Drum Taps
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Walt Whitman >> Drum Taps
Mannahatta a-march--and it's O to sing it well!
It's O for a manly life in the camp.
And the sturdy artillery,
The guns bright as gold, the work for giants, to serve well the guns,
Unlimber them! (no more as the past forty years for salutes for
courtesies merely,
Put in something now besides powder and wadding.)
And you lady of ships, you Mannahatta,
Old matron of this proud, friendly, turbulent city,
Often in peace and wealth you were pensive or covertly frown'd amid
all your children,
But now you smile with joy exulting old Mannahatta.
EIGHTEEN SIXTY-ONE.
Arm'd year--year of the struggle,
No dainty rhymes or sentimental love verses for you terrible year,
Not you as some pale poetling seated at a desk lisping cadenzas
piano,
But as a strong man erect, clothed in blue clothes, advancing,
carrying a rifle on your shoulder,
With well-gristled body and sunburnt face and hands, with a knife in
the belt at your side,
As I heard you shouting loud, your sonorous voice ringing across the
continent,
Your masculine voice O year, as rising amid the great cities,
Amid the men of Manhattan I saw you as one of the workmen, the
dwellers in Manhattan,
Or with large steps crossing the prairies out of Illinois and
Indiana,
Rapidly crossing the West with springy gait and descending the
Alleghanies,
Or down from the great lakes or in Pennsylvania, or on deck along the
Ohio river,
Or southward along the Tennessee or Cumberland rivers, or at
Chattanooga on the mountain top,
Saw I your gait and saw I your sinewy limbs clothed in blue, bearing
weapons, robust year,
Heard your determin'd voice launch'd forth again and again,
Year that suddenly sang by the mouths of the round-lipp'd cannon,
I repeat you, hurrying, crashing, sad, distracted year.
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.
FROM PAUMANOK STARTING I FLY LIKE A BIRD
From Paumanok starting I fly like a bird,
Around and around to soar to sing the idea of all,
To the north betaking myself to sing there arctic songs,
To Kanada till I absorb Kanada in myself, to Michigan then,
To Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, to sing their songs, (they are
inimitable;)
Then to Ohio and Indiana to sing theirs, to Missouri and Kansas and
Arkansas to sing theirs,
To Tennessee and Kentucky, to the Carolinas and Georgia to sing
theirs,
To Texas and so along up toward California, to roam accepted
everywhere;
To sing first, (to the tap of the war-drum if need be,)
The idea of all, of the Western world one and inseparable,
And then the song of each member of these States.
SONG OF THE BANNER AT DAYBREAK.
_Poet._
O a new song, a free song,
Flapping, flapping, flapping, flapping, by sounds, by voices clearer,
By the wind's voice and that of the drum,
By the banner's voice and child's voice and sea's voice and father's
voice,
Low on the ground and high in the air,
On the ground where father and child stand,
In the upward air where their eyes turn,
Where the banner at daybreak is flapping.
Words! bookwords! what are you?
Words no more, for hearken and see,
My song is there in the open air, and I must sing,
With the banner and pennant a-flapping.
I'll weave the chord and twine in,
Man's desire and babe's desire, I'll twine them in, I'll put in life,
I'll put the bayonet's flashing point, I'll let bullets and slugs
whizz,
(As one carrying a symbol and menace far into the future,
Crying with trumpet voice, _Arouse and beware! Beware and arouse!_)
I'll pour the verse with streams of blood, full of volition, full of
joy.
Then loosen, launch forth, to go and compete,
With the banner and pennant a-flapping.
_Pennant._
Come up here, bard, bard,
Come up here, soul, soul,
Come up here, dear little child,
To fly in the clouds and winds with me, and play with the measureless
light.
_Child._
Father what is that in the sky beckoning to me with long finger?
And what does it say to me all the while?
_Father._
Nothing my babe you see in the sky,
And nothing at all to you it says--but look you my babe,
Look at these dazzling things in the houses, and see you the
money-shops opening,
And see you the vehicles preparing to crawl along the streets with
goods;
These, ah these, how valued and toil'd for these!
How envied by all the earth.
_Poet._
Fresh and rosy red the sun is mounting high,
On floats the sea in distant blue careering through its channels,
On floats the wind over the breast of the sea setting in toward land,
The great steady wind from west or west-by-south,
Floating so buoyant with milk-white foam on the waters.
But I am not the sea nor the red sun,
I am not the wind with girlish laughter,
Not the immense wind which strengthens, not the wind which lashes,
Not the spirit that ever lashes its own body to terror and death,
But I am that which unseen comes and sings, sings, sings,
Which babbles in brooks and scoots in showers on the land,
Which the birds know in the woods mornings and evenings,
And the shore-sands know and the hissing wave, and that banner and
pennant,
Aloft there flapping and flapping.
_Child._
O father it is alive--it is full of people--it has children,
O now it seems to me it is talking to its children,
I hear it--it talks to me--O it is wonderful!
O it stretches--it spreads and runs so fast--O my father,
It is so broad it covers the whole sky.
_Father._
Cease, cease, my foolish babe,
What you are saying is sorrowful to me, much it displeases me;
Behold with the rest again I say, behold not banners and pennants
aloft,
But the well-prepared pavements behold, and mark the solid-wall'd
houses.
_Banner and Pennant._
Speak to the child O bard out of Manhattan,
To our children all, or north or south of Manhattan,
Point this day, leaving all the rest, to us over all--and yet we know
not why,
For what are we, mere strips of cloth profiting nothing,
Only flapping in the wind?
_Poet._
I hear and see not strips of cloth alone,
I hear the tramp of armies, I hear the challenging sentry,
I hear the jubilant shouts of millions of men, I hear Liberty!
I hear the drums beat and the trumpets blowing,
I myself move abroad swift-rising flying then,
I use the wings of the land-bird and use the wings of the sea-bird,
and look down as from a height,
I do not deny the precious results of peace, I see populous cities
with wealth incalculable,
I see numberless farms, I see the farmers working in their fields or
barns,
I see mechanics working, I see buildings everywhere founded, going
up, or finished,
I see trains of cars swiftly speeding along railroad tracks drawn by
the locomotives,
I see the stores, depots, of Boston, Baltimore, Charleston, New
Orleans,
I see far in the West the immense area of grain, I dwell awhile
hovering,
I pass to the lumber forests of the North, and again to the Southern
plantation, and again to California;
Sweeping the whole I see the countless profit, the busy gatherings,
earn'd wages,
See the Identity formed out of thirty-eight spacious and haughty
States, (and many more to come,)
See forts on the shores of harbors, see ships sailing in and out;
Then over all, (aye! aye!) my little and lengthen'd pennant shaped
like a sword,
Runs swiftly up indicating war and defiance--and now the halyards
have rais'd it,
Side of my banner broad and blue, side of my starry banner,
Discarding peace over all the sea and land.
_Banner and Pennant._
Yet louder, higher, stronger, bard! yet farther, wider cleave!
No longer let our children deem us riches and peace alone,
We may be terror and carnage, and are so now,
Not now are we any one of these spacious and haughty States, (nor any
five, nor ten,)
Nor market nor depot we, nor money-bank in the city,
But these and all, and the brown and spreading land, and the mines
below, are ours,
And the shores of the sea are ours, and the rivers great and small,
And the fields they moisten, and the crops and the fruits are ours,
Bays and channels and ships sailing in and out are ours--while we
over all,
Over the area spread below, the three or four millions of square
miles, the capitals,
The forty millions of people,--O bard! in life and death supreme,
We, even we, henceforth flaunt out masterful, high up above,
Not for the present alone, for a thousand years chanting through you,
This song to the soul of one poor little child.
_Child._
O my father I like not the houses,
They will never to me be any thing, nor do I like money,
But to mount up there I would like, O father dear, that banner I
like,
That pennant I would be and must be.
_Father._
Child of mine you fill me with anguish,
To be that pennant would be too fearful,
Little you know what it is this day, and after this day, forever,
It is to gain nothing, but risk and defy every thing,
Forward to stand in front of wars--and O, such wars!--what have you
to do with them?
With passions of demons, slaughter, premature death?
_Banner._
Demons and death then I sing,
Put in all, aye all will I, sword-shaped pennant for war,
And a pleasure new and ecstatic, and the prattled yearning of
children,
Blent with the sounds of the peaceful land and the liquid wash of the
sea,
And the black ships fighting on the sea envelop'd in smoke,
And the icy cool of the far, far north, with rustling cedars and
pines,
And the whirr of drums and the sound of soldiers marching, and the
hot sun shining south,
And the beach-waves combing over the beach on my Eastern shore, and
my Western shore the same,
And all between those shores, and my ever running Mississippi with
bends and chutes,
And my Illinois fields, and my Kansas fields, and my fields of
Missouri,
The Continent, devoting the whole identity without reserving an atom,
Pour in! whelm that which asks, which sings, with all and the yield
of all,
Fusing and holding, claiming, devouring the whole,
No more with tender lip, nor musical labial sound,
But out of the night emerging for good, our voice persuasive no more,
Croaking like crows here in the wind.
_Poet_.
My limbs, my veins dilate, my theme is clear at last,
Banner so broad advancing out of the night, I sing you haughty and
resolute,
I burst through where I waited long, too long, deafen'd and blinded,
My hearing and tongue are come to me, (a little child taught me,)
I hear from above O pennant of war your ironical call and demand,
Insensate! insensate! (yet I at any rate chant you,) O banner!
Not houses of peace indeed are you, nor any nor all their prosperity,
(if need be, you shall again have every one of those houses
to destroy them,
You thought not to destroy those valuable houses, standing fast, full
of comfort, built with money,
May they stand fast, then? not an hour except you above them and all
stand fast;)
O banner, not money so precious are you, not farm produce you, nor
the material good nutriment,
Nor excellent stores, nor landed on wharves from the ships,
Not the superb ships with sail-power or steam-power, fetching and
carrying cargoes,
Nor machinery, vehicles, trade, nor revenues--but you as henceforth I
see you,
Running up out of the night, bringing your cluster of stars,
(ever-enlarging stars,)
Divider of daybreak you, cutting the air, touch'd by the sun,
measuring the sky,
(Passionately seen and yearn'd for by one poor little child,
While others remain busy or smartly talking, forever teaching thrift,
thrift;)
O you up there! O pennant! where you undulate like a snake hissing so
curious,
Out of reach, an idea only, yet furiously fought for, risking bloody
death, loved by me,
So loved--O you banner leading the day with stars brought from the
night!
Valueless, object of eyes, over all and demanding all--(absolute
owner of all)--O banner and pennant!
I too leave the rest--great as it is, it is nothing--houses, machines
are nothing--I see them not,
I see but you, O warlike pennant! O banner so broad, with stripes, I
sing you only,
Flapping up there in the wind.
RISE O DAYS FROM YOUR FATHOMLESS DEEPS.
1
Rise O days from your fathomless deeps, till you loftier, fiercer
sweep,
Long for my soul hungering gymnastic I devour'd what the earth gave
me,
Long I roam'd the woods of the north, long I watch'd Niagara pouring,
I travel'd the prairies over and slept on their breast, I cross'd the
Nevadas, I cross'd the plateaus,
I ascended the towering rocks along the Pacific, I sail'd out to sea,
I sail'd through the storm, I was refresh'd by the storm,
I watch'd with joy the threatening maws of the waves,
I mark'd the white combs where they career'd so high, curling over,
I heard the wind piping, I saw the black clouds,
Saw from below what arose and mounted (O superb! O wild as my heart,
and powerful!)
Heard the continuous thunder as it bellow'd after the lightning,
Noted the slender and jagged threads of lightning as sudden and fast
amid the din they chased each other across the sky;
These, and such as these, I, elate, saw--saw with wonder, yet pensive
and masterful,
All the menacing might of the globe uprisen around me,
Yet there with my soul I fed, I fed content, supercilious.
2
'Twas well, O soul--'twas a good preparation you gave me,
Now we advance our latent and ampler hunger to fill,
Now we go forth to receive what the earth and the sea never gave us,
Not through the mighty woods we go, but through the mightier cities,
Something for us is pouring now more than Niagara pouring,
Torrents of men, (sources and rills of the Northwest are you indeed
inexhaustible?)
What, to pavements and homesteads here, what were those storms of the
mountains and sea?
What, to passions I witness around me to-day? was the sea risen?
Was the wind piping the pipe of death under the black clouds?
Lo! from deeps more unfathomable, something more deadly and savage,
Manhattan rising, advancing with menacing front--Cincinnati, Chicago,
unchain'd;
What was that swell I saw on the ocean? behold what comes here,
How it climbs with daring feet and hands--how it dashes!
How the true thunder bellows after the lightning--how bright the
flashes of lightning!
How Democracy with desperate vengeful port strides on, shown through
the dark by those flashes of lightning!
(Yet a mournful wail and low sob I fancied I heard through the dark,
In a lull of the deafening confusion.)
3
Thunder on! stride on, Democracy! strike with vengeful stroke!
And do you rise higher than ever yet O days, O cities!
Crash heavier, heavier yet O storms! you have done me good,
My soul prepared in the mountains absorbs your immortal strong
nutriment,
Long had I walk'd my cities, my country roads through farms, only
half satisfied,
One doubt nauseous undulating like a snake, crawl'd on the ground
before me,
Continually preceding my steps, turning upon me oft, ironically
hissing low;
The cities I loved so well I abandon'd and left, I sped to the
certainties suitable to me,
Hungering, hungering, hungering, for primal energies and Nature's
dauntlessness,
I refresh'd myself with it only, I could relish it only,
I waited the bursting forth of the pent fire--on the water and air I
waited long;
But now I no longer wait, I am fully satisfied, I am glutted,
I have witness'd the true lightning, I have witness'd my cities
electric,
I have lived to behold man burst forth and warlike America rise,
Hence I will seek no more the food of the northern solitary wilds,
No more the mountains roam or sail the stormy sea.
VIRGINIA--THE WEST.
The noble sire fallen on evil days,
I saw with hand uplifted, menacing, brandishing,
(Memories of old in abeyance, love and faith in abeyance,)
The insane knife toward the Mother of All.
The noble son on sinewy feet advancing,
I saw, out of the land of prairies, land of Ohio's waters and of
Indiana,
To the rescue the stalwart giant hurry his plenteous offspring,
Drest in blue, bearing their trusty rifles on their shoulders.
Then the Mother of All with calm voice speaking,
As to you Rebellious, (I seemed to hear her say,) why strive against
me, and why seek my life?
When you yourself forever provide to defend me?
For you provided me Washington--and now these also.
CITY OF SHIPS.
City of ships!
(O the black ships! O the fierce ships!
O the beautiful sharp-bow'd steam-ships and sail-ships!)
City of the world! (for all races are here,
All the lands of the earth make contributions here;)
City of the sea! city of hurried and glittering tides!
City whose gleeful tides continually rush or recede, whirling in and
out with eddies and foam!
City of wharves and stores--city of tall facades of marble and iron!
Proud and passionate city--mettlesome, mad, extravagant city!
Spring up, O city--not for peace alone, but be indeed yourself,
warlike!
Fear not--submit to no models but your own O city!
Behold me--incarnate me as I have incarnated you!
I have rejected nothing you offer'd me--whom you adopted I have
adopted,
Good or bad I never question you--I love all--I do not condemn any
thing,
I chant and celebrate all that is yours--yet peace no more,
In peace I chanted peace, but now the drum of war is mine,
War, red war is my song through your streets, O city!
THE CENTENARIAN'S STORY.
_Volunteer of 1861-2, (at Washington Park, Brooklyn, assisting the
Centenarian.)_
Give me your hand old Revolutionary,
The hill-top is nigh, but a few steps, (make room gentlemen,)
Up the path you have follow'd me well, spite of your hundred and
extra years,
You can walk old man, though your eyes are almost done,
Your faculties serve you, and presently I must have them serve me.
Rest, while I tell what the crowd around us means,
On the plain below recruits are drilling and exercising,
There is the camp, one regiment departs to-morrow,
Do you hear the officers giving their orders?
Do you hear the clank of the muskets?
Why what comes over you now old man?
Why do you tremble and clutch my hand so convulsively?
The troops are but drilling, they are yet surrounded with smiles.
Around them at hand the well-drest friends and the women,
While splendid and warm the afternoon sun shines down,
Green the midsummer verdure and fresh blows the dallying breeze,
O'er proud and peaceful cities and arm of the sea between.
But drill and parade are over, they march back to quarters,
Only hear that approval of hands! hear what a clapping!
As wending the crowds now part and disperse--but we old man,
Not for nothing have I brought you hither--we must remain,
You to speak in your turn, and I to listen and tell.
_The Centenarian._
When I clutch'd your hand it was not with terror,
But suddenly pouring about me here on every side,
And below there where the boys were drilling, and up the slopes they
ran,
And where tents are pitch'd, and wherever you see south and
south-east and south-west,
Over hills, across lowlands, and in the skirts of woods,
And along the shores, in mire (now fill'd over) came again and
suddenly raged,
As eighty-five years a-gone no mere parade receiv'd with applause of
friends,
But a battle which I took part in myself--aye, long ago as it is I
took part in it,
Walking then this hill-top, this same ground.
Aye, this is the ground,
My blind eyes even as I speak behold it re-peopled from graves,
The years recede, pavements and stately houses disappear,
Rude forts appear again, the old hoop'd guns are mounted,
I see the lines of rais'd earth stretching from river to bay,
I mark the vista of waters, I mark the uplands and slopes;
Here we lay encamp'd, it was this time in summer also.
As I talk I remember all, I remember the Declaration,
It was read here, the whole army paraded, it was read to us here,
By his staff surrounded the General stood in the middle, he held up
his unsheath'd sword,
It glitter'd in the sun in full sight of the army.
'Twas a bold act then--the English war-ships had just arrived,
We could watch down the lower bay where they lay at anchor,
And the transports swarming with soldiers.
A few days more and they landed, and then the battle.
Twenty thousand were brought against us,
A veteran force furnish'd with good artillery.
I tell not now the whole of the battle,
But one brigade early in the forenoon order'd forward to engage the
red-coats,
Of that brigade I tell, and how steadily it march'd,
And how long and well it stood confronting death.
Who do you think that was marching steadily sternly confronting
death?
It was the brigade of the youngest men, two thousand strong,
Raised in Virginia and Maryland, and most of them known personally to
the General.
Jauntily forward they went with quick step toward Gowanus' waters,
Till of a sudden unlook'd for by defiles through the woods, gain'd at
night,
The British advancing, rounding in from the east, fiercely playing
their guns,
That brigade of the youngest was cut off and at the enemy's mercy.
The General watch'd them from this hill,
They made repeated desperate attempts to burst their environment,
They drew close together, very compact, their flag flying in the
middle,
But O from the hills how the cannon were thinning and thinning them!
It sickens me yet, that slaughter!
I saw the moisture gather in drops on the face of the General.
I saw how he wrung his hands in anguish.
Meanwhile the British manoeuvr'd to draw us out for a pitch'd battle,
But we dared not trust the chances of a pitch'd battle.
We fought the fight in detachments.
Sallying forth we fought at several points, but in each the luck was
against us,
Our foe advancing, steadily getting the best of it, push'd us back to
the works on this hill,
Till we turn'd menacing here, and then he left us.
That was the going out of the brigade of the youngest men, two
thousand strong,
Few return'd, nearly all remain in Brooklyn.
That and here my General's first battle,
No women looking on nor sunshine to bask in, it did not conclude with
applause,
Nobody clapp'd hands here then.