by Whitman · Cluster: War and its Cost · American Civil War · Battlefield

Abstract

A compact battlefield image of dust-covered ranks and rumbling artillery pressing on under the sun; the relentless mass-motion of an army.

Connections

Motifs: Dust, Horse Themes & Concepts: War and its Cost Forms & Genres: Free Verse Settings: Battlefield

Testo integrale / Full text

Cluster: DRUM-TAPS

With its cloud of skirmishers in advance,
With now the sound of a single shot snapping like a whip, and now an
irregular volley,
The swarming ranks press on and on, the dense brigades press on,
Glittering dimly, toiling under the sun—the dust-cover’d men,
In columns rise and fall to the undulations of the ground,
With artillery interspers’d—the wheels rumble, the horses sweat,
As the army corps advances.