THE DRUM.

By James Whitcomb Riley

2026-05-02

O the drum!

There is some

Intonation in thy grum

Monotony of utterance that strikes the spirit dumb,

As we hear

Through the clear

And unclouded atmosphere,

Thy palpitating syllables roll in upon the car!

There's a part

Of the art

Of thy music-throbbing heart

That thrills a something in us that awakens with a start,

And in rhyme

With the chime

And exactitude of time,

Goes marching on to glory to thy melody sublime.

And the guest

Of the breast

That thy rolling robs of rest

Is a patriotic spirit as a Continental dressed;

And he looms

From the glooms

Of a century of tombs,

And the blood he spilled at Lexington in living beauty blooms.

And his eyes

Wear the guise

Of a purpose pure and wise,

As the love of them is lifted to a something in the skies

That is bright

Red and white,

With a blur of starry light,

As it laughs in silken ripples to the breezes day and night.

There are deep

Hushes creep

O'er the pulses as they leap,

As thy tumult, fainter growing, on the silence falls asleep,

While the prayer

Rising there

Wills the sea and earth and air

As a heritage to Freedom's sons and daughters everywhere.

Then, with sound

As profound

As the thunderings resound,

Come thy wild reverberations in a throe that shakes the ground,

And a cry

Flung on high,

Like the flag it flutters by,

Wings rapturously upward till it nestles in the sky.