1861 Comments

FINAL: A powerful poem by a man's voice!

THREE: with a knife in the belt at your side, As I heard you shouting loud—your sonorous voice ringing across the continent;

TWO: 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—

Powerful manly outings: 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,

I repeat you, hurrying, crashing, sad, distracted year.....an evidence of the historical year 1861...very remarkable and significant poem

............a fabulous poem with an excellent title with strong writing skills displayed nicely ★

I would've liked to have met ole Walt. Bet he was a cool dude. Much love.

Great poet's great poetry and it is about the soldier in uniforms and determination of warfare. How wonderfully his pen wrote in such spirits and I likes it with such respects.

This style of poetry slightly escapes me. Not my typical style. I think I might try the form. Although I wonder if some poems are just simply a rerecord of history and he happened to write about because he was alive at that time. Bien!

cool............but the lines too long...anyway...cool

very fine, I like it, thanks.

very fine, I like it, thanks.

In life is good times and bad times,1861 represents the latter.

Are we but pale poetlings dribbling chords of lost metaphors?

What a gay poem! Little Walt dreaming about all those tough sinewy men. Was this the decade when these warriors massacred hundreds of Indian men, women and children - when these heroes wrenched huge tracts of America off the rightful owners. nobly battling them using repeater rifles against their bows and arrows?

Whitman's protesting war without being didactic. Nicely done.

The title eluded me so i had to google to find out the significance...... lines 3 and 4 are the most thought provoking.... it seems maybe he is not happy that he is unable to go to war, possibly aged and regretting the fact he must stay at home pale and as the cliche' goes armed with just a pen... he seems much in awe of those men in uniform.....interesting poem, some beautiful use of language and although i could never hope to write such a poetic piece there is just something missing for me here....tyvm karen

Historically significant situation Walt Whitman is best at expressing matters with his unique poetic skill!

I've always had mixed feelings about Whitman. I appreciate the fact that he's been canonized in American Poetry, but, aside from a few of his poems, I've never really liked his work (if ever given a choice between his poetry or, say, Dickinson's, I would invariably choose Dickinson) . He was a blatant self-advertiser in his lifetime, although he espoused much that I find admirable in his philosophy. Whether any war, however, is 'justified' or not is debatable. It has taken me decades to approach the belief that none really are, and that the 'call' to war is one of the horrible persistent traits the so-called 'masculine' among us seem so highly susceptible to. If this is an anti-war poem, please provide me with the evidence, and I'll gladly concede. Paraphrasing Siegfried Sassoon, that great WW1 English poet: war does not ennoble, it degrades. And this poem of Whitman's, despite any of its innovations and its politically-correct (for its time and place) philosophy, appears (to me, at least) to be glorifying war, yet again. Our 'masculine voice' indeed; give me any day the 'pale poetling' who desires not to kill...

1861 the beginning of the Civil War. Whitman captures the rugged character of the men of the time. Long forced marches,50 miles a day, give and take, to arrive at a battle zone, then to fight. Hard men, with the rawness of the country at the time and the CAUSES of the Civil War. Truly spirit and uplifting the words, a call.