good time shall have to face and to answer these questions. They search our keenest hopes of the peace that is coming. And we may be fortified perhaps by the following queer proof of history repeating

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