What most intrigued me about “Beat! Beat! Drums!” (by Whitman) was how the poem related the experience of war by civilians to the audience, and how clearly he identified its incursion into everyday life. He starts by discussing hallmarks of a society: the first stanza references church, school, marriage, and farming all being disrupted by the war effort, all being stunted in some ways as the war overtakes typical activity. These choices in institutions are significant in that they are, in some ways, foundational for a society: the existence of education, religion, and food are present everywhere and express a universality in the war experience. In the second stanza, Whitman starts to note the absence of people, alluding to conscriptions to the war, and describes what was likely a well-known feeling during the Civil War when this was written, that of a family mourning the loss of a loved one sent off to war. Curiously, I think the poem also captures the feeling of people not necessarily close to you, but still regular characters in your life, disappearing–the point to people of different occupations plays into this, and again expresses the universality of war, this time in the sense of who is disappearing (people of very different trades are being described as in the same situation). Finally, the last stanza describes war taking precedence over much else–it outweighs mothers, the elderly, children–all people considered to be somewhat innocent at the time. It leads me to think that Whitman is arguing that war has victims behind the front lines, too, in the society that is losing its people and its space in mind to the war effort.