As Toilsome I Wander’d
As Toilsome I Wander’d - context Summary
Composed During the Civil War
Written from Whitman’s Civil War experience and included in Drum-Taps, the poem records a nurse’s encounter with a hastily buried soldier in Virginia woods. The speaker finds a crude tablet naming the dead as "Bold, cautious, true, and my loving comrade," and keeps returning to that inscription across changing seasons and crowds. The poem compresses wartime intimacy, loss, and memory into a repeated image of a solitary grave and its simple tribute.
Read Complete AnalysesAS toilsome I wander’d Virginia’s woods, To the music of rustling leaves, kick’d by my feet, (for ’twas autumn,) I mark’d at the foot of a tree the grave of a soldier, Mortally wounded he, and buried on the retreat, (easily all could I understand;) The halt of a mid-day hour, when up! no time to lose—yet this sign left, On a tablet scrawl’d and nail’d on the tree by the grave, Bold, cautious, true, and my loving comrade. Long, long I muse, then on my way go wandering; Many a changeful season to follow, and many a scene of life; Yet at times through changeful season and scene, abrupt, alone, or in the crowded street, Comes before me the unknown soldier’s grave—comes the inscription rude in Virginia’s woods, Bold, cautious, true, and my loving comrade.
Feel free to be first to leave comment.