Drum-Taps

Written as the Civil War tore the country apart, Drum-Taps captures Walt Whitman's shifting response to the conflict — from the drumbeat excitement of early enlistment, through his years tending wounded soldiers in Washington hospitals, to grief that would later fold in his elegies for Lincoln. First published in 1865, this collection stands among the rawest and most immediate poetry ever written about war by someone who lived through it at close range, neither glorifying nor despairing, only bearing witness. A vital, unflinching companion to Leaves of Grass.