The speaker Whitman uses image to help his readers visualize the troops that are line up in order to prepare for battle. Whitman uses the metaphor "their arms flash in the sun" (line 2), the arms flash represents the troops swords that they have drawn into the air and it is the sun that causes their swords to flash. Whitman also uses a figure of speech in this poem when he says, "Behold the brown-faced men, each group, each person, a picture" (line 5 ). The speaker makes it seems as though the troops and the horses had been traveling for awhile because he mentions, " Behold the silvery river" (line ) it was as though this river wasn't an ordinary river to them because they had been without water for quite some time. The reason I say this is
