Published Works Manuscripts Biography & Correspondence Criticism Resources Pictures & Sound About the Archive

contents   |   previous   |   next

TO A CERTAIN CIVILIAN.

DID 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 offi-          cer'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.

contents   |   previous   |   next

Comments?

Published Works | Manuscripts | Biography & Correspondence | Criticism | Resources | Pictures & Sound

Support the Archive | About the Archive

© 1995–2010 Walt Whitman Archive, Ed Folsom & Kenneth M. Price, editors