The role of the speakers differs greatly between Walt Whitman’s poems “Bivouac on a Mountain Side” and “By the Bivouac’s Fitful Flame.” In the first poem, the speaker seems to simply be an observer. They situate themselves outside the bivouac in the beginning of the poem with the line, “I see before me a travelling army.” Curiously, they choose not to say that they are in, or with the army, but rather that the scene is front of them, like a detached outsider.
The language is equally detached. The way Whitman catalogues the elements of the scenery, is void of any figurative language, and simply describes the mountainside. The words used in this poem are also quite rough, with harsh syllables. For example. “Broken.” “Rocks.” “Cedars.” “Tall.” “Abrupt.” “Fertile.”
“By the Bivouac’s Fitful Flame” differs greatly. Here, the speaker becomes a prominent subject. The perspective shifts from observing the scene, to experiencing it. The setting interacts with the speaker. They see the flame “winding around” them, and the greenery “stealthily watching.” This kind of personification is absent in the former poem. There are more examples of personification in this poem, too. For example, the flame is also like a “procession” and the silence, “Like a phantom.”
Both poems use repetition. In “Bivouac on a Mountain Side,” the phrase “the sky” is repeated two times in the same line. In the latter poem, there is alliteration in “while wind” and “fitful flame.” There is also a phrase that is repeated, however, on the second time, it is altered. At first the flame’s procession is “solemn and sweet and slow.” By the end of the poem the flame is no longer sweet, but instead, “solemn and slow.”
The image of fire is present in both poems. It is almost like the speaker in “Bivouac on a Mountain Side” could be observing the speaker in “By the Bivouac’s Fitful Flame.” The fires are distant in the former poem, described as “camp-fires scatter’d near and far.” While the latter poem is close to the fire, “on the ground,/By the bivouac’s fitful flame.” The difference is in the witnessing a scene, versus being a part of it.