Beat! Beat! Drums!

 

Beat! Beat! Drums!

By Walt Whitman

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.

 

I feel as if this poem by Walt Whitman was written by war itself. It's giving the order to invade and 

 completely turn everyone's every day lives upside down indiscriminately. The church congregation, 

the school children, the newlyweds, the farmers, the sleepers, the mothers, the children, no one is 

spared from the havoc of war. Whitman wrote this in 1861, the same year the Civil War started and in the poem he seems to describe the escalating events that were occurring in the war at that time. 

War affects everyone, especially when it's brother against brother in a horrific Civil War, and 

Whitman made that clear in this poem. I really enjoyed looking through Walt Whitman's work these 

past two weeks. This was one of my favorite of his just for the fact that it's like reading an account of 

what things were like for people during the War Between the States. It's like he captured history as it 

happened.