Academic Stefan Schöberlein writes that—with the exception of Helen Vendler's work—the poem's sentimentality has resulted in it being mostly "ignored in English speaking academia". Vendler writes that the poem utilizes elements of war journalism, such as "the bleeding drops of red" and "fallen cold and dead". The poem has imagery relating to the sea throughout. Genoways considers the best "turn of phrase" in the poem to be line 12, where Whitman describes a "swaying mass", evocative of both a funeral and religious service.