Drum-Taps is a collection of poems about the American Civil War, published in 1865. Whitman writes of the excitement of enlistment, marching columns, camp life, battles and the suffering of the wounded. Later poems turn to mourning and loss. The verse is shorter and more direct than much of his earlier work, and it looks at war with both patriotic feeling and deep compassion. It was later folded into Leaves of Grass.
Quotes
Beat! beat! drums!—blow! bugles! blow!
Over the traffic of cities—over the rumble of wheels in the streets.