O Captain! My Captain!

4.3 O Captain! My Captain!

Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892) was an American poet, essayist and journalist. He was the most influential poet in the American canon, often called the father of ‘free verse’. He breaks the boundaries of poetic form. He also used unusual images and symbols in his poetry. The poem is an elegy to the speaker’s recently deceased captain. While the nation is celebrating the victory of the battle, the speaker is mourning the loss of its great leader. The poem has a direct reference to the assasination of Abraham Lincoln after the American Civil war was won.

O Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! My Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up-for you the flag is flung-for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths-for you the shores
a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head;
It is some dream that on the deck,
You’ve fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

- Walt Whitman

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