Arm'd year--year of the struggle, No dainty rhymes or sentimental love verses for you terrible year, Not you as some pale poetling seated at a desk lisping cadenzas piano, But as a strong man erect, clothed in blue clothes, advancing, carrying a rifle on your shoulder, With well-gristled body and sunburnt face and hands, with a knife in the belt at your side, As I heard you shouting loud, your sonorous voice ringing across the continent, Your masculine voice O year, as rising amid the great cities, Amid the men of Manhattan I saw you as one of the workmen, the dwellers in Manhattan, Or with large steps crossing the prairies out of Illinois and Indiana, Rapidly crossing the West with springy gait and descending the Alleghanies, Or down from the great lakes or in Pennsylvania, or on deck along the Ohio river, Or southward along the Tennessee or Cumberland rivers, or at Chattanooga on the mountain top, Saw I your gait and saw I your sinewy limbs clothed in blue, bearing weapons, robust year, Heard your determin'd voice launch'd forth again and again, Year that suddenly sang by the mouths of the round-lipp'd cannon, I repeat you, hurrying, crashing, sad, distracted year. BEAT! BEAT! DRUMS! Beat! beat! drums!--blow! bugles! blow! Through the windows-through doors-burst like a ruthless force, Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation, Into the school where the scholar is studying; Leave not the bridegroom quiet--no happiness must he have now with his bride, Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, ploughing his field or gathering his grain, So fierce you whirr and pound you drums--so shrill you bugles blow. Beat! beat! drums!--blow! bugles! blow! Over the traffic of cities--over the rumble of wheels in the streets; Are beds prepared for sleepers at night in the houses? no sleepers must sleep in those beds, No bargainers' bargains by day--no brokers or speculators--would they continue? Would the talkers be talking? would the singer attempt to sing? Would the lawyer rise in the court to state his case before the judge? Then rattle quicker, heavier drums--you bugles wilder blow. Beat! beat! drums!--blow! bugles! blow! Make no parley--stop for no expostulation, Mind not the timid--mind not the weeper or prayer, Mind not the old man beseeching the young man, Let not the child's voice be heard, nor the mother's entreaties, Make even the trestles to shake the dead where they lie awaiting the hearses, So strong you thump O terrible drums--so loud you bugles blow. FROM PAUMANOK STARTING I FLY LIKE A BIRD