Walt Whitman

in 1864-5, Walt Whitman was in Washington, D.C. employed by the Army Paymaster's office part-time; the rest of his time he volunteered as a nurse in the army hospitals. Falling ill, he returned to Brooklyn but in 1865, was employed as a clerk in the Dept. of the Interior. In April of that year, Lincoln was assassinated; in May, Drum-Taps was completed. At this point he was fired by Secretary James Harlan, who thought Leaves of Grass indecent. 

In 1870-71, Whitman incorporated Drum Taps into the body of Leaves of Grass. In all, that added 53 new poems dealing with the Civil War and Whitman's experiences as a wound-dresser/nurse. Here are a few of the more famous ones.

Beat ! Beat ! Drums !

Beat! beat! drums!-blow! bugles! blow!
Through the windows-through doors-burst like a ruthless force,
Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation,
Into the school where the scholar is studying;
Leave not the bridegroom quiet-no happiness must he have
       now with his bride,
Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, ploughing his field
       or gathering his grain,
So fierce you whirr and pound you drums-so shrill
       you bugles blow.

Beat! beat! drums!-blow! bugles! blow!
Over the traffic of cities-over the rumble of wheels in the streets;
Are beds prepared for sleepers at night in the houses? no sleepers
       must sleep in those beds,
No bargainers' bargains by day-no brokers or speculators
       -would they continue?
Would the talkers be talking? would the singer attempt to sing?
Would the lawyer rise in the court to state his case
       before the judge?
Then rattle quicker, heavier drums-you bugles wilder blow.

Beat! beat! drums!-blow! bugles! blow!
Make no parley-stop for no expostulation,
Mind not the timid-mind not the weeper or prayer,
Mind not the old man beseeching the young man,
Let not the child's voice be heard, nor the mother's entreaties,
Make even the trestles to shake the dead where they lie
       awaiting the hearses,
So strong you thump O terrible drums-so loud you bugles blow.
 

Cavalry Crossing A Ford
 

A line in long array where they wind betwixt green islands,
They take a serpentine course, their arms flash in the sun-hark to the musical
clank,
Behold the silvery river, in it the splashing horses loitering stop to drink,
Behold the brown-faced men, each group, each person a picture, the negligent
rest on the saddles,
Some emerge on the opposite bank, others are just entering the ford-while,
Scarlet and blue and snowy white,
The guidon flags flutter gaily in the wind.

When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd
 

                       Originally entitled "Memories of President Lincoln,"
                      this poem was added to later editions of "Drum-Taps"
 

                                                 1

When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd,
And the great star early droop'd iun the western sky in the night,
I mourn'd, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.

Ever-returning spring trinity sure to me you bring,
Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west,
And thought of him I love.

                                                2

O powerful western fallen star!
O shades of night--O moody, tearful night!
O great star disappear'd--O the black murk that hides the star!
O cruel hands that hold me powerless--O helpless soul of me!
O harsh surrounding cloud that will not free my soul.
 
 

                                                3

In the dooryard fronting an old farm-house near the white-wash'd,
       palings,
Stands the lilac-bush tall-growing with heart-shaped leaves of rich,
       green,
With many a pointed blossom rising delicate, with the perfume
       strong I love,
With every leaf a miracle--and from this bush in the dooryard,
With delicate-color'd blossom and heart-shaped leaves of rich
       green,
A spring with its flower I break.

                                               4

In the swamp in secluded recesses,
A shy and hidden bird is warbling a song.

Solitary the thrush,
The hermit withdrawn to himself, avoiding the settlements,
Sings by himself a song.

Song of the bleeding throat,
Death's outlet song of life, (for well dear brother I know,
If thou wast not granted to sing thou would'st surely die.)
 

                                                 5

Over the breast of the spring, the land, amid cities,
Amid lanes and through old woods, where lately the violets peep'd
       from the ground, spotting the gray debris,
Amid the grass in the fields each side of the lanes, passing the end-
       less grass,
Passing the yellow-spear'd wheat, every grain from its shroud in the
       dark-brown fields uprisen,
Passing the apple-tree blows of white and pink in the orchards,
Carrying a corpse to where it shall rest in the grave,
Night and day journeys a coffin.
 

                                                 6

Coffin that passes through lanes and streets,
Through day and night with the great cloud darkening the land,
With the pomp of the inloop'd flags with the cities draped in
       black,
With the show of the States themselves as of crape-veil'd women
       standing,
With processions long and winding and the flambeaus of the night,
With the countless torches lit, with the silent sea of faces and the
       unbared heads,
With the waiting depot, the arriving coffin, and the sombre faces,
With dirges through the night, with the thousand voices
       rising strong and solemn,
With all the mournful voices of the dirges pour'd around the coffin,
The dim-lit churches and the shuddering organs--where amid
       these you journey,
With the tolling tolling bells' perpetual clang,
Here, coffin that slowly passes,
I give you my sprig of lilac.
 

                                                 7

(Nor for you, for one alone,
Blossoms and branches green to coffins all I bring,
For fresh as the morning, thus would I chant a song for you O
       sane and sacred death.

All over bouquets of roses,
O death, I cover you over with roses and early lilies,
But mostly and now the lilac that blooms the first,
Copious I break, I break the sprigs from the bushes,
With loaded arms I come, pouring for you,
For you and the coffins all of you O death.)

                                                8

O western orb sailing the heaven,
Now I know what you must have meant as a month since I walk'd,
As I walk'd in silence the transparent shadowy night,
As I saw you had something to tell as you bent to me night after
       night,
As you droop'd from the sky low down as if to my side, (while the
       other stars all look'd on,)
As we wander'd together the solemn night, (for something I know
       not what kept me from sleep,)
As the night advanced, and I saw on the rim of the west how full
       you were of woe,
As I stood on the rising ground in the breeze in the cool trans-
       parent night,
As I watch'd where you pass'd and was lost in the netherward
black of the night,
As my soul in its trouble dissatisfied sank, as where you sad orb,
Concluded, dropt in the night, and was gone.

                                                 9

Sing on there in the swamp,
O singer bashful and tender, I hear your notes, I hear your call,
I hear, I come presently, I understand you,
But a moment I linger, for the lustrous star has detain'd me,
The star my departing comrade holds and detains me.

                                                10

O how shall I warble myself for the dead one there I loved?
And how shall I deck my song for the large sweet soul that has
       gone?
And what shall my perfume be for the grave of him I love?

Sea-winds blown from east and west,
Blown from the Eastem sea and blown from the Western sea, till
       there on the prairies meeting,
These and with these and the breath of my chant,
I'll perfume the grave of him I love.
 

                                                11

O what shall I hang on the chamber walls?
And what shall the pictures be that I hang on the walls,
To adorn the burial-house of him I love?

Pictures of growing spring and farms and homes,
With the Fourth-month eve at sundown, and the gray smoke lucid
       and bright,
With floods of the yellow gold of the gorgeous, indolent, sinking
       sun, burning, expanding the air,
With the fresh sweet herbage under foot, and the pale green
       leaves of the trees prolific,
In the distance the flowing glaze, the breast of the river, with a
       wind-dapple here and there,
With ranging hills on the banks, with many a line against the sky,
       and shadows,
And the city at hand with dwellings so dense, and stacks of chim-
       neys,
And all the scenes of life and the workshops, and the workmen
       homeward returning.
 

                                                12

Lo, body and soul--this land,
My own Manhattan with spires, and the sparkling and hurrying
       tides, and the ships,
The varied and ample land, the South and the North in the light,
       Ohio's shores and flashing Missouri,
And ever the far-spreading prairies cover'd with grass and corn.

Lo, the most excellent sun so calm and haughty,
The violet and purple mom with just-felt breezes,
The gentle soft-born measureless light,
The miracle spreading bathing all, the fulfill'd noon,
The coming eve delicious, the welcome night and the stars,
Over my cities shining all, enveloping man and land.

                                              13

Sing on, sing on you gray-brown bird,
Sing from the swamps, the recesses, pour your chant from the
       bushes,
Limitless out of the dusk, out of the cedars and pines.

Sing on dearest brother, warble your reedy song,
Loud human song, with voice of uttermost woe.

O liquid and free and tender!
O wild and loose to my soul--O wondrous singer!
You only I hear--yet the star holds me, (but will soon depart,)
Yet the lilac with mastering odor holds me.

                                            14

Now while I sat in the day and look'd forth,
In the close of the day with its light and the fields of spring, and
       the farmers preparing their crops,
In the large unconscious scenery of my land with its lakes and for-
       ests,
In the heavenly aerial beauty, (after the perturb'd winds and the
       storms,)
Under the arching heavens of the afternoon swift passing, and the
       voices of children and women,
The many-moving sea-tides, and I saw the ships how they sail'd,
And the summer approaching with richness, and the fields
       all busy with labor,
And the infinite separate houses, how they all went on, each with
       its meals and minutia of daily usages,
And the streets how their throbbings throbb'd, and the cities
       pent--lo, then and there,
Falling upon them all and among them all, enveloping me with
       the rest,
Appear'd the cloud, appear'd the long black trail,
And I knew death, its thought, and the sacred knowledge of death.

Then with the knowledge of death as walking one side of me,
And the thought of death close-walking the other side of me,
And I in the middle as with companions, and as holding the hands
of companions,
I fled forth to the hiding receiving night that talks not,
Down to the shores of the water, the path by the swamp in the
       dimness,
To the solemn shadowy cedars and ghostly pines so still.

And the singer so shy to the rest receiv'd me,
The gray-brown bird I know receiv'd us comrades three,
And he sang the carol of death, and a verse for him I love.

From deep secluded recesses,
From the fragrant cedars and the ghostly pines so still,
Came the carol of the bird.

And the charm of the carol rapt me,
As I held as if by their hands my comrades in the night,
And the voice of my spirit tallied the song of the bird.

Come lovely and soothing death,
Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving,
In the day, in the night, to all, to each,
Sooner or later delicate death.

Prais'd be the fathomless universe,
For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious,
And for love, sweet love--but praise! praise! praise!
For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death.

Dark mother always gliding near with soft feet,
Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome?
Then I chant it for thee, I glorify thee above all,
I bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, come un-
       falteringly.

Approach strong deliveress,
When it is so, when thou hast taken them I joyously sing the dead,
Lost in the loving floating ocean of thee,
Laved in the flood of thy bliss O death.

From me to thee glad serenades,
Dances for thee I propose saluting thee, adornments and feastings
       for thee,
And the sights of the open landscape and the high-spread sky are
       fitting,
And life and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful night.

The night in silence under many a star,
The ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice I
       know,
And the soul turning to thee O vast and well-veil'd death,
And the body gratefully nestling close to thee.

Over the tree-tops I float thee a song,
Over the rising and sinking waves, over the myriad fields and the
       prairies wide,
Over the dense-pack'd cities all and the teeming wharves and ways,
I float this carol with joy, with joy to thee O death.
 

                                                15

To the tally of my soul,
Loud and strong kept up the gray-brown bird,
With pure deliberate notes spreading filling the night.

Loud in the pines and cedars dim,
Clear in the freshness moist and the swamp-perfume,
And I with my comrades there in the night.

While my sight that was bound in my eyes unclosed,
As to long panoramas of visions.

And I saw askant the armies,
I saw as in noiseless dreams hundreds of battle-flags,
Bome through the smoke of the battles and pierc'd with missiles
       I saw them,
And carried hither and yon through the smoke, and torn and
       bloody,
And at last but a few shreds left on the staffs, (and all in silence,)
And the staffs all splinter'd and broken.

I saw battle-corpses, myriads of them,
And the white skeletons of young men, I saw them,
I saw the debris and debris of all the slain soldiers of the war,
But I saw they were not as was thought,
They themselves were fully at rest, they suffered not,
The living remain'd and suffered, the mother suffered,
And the wife and the child and the musing comrade suffered,
And the armies that remain'd suffer'd.

                                                16

Passing the visions, passing the night,
Passing, unloosing the hold of my comrades' hands,

Passing the song of the hermit bird and the tallying song of my
       soul,
Victorious song, death's outlet song, yet varying ever-altering song,
As low and wailing, yet clear the notes, rising and falling, flooding
       the night,
Sadly sinking and fainting, as warning and warning, and yet again
       bursting with joy,
Covering the earth and filling the spread of the heaven,
As that powerful psalm in the night I heard from recesses,
Passing, I leave thee lilac with heart-shaped leaves,
I leave thee there in the door-yard, blooming, returning with spring.

I cease from my song for thee,
From my gaze on thee in the west, fronting the west, communing
       with thee,
O comrade lustrous with silver face in the night.

Yet each to keep and all, retrievements out of the night,
The song, the wondrous chant of the gray-brown bird,
And the tallying chant, the echo arous'd in my soul,
With the lustrous and drooping star with the countenance full of
       woe,
With the holders holding mv hand nearing the call of the bird,
Comrades mine and I in the midst, and their memory ever to
       keep, for the dead I loved so well,
For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands--and this
       for his dear sake, Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul,
There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim.
 
 
 

Bivouac On The Mountain Side
 

I see before me now a traveling army halting,
Below a fertile valley spread, with barns and 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.
 

O Captain! My Captain!
 

O Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is
       won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and
       daring:

          But O heart! heart! heart!
             O the bleeding drops of red,
                Where on the deck my Captain lies,
                   Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! My Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up-for you the flag is flung-for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths-for you the shores
       a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces
       turning:

          Here Captain! dear father!
             This arm beneath your head;
                It is some dream that on the deck,
                   You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse or will;
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and
       done;
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won:

          Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
             But I with mournful tread,
                Walk the deck my Captain lies,
                   Fallen cold and dead.