All music is is what awakes from you when you are reminded by the instruments.
The moon gives you light, and the bugles and the drums give you music, and my heart, O my soldiers, my veterans, my heart gives you love.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote expresses the deep affection and connection the speaker feels for their soldiers and veterans.
In this quote, Walt Whitman conveys the importance of love and emotional support as integral components of the experiences shared among soldiers. He reflects on the role of light, music, and love in creating a sense of camaraderie and connection, suggesting that while external elements like the moon and music can provide sensory pleasure, it is the deep emotional bond represented by love that truly uplifts and sustains individuals in difficult times.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech honoring veterans during a memorial service, one might say this quote to emphasize the love and respect owed to those who served.
More from Walt Whitman
All quotes βDid you, too, O friend, suppose democracy was only for elections, for politics, and for a party name? I say democracy is only of use there that it may pass on and come to its flower and fruit in manners, in the highest forms of interaction between people, and their beliefs - in religion, literature, colleges and schools- democracy in all public and private life.
In the confusion we stay with each other, happy to be together, speaking without uttering a single word.
A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.
Now, dearest comrade, lift me to your face,_x000D_ _x000D_ We must separate awhileHere! take from my lips this kiss._x000D_ _x000D_ Whoever you are, I give it especially to you;_x000D_ _x000D_ So long!And I hope we shall meet again.
And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud.
Similar quotes
They will say I smoked cigarettes and marijuana, cursed hoarse as a crow in all my languages, and loved morphine and Demerol and tequila and pulque, women and men. I will shrug my illusion of shoulders and answer that I am a water woman, not a vessel, not something you can sail or charter. I am instead the tributary, the river, the fluid source, and the sea itself. I am all her rainy implications. And what do you, with your rusted compass, know of love?
Let us also love our neighbors as ourselves. Let us have charity and humility. Let us give alms because these cleanse our souls from the stains of sin. Men lose all the material things they leave behind them in this world, but they carry with them the reward of their charity and the alms they give. For these they will receive from the Lord the reward and recompense they deserve.
And Father said, "Christopher, do you understand that I love you?" And I said "Yes," because loving someone is helping them when they get into trouble, and looking after them, and telling them the truth, and Father looks after me when I get into trouble, like coming to the police station, and he looks after me by cooking meals for me, and he always tells me the truth, which means that he loves me.
God's love is so great that He loves even the proud, the selfish, the arrogant, and the wicked.
My effort here is to help you to feel that existence is not indifferent towards you. It is deeply concerned about you, it cares for you, it loves you. and when one feels loved and cared for, one is capable of loving and caring. when existence pours its love into you, you start sharing your love with others. You become so burdened with love that you have to share. You cannot contain it, it is uncontainable. It starts spreading, radiating.
As Marilee and I were dressing, I whispered to her that I loved her with all my heart. What else was there to say? 'You don't. You can't,' she said.