O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN! BY WALT WHITMAN. I. O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done; The ship has weathered every wrack, the prize we sought is won; O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead. II. 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 ribboned wreaths, for you the shores a-crowd ing; 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. III. 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 anchored 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. LINCOLN'S BIRTHDAY. MATERIALS FOR SKETCH OF LINCOLN'S LIFE. THE fullest Life of Lincoln, and the one which makes the strongest claim for authority, is that written by the President's private secretaries, John George Nicolay and John Hay, who have also edited a full collection of Lincoln's speeches, state papers, letters, and miscellaneous writings. Both these works are issued by The Century Co., New York. Special importance attaches to those lives and sketches which have been written by men who personally knew Lincoln, and who, writing often in close proximity to the events narrated, were likely to speak with vividness if not always with impartiality. The incompleted Life by Ward H. Lamon, who was long associated with Lincoln, covers the period up to the date of his inauguration in 1861. It is, however, now out of print. Abraham Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life, by W. H. Herndon, who was Lincoln's law partner and long intimate with him, is published by D. Appleton & Co., New York, and is of great value. A Life by Dr. J. G. Holland deals with the personality of the subject, and has a popular aim. Six Months at the White House, or The Inner Life of Abraham Lincoln, is an exceedingly interesting volume of memoranda made by Frank B. Carpenter when engaged on a painting of Lincoln and his Cabinet. Reminiscences by distinguished men who were contemporaries and in many cases near associates of Lincoln were prepared at the instance of Allen Thorndike Rice, editor of the North American Review, and afterward collected by him into a volume of 656 pages. and published in 1886. The Life by Henry J. Raymond, then the editor of the New York Times, published in New York in 1864, was in intention a campaign life, but it is especially valuable since it allows Lincoln to be his own biographer by means of speeches, letters, messages, and the like. The Life by Isaac N. Arnold (A. C. McClurg & Co., Chicago) is chiefly devoted to the executive and legislative doings of Lincoln's administration. A campaign life was published by Thayer & Eldridge, Boston, 1860. Among later works, mention should be made of the lives by John T. Morse, Jr., in The American Statesmen series (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.), and Noah Brooks in Heroes of the Nations (G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York); Abraham Lincoln: an Essay, by Carl Schurz (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.) ; President Lincoln and his Administration, by L. E. Chittenden (Harper & Bros., New York); Abraham Lincoln and Men of War Times, by A. K. McClure; Life of Abraham Lincoln, by Norman Hapgood (Macmillan); Life of Abraham Lincoln, by Ida Tarbell (McClure); and Lincoln, Master of Men, by Alonzo Rothschild (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.). Other memoirs, mostly written for political purposes, are those by Joseph H. Barrett, A. A. Abbott, David N. Bartlett, Linus P. Brockett, Phoebe Ann Hanaford, John C. Power. Several popular lives for young people have been written, among them Abraham Lincoln, the Pioneer Boy, by W. M. Thayer; The Forest Boy, by Z. A. Mudge; Abraham Lincoln, the Backwoods Boy, by Horatio Alger, Jr.; Abraham Lincoln, by Charles Carleton Coffin; The True Story of Abraham Lincoln, the American, by E. S. Brooks; and Abraham Lincoln, by W. O. Stoddard. After Lincoln's death there appeared numberless eulogies, addresses, sermons, poems, and magazine articles concerning his life, character, and public services. A zealous bibliographer and antiquarian, Mr. Charles Henry Hart, collected a list of these under the title Bibliographia Lincolniana; an Account of the Publications occasioned by the Death of Abraham Lincoln, Sixteenth President of the United States; with Notes and an Introduction. It was published by Joel Munsell, Albany, N. Y., in 1870, and contains a valuable biographical introduction. Among preachers and public men who delivered addresses afterward printed were Henry Ward Beecher, James Freeman Clarke, Richard Salter Storrs, Phillips Brooks, Octavius Brooks Frothingham, George Bancroft, James Abram Garfield, Alexander H. Bullock, Richard Stockton Field. Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered a commemorative address at funeral services held in Concord, April 19, 1865, which is contained in the eleventh volume of his works, Riverside Edition. James Russell Lowell, besides the paper given in this book, introduced a striking portrait of Lincoln in the lines beginning, "Such was he our Martyr-Chief," in his Commemoration Ode. Hawthorne has an interesting paragraph in his article Chiefly about War Matters, contributed to the Atlantic Monthly, July, 1862, and reprinted in volume xii. of the Riverside Edition of his works. Bryant wrote a noble threnody, Dr. Holmes a memorial hymn, Stoddard a stately ode, Stedman a sonnet as also a poem on the cast of Lincoln's hand, and Whittier some strong verses on "The Emancipation Group" in Boston. Most of these will be found in Riverside Literature Series, No. 133. |