The poem “The Dresser”, by Walt Whitman, seems to value humanitarian morals, such as human livelihood and mercy. The speaker of the poem works at hospitals during the civil war, and accordingly witnesses many gruesome spectacles of dying soldiers: “Priceless blood reddens the grass, the ground” (The Dresser, page 3 of the “Drum-Taps” excerpts). The speaker’s diction of describing the soldiers’ blood as “priceless” depicts the speaker’s valuing of human livelihood. Additionally, the speaker doesn’t specify which side of the civil war the soldiers are on, which shows that the speaker values all human life, not only the side that the speaker is supporting. The speaker is shown to also value mercy later in the poem: “Come, sweet death! be persuaded,
