To a Certain Civilian
To a Certain Civilian - context Summary
Written Amid the Civil War
Whitman addresses a civilian reader who expects gentle, conventional verse and refuses that demand. He declares his poetry born of the Civil War, shaped by close contact with battle and its aftermath, and embraces martial sounds and funerary dirges as fitting material. Whitman warns that his work will neither lull nor be readily understood by those seeking easy consolation. The poem appears in Drum-Taps and reflects his nursing experience.
Read Complete AnalysesDID you ask dulcet rhymes from me? Did you seek the civilian’s peaceful and languishing rhymes? Did you find what I sang erewhile so hard to follow? Why I was not singing erewhile for you to follow, to understand—nor am I now; (I have been born of the same as the war was born; The drum-corps’ harsh rattle is to me sweet music—I love well the martial dirge, With slow wail, and convulsive throb, leading the officer’s funeral:) —What to such as you, anyhow, such a poet as I?—therefore leave my works, And go lull yourself with what you can understand—and with piano-tunes; For I lull nobody—and you will never understand me.
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