Cavalry Crossing a Ford (Poem Summary)

Poem Summary

Lines 1 – 2

The “they” of the first line refers to the soldiers who make up the cavalry troop mentioned in the title. This abrupt beginning differs greatly from the majority of Whitman’s verse, in which he uses the first-person “I” as the filter through which the poem is conveyed. Here, the “I” of the poem, the speaker, is merely implied. Instead of coloring the scene with his own perception, he relates it journalistically — objectively and with a nonjudgmental tone — presenting the image of the cavalry as it crosses a ford, a shallow place in a river. The scope of the image is so broad as to imply that the scene is being viewed from a distance and likely from some higher ground. The whole of the cavalry is presented as a vast single line twisting and turning snake-like through the landscape. The “arms” that glint sunlight in the second line refer then to the cavalry soldiers’ rifles, and the “Hark,” which simply means “listen,” serves both as a command and an entreaty. In this manner, the speaker both asks and tells the reader to see the scene for himself or herself. It is as though he imagines the reader standing alongside him, hearing “the musical clank” of the distant soldiers’ guns. While this is not a logical possibility, the speaker of the poem helps (or forces) the reader to visualize the scene by supplying images and cues. In addition, the use of assonance and consonance in these lines adds to the poem’s musical quality and thus imitates the “musical clank” referred to in the poem. Indeed, “clank” is onomatopoeic, meaning that the sound of the word itself imitates the sound to which the word refers.

Lines 3-4

In these lines, the speaker continues to entreat, or command, the reader’s attention. Again, the reader is asked to imagine the scene as though viewed first-hand. The first image of making up the whole picture, of course, is the landscape, the “silvery river” that the cavalry is in the process of traversing. Next are the horses that stop mid-river to drink, and finally, the “brown-faced men.” Note that while the speaker says that “each person” is a “picture,” implying that each is in itself worthy of our attention, no single individual is given more specific detail. In this sense, the poem seems to contradict itself. While each and every soldier is presented as being an individual, the reader is never quite able to distinguish any single person from the group. The men are still plural, part of the whole.

Line 5

Line 5 establishes again the enormity of the scene. The reader sees all at once the long line of troops stretched across the river. In ending the line with the word “while,” the speaker prompts anticipation in the reader of what is to follow. The position of the subordinate conjunction “while” at the end of the line gives it an imperative quality, a sense of importance.

Lines 6-7

Here, finally, the subordinate clause begun at the end of line 4 is brought to completion. However, line 5 postpones this sense of closure for a moment. By offering descriptive adjectives before actually defining the objects to which they refer, the line keeps the reader waiting. Whitman added this descriptive line (line 6) in 1871, some six years after the poem’s original publication, and its effect on the overall reading of the poem is extremely significant. In a sense the line prolongs the reader’s uncertainty about what is to follow and heightens anticipation. This is particularly important since the final image of the cavalry, the image that is most particularized in the poem, is the “guidon flags,” which are carried into battle to distinguish opposing armies. In a sense, the poem then defines the cavalry and all of its members according to their political allegiance. That the banners “flutter gayly” suggests that the cavalry in question is friendly and poses no threat, and it is for this recognition that the reader has been waiting. In a sense, the reader has been observing the entire scene with this one purpose in mind — to determine whether the approaching cavalry is friend or foe. Perhaps more important, however, is the political mind-set that the poem then exemplifies. In essence, the individuals portrayed in the poem seem less important than the “flags” signifying their political allegiance. It becomes irrelevant that the men who make up the cavalry are individuals with their own values and ideas. What matters is only whether they are friend or foe.

Media Adaptations

• A 1987 video entitled Walt Whitman, from the Great Works of American Literature series, is available from Focus Media Inc. It is written by Elizabeth Ralph and directed by Jim Cronin.
• Dover Press has an audiocassette edition of Walt Whitman’s Selected Poems, from their “Listen and Read” series, recorded in 1987.
• Mystic Fire Audio has a 1997 cassette selection of Whitman’s poems available in its Voices and Visions series, entitled simply Walt Whitman.
• The audiocassette The BBC Collection of War Poetry uses music and sound effects to bring the best war poetry from throughout the ages to life.
• The Walt Whitman Hypertext Archive available at http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/whitman/index.html (last accessed April 2001) has links to works by Whitman, reviews of his poetry, biographical information, etc. It is maintained by Charles B. Green (August 10, 1999).