O Tan-faced Prairie Boy
O Tan-faced Prairie Boy - context Summary
Drum-taps, 1867
Written for Whitman’s Civil War collection Drum-Taps (published 1867), the short lyric records a nurse’s encounter with a young prairie recruit. Whitman contrasts the material welcomes given to newcomers with the recruit’s taciturn arrival and lack of possessions. The poem emphasizes the recruit’s simple presence as a surpassing gift, reflecting Whitman’s wartime experience nursing soldiers and finding emotional significance in brief human meetings.
Read Complete AnalysesO TAN-FACED prairie-boy! Before you came to camp, came many a welcome gift; Praises and presents came, and nourishing food—till at last, among the recruits, You came, taciturn, with nothing to give—we but look’d on each other, When lo! more than all the gifts of the world, you gave me. 5
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