A Sight in Camp in the Daybreak Gray and Dim
Walt Whitman
5 10 15 |
A sight in camp in the daybreak gray and dim, As from my tent I emerge so early sleepless, As slow I walk in the cool fresh air the path near by the hospital tent, Three forms I see on stretchers lying, brought out there untended lying, Over each the blanket spread, ample brownish woolen blanket, Gray and heavy blanket, folding, covering all. Curious I halt and silent stand, Then with light fingers I from the face of the nearest the first just lift the blanket; Who are you elderly man so gaunt and grim, with well-gray’d hair, and flesh all sunken about the eyes? Who are you my dear comrade? Then to the second I step—and who are you my child and darling? Who are you sweet boy with cheeks yet blooming? Then to the third—a face nor child nor old, very calm, as of beautiful yellow-white ivory; Young man I think I know you—I think this face is the face of the Christ himself, Dead and divine and brother of all, and here again he lies. |
Making Meanings
A Sight in Camp in the Daybreak Gray and Dim
1. What was your emotional response to “A Sight in Camp”? What specific words or images affected your response?
2. Look back at the notes you took while reading. How did Whitman develop the setting from the notes that inspired the poem? Which images in the poem spring directly from Whitman’s own experiences?
3. Why, given the circumstances of the Civil War, might the poet have seen the face of Christ on one of the dead soldiers? What might be the significance of the fact that the “forms” are a trio?
4. In Whitman’s poems, we seem to be overhearing a man’s conversation with himself. How would you describe the tone of this poem? What main elements support your description?
5. The point of the poem is never openly stated. What do you think is the message behind the poem?
6. Paul Zweig, one of Whitman’s biographers, says that Whitman had a genius for the single line, “the verbal snapshot.” Do you agree with this observation? Which images in this poem make particularly unusual and evocative “verbal snapshots”?