Hush'd Be the Camps To-Day
Hush’d be the camps to-day,And soldiers let us drape our war-worn weapons,And each with musing soul retire to celebrate,Our dear commander’s death.
No more for him life’s stormy conflicts,Nor victory, nor defeat--no more time’s dark events,Charging like ceaseless clouds across the sky.But sing poet in our name,Sing of the love we bore him--because you, dweller in camps, know it truly.
As they invault the coffin there,Sing--as they close the doors of earth upon him--one verse,For the heavy hearts of soldiers.
Words in this poem
- drape v. t.
- To cover or adorn with drapery or folds of cloth, or as with drapery; as, to drape a bust, a building, etc. [F. draper, fr. drap cloth. See 3d Drab.]
- defeat v. t.
- To undo; to disfigure; to destroy. [From F. défait, OF. desfait, p. p. ofe défaire, OF. desfaire, to undo; L. dis- + facere to do. See Feat, Fact, and cf. Disfashion.]
- ceaseless a.
- Without pause or end; incessant.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Hush'd Be the Camps To-Day is in the public domain. This text is taken from Leaves of Grass, Project Gutenberg ebook #1322; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Walt Whitman, Hush'd Be the Camps To-Day, in Leaves of Grass (1855–1892), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1322, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/whitman-leaves/hush-d-be-the-camps-to-day.html, id L25589.
Form and metre
Hush'd Be the Camps To-Day is 12 lines in 3 stanzas.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Hush’d be the camps to-day, | 6 | ······ |
| And soldiers let us drape our war-worn weapons, | 12 | ·/˘···/˘··/˘ |
| And each with musing soul retire to celebrate, | 12 | ···/˘·˘/·/˘· |
| Our dear commander’s death. | 7 | /˘·˘/˘· |
| No more for him life’s stormy conflicts, | 9 | ·····/˘˘/ |
| Nor victory, nor defeat--no more time’s dark events, | 13 | ·/˘˘·˘/····˘/ |
| Charging like ceaseless clouds across the sky. | 10 | /˘·/˘·˘/·· |
| But sing poet in our name, | 8 | ··/˘·/˘· |
| Sing of the love we bore him--because you, dweller in camps, know it truly. | 18 | ··········/˘····/˘ |
| As they invault the coffin there, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Sing--as they close the doors of earth upon him--one verse, | 13 | ············· |
| For the heavy hearts of soldiers. | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.