“Beat! Beat! Drums!” is a very classic Whitman poem – it has long lines with rhythm despite its lack of consistent meter, alliteration, no rhyme, use of questions and exclamations, and themes of war and average Americans. In this poem, Whitman also uses repetition to great affect. Each stanza starts and ends with the sounds of the drums and bugles of war, while the middle talks about the average Americans and how they are effected. Just like war surrounds daily life, war surrounds the stanzas.

One thing I found interesting is that it is hard to tell if the poem is pro- or anti-war. On the one hand, it is talking about how it has disrupted daily life, but it also it commands the effort to continue. The narrator says that there should be “no parley” and that the suffering people should be ignored – is this genuine? I could honestly see arguments in either direction. Historically, Whitman was a known supporter of President Lincoln and worked to help the Northern War effort, but he also loved America and feared that the war would forever fracture his country. The poem seems to reflect his own complicated feelings about the war, though of course it is hard to say what a poem says about its author. It is also interesting to me that the poem focuses on the sounds of drums and bugles, the patriotic and triumphant sounds of war, not the gunshots and screams. Whitman worked in hospitals in the DC area and was well aware of the damage war did to its soldiers, but still put an emphasis on the “noble” sounds of war. This could mean the poem is coming on the side of the war as a necessary evil.