"Make money your god and it will plague you like the devil." - Henry Fielding. Plague in the time of Walt Whitman was common due to the lack of technology and medicine. Beat! Beat! Drums! Presents syntax and diction, which represent Walt Whitman's tone, of plague.

1st stanza....

The second line presents ample examples of syntax and diction. The use of the word through displays how war can be like plague, going through the windows - through doors, and shows Whitman's use of diction through repetition. The word through can be expressed as destructive in times of war, going through things such as nations. Another example in the second line of the first stanza, of syntax, is Whitman's use of the phrase burst like a ruthless force. This phrase also exemplifies how war represents plague as a plague bursts into a country just as tanks burst into...