Framing History: Ode—On Hearing the Drum

ECW welcomes back guest author and photographer Melissa A. Winn.

This little gem of a photo is new to my collection, purchased recently from a friend and antique image dealer. I’m fond of images with sentiments either inscribed on the photo’s paper backing or accompanying the case. This poem was tucked inside the case, behind the image, a tinted tintype.

Ode—On Hearing the Drum:

I hate that drum’s discordant sound,
Parading round, and round, and round:
To thoughtless youth it pleasure yields,
And lures from cities and from fields,
To sell their liberty for charms
Of tawdry lace, and glittering arms;
And when Ambition’s voice commands,
To march, and fight, and fall, in foreign lands.

I hate that drum’s discordant sound,
Parading round, and round, and round:
To me it talks of ravaged plains,
And burning towns, and ruined swains,
And mangled limbs, and dying groans,
And widow’s tears, and orphans’ moans;
And all that misery’s hand bestows,
To fill the catalogue of human woes

Written by John Scott, an 18th-century English poet and Quaker, the poem is a striking meditation on the brutality and futility of war. First published in the 1760s, the poem responds to the sound of a military drum, which for Scott is not a call to glory, but a chilling reminder of violence and loss. Scott’s Quaker beliefs emphasized peace and a commitment to pacifism and nonviolence, so the sound of a drum calling men to battle would have deeply disturbed him. For him, the drumbeat is not a song of valor, but a harbinger of suffering, a grim reminder of “mangled limbs,” “ruin’d towns,” and “widow’s tears.”

The dealer I purchased the image from had picked it up from another seller who new nothing of the poem. Maybe it had been hidden behind the image since the Civil War? Tucked inside for safekeeping.

Why?

We’ll never know. But I’ll treasure it forever whatever the reason.

Melissa A. Winn is the Director of Marketing and Communications for the National Museum of Civil War Medicine. Previously, she was the Marketing Manager for the American Battlefield Trust and Director of Photography for HistoryNet, publisher of nine history-related magazines, including America’s Civil War, American History, and Civil War Times. She’s a Senior Editor for Military Images magazine; Editor of Shavings, the member newsletter of the Early American Industries Association, is a member of the Board of Directors of the Civil War Roundtable Congress; and President of the Bull Run Civil War Round Table.