and the beat goes on: Manning's poem in talk-back to an 1861 footnote by Horace Traubel

 

On reading Traubel’s footnote to Whitman’s

Beat! Beat! Drums!*                      Sylvia Manning

Let’s not count measure, drum syllabic beats to beat our morning mourning  song

into boxes rag-tagged with old anapests and spondee.

Let’s let ourselves ignore (deceased) critic from academe who deems beats

in your poem to be only a marshalling call to martial war.

Let’s believe through our boot soles your farmboy-carpenter voice

gone city-loud with warning of how war beats trauma into all our lives,

bridegroom and mother beseeching her child’s right to live and thrive.

Let us let ourselves believe we read these strophes and anapests, their ironical

iron warning (published exactly 160 years ago yesterday, literally, at this writing)

As Beat loud beatitude against that war against ourselves (thus you as well),

the bloodiest and worst so far, so far as we know.

Let us know you knew (certainly you would come to):

blessed, yes, are the peacemakers.

This your subtext onto ear drums, this at very least your whisper,

if not indeed loud beaten warning:  war is hell.

                                                                     [written Sept. 29, 2021]

                                                                                                            

  

*Footnote p. 283, Norton Critical Edition, Leaves of Grass, c1965 New York University:

Traubel, II, 213.

[BEAT! BEAT! DRUMS!]  "This stirring call to arms was first published simultaneously, September 28, 1861, in both Harper’s Weekly and the New York Leader.  Note the skill with which WW, by spondaic and anapaestic emphasis, imposes his martial rhythm."

Beat! Beat! Drums!

                                           BY WALT WHITMAN

 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.