The Drums And Louis Whitman Analysis

When the poem starts, the narrator urges the drums and bugles to play their music loudly and powerful, so it bursts through doors and windows into schools and churches. He even urges the instruments to disturb newlyweds and farmers. Then, as if on repeat, he once again urges the drums and bugles to play, except he describes their sound hoping it will reach across the city. He wants it to keep people up at night and keep them from working during the day. If people chose to ignore it and carry on with their business, the instruments must play even louder and wilder. Then once again, he tells the instruments to play even more powerfully, except this time they should not stop playing for any conversation or explanation. He urges the drums and bugles to not pay attention to anyone no matter what they are doing and tells the music to recruit men into the military, regardless what their mothers and children say. Finally, he urges the instruments to play so loud and powerful that it shakes the support beams that lie under the dead.
Its free verse like most of Whiteman’s poems. He used a bit of symbolism in it by using the drums and bugles as symbols of war. The theme of this poem is that war affects everyone and everything. Whitman also used onomatopoeia when he writes about the instruments by using words like whirr, pound, and thump. He even uses a bit of imagery in the poem by mentioning the dead which invokes images of war cemeteries with rows upon rows of graves. Whitman just doesn’t you hear the war by using onomatopoeia, he makes you visualize the war with these strong images of