Drum Taps

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Drum Taps [with accents]

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Drum Taps, by Walt Whitman #3 in our series by Walt Whitman
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Title: Drum Taps
Author: Walt Whitman
Release Date: September, 2005 [EBook #8801] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on August 10, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THE 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