Published Works

Books by Whitman

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TO A CERTAIN CIVILIAN.

DID you ask dulcet rhymes from me?

Did you seek the civilian's peaceful and languishing rhymes?

Did you find what I sang erewhile so hard to follow?

Why I was not singing erewhile for you to follow, to understand—
nor am I now;

(I have been born of the same as the war was born,

The drum-corps' rattle is ever to me sweet music, I love well the
martial dirge,

With slow wail and convulsive throb leading the officer's funeral;)

What to such as you anyhow such a poet as I? therefore leave my
works,

And go lull yourself with what you can understand, and with piano-
tunes,

For I lull nobody, and you will never understand me.

Distributed under a Creative Commons License. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price, editors.