As I Lay With My Head In Your Lap Camerado

This poem was not as graphic as some of the other poems we have had to analyze in the past, because this one has to deal with the Civil War. I think that this is a dying man who is telling one of his fellow men what he did wrong and some of his previous regrets. He is also saying how regardless of his decisions, he thinks that he is correct and that will get him far in life.


Some of Whitman's Christianity beliefs do show in this poem as well because he is talking about heaven and hell and the fact that he does not care at the moment where he ends up, because he is dying and fought his hardest. Basically, in the end, the man says that he is leading his men on, even though he has no idea where he is going, and yet he wants his men to believe that he will lead them into the unknown. Walt Whitman says in the poem, "And the threat of what is call'd hell is little or nothing to me; And the lure of what is call'd heaven is little or nothing to me; ...Dear camerado! I confess I have urged you onward with me, and still urge you, without the least idea what is our destination, Or whether we shall be victorious, or utterly quell'd and defeated" (Whitman). That quote right there is what I am trying to prove in that this man does not have that good of an idea of what exactly he himself is doing, and yet he is still leading his men into the unknown. Although this poem was not as disturbing as some in the past, he is still laying in the lap of some guy, which is more appropriate to the time period, however, it is still a bit weird. I do not know what else to say about this poem because it does not really illustrate self throughout the poem although the man does confess to not knowing what he is doing, so it does illustrate his true character by the end of the poem.

"As I lay with my head in your lap, Camerado, the confession I made I resume-what I said to you in the to open air I resume: I know I am restless, and make others so; I know my words are weapons, full of danger, full of death; (Indeed I am myself the real soldier; It is not he, there, with his bayonet, and not the red-striped artilleryman;) For I confront peace, security, and all the settled laws, to unsettle them; I am more resolute because all have denied me, then I could have been had all accepted me; I heed not, and have never heeded, either experience, cautions, majorities, nor ridicule;... (Whitman).

The rest of the poem above is the rest of the man's confession and how he does regret some things, but he does not regret a lot of them, and wishes that he had had more authority over his men, and was not denied. That is what I was able to get from the poem.