Drum-Taps. in  General   

1
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.

2
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 clench’d hand the pavement.

A shock electric—the night sustain’d it;
Till with ominous hum, our hive at day-break pour’d out its myriads.

From the houses then, and the workshops, and through all the doorways,
Leapt they tumultuous—and lo! Manhattan arming.

3
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 in camps—the arm’d sentries around—the sunrise
cannon,
and
again at sunset;
Arm’d regiments arrive every day, pass through the city, and embark from the wharves;

(How good they look, as they tramp down to the river, sweaty, with their guns on their
shoulders!
How I love them! how I could hug them, with their brown faces, and their clothes and
knapsacks
cover’d with dust!)
The blood of the city up—arm’d! arm’d! the cry everywhere;
The flags flung out from the steeples of churches, and from all the public buildings and
stores;
The tearful parting—the mother kisses her son—the son kisses his mother;
(Loth is the mother to part—yet not a word does she speak to detain him;)
The tumultuous escort—the ranks of policemen preceding, clearing the way;
The unpent enthusiasm—the wild cheers of the crowd for their favorites;
The artillery—the silent cannons, bright as gold, drawn along, rumble lightly over
the
stones;
(Silent cannons—soon to cease your silence!
Soon, unlimber’d, to begin the red business;)
All the mutter of preparation—all the determin’d arming;
The hospital service—the lint, bandages, and medicines;
The women volunteering for nurses—the work begun for, in earnest—no mere parade
now;
War! an arm’d race is advancing!—the welcome for battle—no turning away;
War! be it weeks, months, or years—an arm’d race is advancing to welcome it.

4
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 else now besides powder and wadding.

5
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!

By Walt Whitman

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Other poems by Walt Whitman:

• 1861.
• A Boston Ballad, 1854.
• A Broadway Pageant.
• A Carol of Harvest, for 1867 .
• A Child’s Amaze.
• A Clear Midnight.
• A Farm-Picture.
• A Hand-Mirror.
• A Leaf for Hand in Hand.
• A Noiseless Patient Spider.
• A Paumanok Picture.
• A Promise to California.
• A Riddle Song.
• A Sight in Camp.
• A Song.
• A Woman Waits for Me.
• Aboard at a Ship’s Helm.
• Adieu to a Soldier.
• After the Sea-Ship.
• Ages and Ages, Returning at Intervals.
• Ah Poverties, Wincings and Sulky Retreats.
• All is Truth.
• American Feuillage.
• Among the Multitude.
• An Army Corps on the March.
• An Old Man’s Thought of School.
• Apostroph.
• Are You the New person, drawn toward Me?
• As At Thy Portals Also Death.
• As Consequent, Etc.
• As I lay with Head in your Lap, Camerado.
• As I Walk These Broad, Majestic Days.
• As I Watch’d the Ploughman Ploughing.
• As the Time Draws Nigh.
• Ashes of Soldiers.
• Assurances.
• Base of all Metaphysics, The.
• Bathed in War’s Perfume.
• Beat! Beat! Drums!
• Beautiful Women.
• Beginners.
• Beginning my Studies.
• Behavior.
• Behold this Swarthy Face.
• Bivouac on a Mountain Side.
• Brother of All, with Generous Hand.
• By Broad Potomac’s Shore.
• By the Bivouac’s Fitful Flame.
• Camps of Green.
• Carol of Occupations.
• Carol of Words.
• Cavalry Crossing a Ford.
• Centenarian’s Story, The.
• Chanting the Square Deific.
• City Dead-House, The.
• City of Orgies.
• City of Ships.
• Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.
• Dalliance of the Eagles, The.
• Darest Thou Now, O Soul.
• Debris.
• Delicate Cluster.
• Dirge for Two Veterans.
• Drum-Taps.
• Earth! my Likeness!
• Eidólons.
• Elemental Drifts.
• Europe, the 72d and 73d years of These States.
• Excelsior.
• Facing West from California’s Shores.
• Fast Anchor’d, Eternal, O Love.
• For Him I Sing.
• France, the 18th year of These States.
• From Far Dakota’s Cañons.
• From My Last Years.
• From Paumanok Starting.
• From Pent-up Aching Rivers.
• Full of Life, Now.
• Germs.
• Give me the Splendid, Silent Sun.
• Gods.
• Great are the Myths.
• Hast Never Come to Thee an Hour.
• Here the Frailest Leaves of Me.
• Here, Sailor.
• Hours Continuing Long.
• How Solemn as One by One.
• Hush’d be the Camps To-day.
• I am He that Aches with Love.
• I Hear America Singing.
• I hear it was Charged against Me.
• I saw in Louisiana a Live Oak Growing.
• I saw Old General at Bay.
• I Sing the Body Electric.
• I Sit and Look Out.
• I Thought I was not Alone.
• I was Looking a Long While.
• In Former Songs.
• In Midnight Sleep.
• In Paths Untrodden.
• In the New Garden in all the Parts.
• Indications, The.
• Inscription.
• Joy, Shipmate, Joy!
• Kosmos.
• Last Invocation, The.
• Laws for Creations.
• Lessons.
• Lo! Victress on the Peaks.
• Locations and Times.
• Long I Thought that Knowledge.
• Longings for Home.
• Look Down, Fair Moon.
• Manhattan Streets I Saunter’d, Pondering.
• Mannahatta.
• Me Imperturbe.
• Mediums.
• Miracles.
• Mother and Babe.
• My Picture-Gallery.
• Myself and Mine.
• Native Moments.
• Night on The Prairies.
• No Labor-Saving Machine.
• Not Heat Flames up and Consumes.
• Not Heaving from My Ribb’d Breast Only.
• Not My Enemies Ever Invade Me.
• Not Youth Pertains to Me.
• Now Finale to the Shore.
• O Bitter Sprig! Confession Sprig!
• O Captain! My Captain!
• O Living Always—Always Dying.
• O Star of France.
• O Sun of Real Peace.
• O You Whom I Often and Silently Come.
• Of Him I Love Day and Night.
• Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances.
• Of the Visage of Things.
• Offerings.
• Old Ireland.
• On Journeys Through The States.
• On the Beach at Night, Alone.
• On the Beach at Night.
• One Hour to Madness and Joy.
• One Song, America, Before I Go.
• One Sweeps By.
• Or from that Sea of Time.
• Others may Praise what They Like.
• Out from Behind this Mask.
• Over the Carnage.
• Ox Tamer, The.
• Patroling Barnegat.
• Pensive on Her Dead Gazing, I Heard the Mother of
• Perfections.
• Pioneers! O Pioneers!
• Poem of Remembrance for a Girl or a Boy.
• Poets to Come.
• Portals.
• Prairie States, The.
• Prayer of Columbus.
• Primeval my Love for the Woman I Love.
• Quicksand Years.
• Reconciliation.
• Recorders Ages Hence.
• Respondez!
• Rise, O Days.
• Roaming in Thought.
• Roots and Leaves Themselves Alone.
• Runner, The.
• Says.
• Scented Herbage of My Breast.
• Ship Starting, The.
• Shut Not Your Doors, &c.
• Sleepers, The.
• So Far and So Far, and on Toward the End.
• Sobbing of The Bells, The.
• Solid, Ironical, Rolling Orb.
• Sometimes with One I Love.
• Song at Sunset.
• Song for All Seas, All Ships.
• Song of the Broad-Axe.
• Song of the Universal.
• Souvenirs of Democracy.
• Spain 1873–’74.
• Sparkles from The Wheel.
• Spirit That Form’d This Scene.
• Spirit whose Work is Done.
• Spontaneous Me.
• Starting from Paumanok.
• States!
• Still, though the One I Sing.
• Tears.
• Tests.
• That Music Always Round Me.
• There was a Child went Forth.
• These Carols.
• These, I, Singing in Spring.
• Thick-Sprinkled Bunting.
• Think of the Soul.
• This Compost.
• This Day, O Soul.
• This Dust was Once the Man.
• This Moment, Yearning and Thoughtful.
• Thou Orb Aloft Full-Dazzling.
• Thou Reader.
• Thought.
• Thoughts.
• To a Certain Civilian.
• To a Common Prostitute.
• To a foil’d European Revolutionaire.
• To a Historian.
• To a Locomotive in Winter.
• To a President.
• To a Pupil.
• To a Stranger.
• To Foreign Lands.
• To Him that was Crucified.
• To Old Age.
• To One Shortly to Die.
• To Oratists.
• To the East and to the West.
• To the Garden the World.
• To the Leaven’d Soil They Trod.
• To the Man-of-War-Bird.
• To The States.
• To Thee, Old Cause!
• To Think of Time.
• To You.
• Torch, The.
• Trickle, Drops.
• Turn, O Libertad.
• Two Rivulets.
• Unfolded Out of the Folds.
• Unnamed Lands.
• Untold Want, The.
• Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field.
• Virginia—The West.
• Visor’d.
• Voices.
• Wandering at Morn.
• Warble for Lilac-Time.
• We Two Boys Together Clinging.
• We Two—How Long We were Fool’d.
• Weave in, Weave in, My Hardy Life.
• What am I, After All?
• What Best I See In Thee.
• What General has a Good Army.
• What Place is Besieged?
• What think You I take my Pen in Hand?
• What Weeping Face.
• When I heard at the Close of the Day.
• When I heard the Learn’d Astronomer.
• When I peruse the Conquer’d Fame.
• When I read the Book.
• Whispers of Heavenly Death.
• Who is now Reading This?
• Who Learns My Lesson Complete?
• Whoever You are, Holding Me now in Hand.
• With All Thy Gifts.
• With Antecedents.
• World Below the Brine, The.
• Year of Meteors, 1859 ’60.
• Year that Trembled.
• Years of the Modern.
• You Felons on Trial in Courts.

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