Walt Whitman

LEAVES OF GRASS
(1891-92 issue)
complete book, e-book

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BOOK XXI. DRUM-TAPS

First O Songs for a Prelude

 First O songs for a prelude,
 Lightly strike on the stretch'd tympanum pride and joy in my city,
 How she led the rest to arms, how she gave the cue,
 How at once with lithe limbs unwaiting a moment she sprang,
 (O superb! O Manhattan, my own, my peerless!
 O strongest you in the hour of danger, in crisis! O truer than steel!)
 How you sprang--how you threw off the costumes of peace with
 indifferent hand,
 How your soft opera-music changed, and the drum and fife were heard
 in their stead,
 How you led to the war, (that shall serve for our prelude, songs of
 soldiers,)
 How Manhattan drum-taps led.
 
 Forty years had I in my city seen soldiers parading,
 Forty years as a pageant, till unawares the lady of this teeming and
 turbulent city,
 Sleepless amid her ships, her houses, her incalculable wealth,
 With her million children around her, suddenly,
 At dead of night, at news from the south,
 Incens'd struck with clinch'd hand the pavement.
 
 A shock electric, the night sustain'd it,
 Till with ominous hum our hive at daybreak pour'd out its myriads.
 
 From the houses then and the workshops, and through all the doorways,
 Leapt they tumultuous, and lo! Manhattan arming.
 
 To the drum-taps prompt,
 The young men falling in and arming,
 The mechanics arming, (the trowel, the jack-plane, the blacksmith's
 hammer, tost aside with precipitation,)
 The lawyer leaving his office and arming, the judge leaving the court,
 The driver deserting his wagon in the street, jumping down, throwing
 the reins abruptly down on the horses' backs,
 The salesman leaving the store, the boss, book-keeper, porter, all leaving;
 Squads gather everywhere by common consent and arm,
 The new recruits, even boys, the old men show them how to wear their
 accoutrements, they buckle the straps carefully,
 Outdoors arming, indoors arming, the flash of the musket-barrels,
 The white tents cluster (...)
(......)