O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN

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,

will,

he has no pulse nor

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!

Walt Whitman 1865

But I with mournful tread,

Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen, cold and dead.

From

AN HORATIAN ODE

Cool should be, of balanced powers,
The ruler of a race like ours,

Impatient, headstrong, wild, —
The man to guide the child!

And this he was, who most unfit
(So hard the sense of God to hit!)
Did seem to fill his place.
With such a homely face,-

Such rustic manners, speech uncouth, (That somehow blundered out the truth!) Untried, untrained to bear

The more than kingly care!

Ay! and his genius put to scorn
The proudest in the purple born,
Whose wisdom never grew

To what, untaught, he knew—

The people, of whom he was one.

No gentleman like Washington,

Whose bones, methinks, make room, To have him in their tomb!)

A laboring man, with horny hands,
Who swung the axe, who tilled his lands,
Who shrank from nothing new,
But did as poor men do!

One of the people!

Born to be

Their curious epitome;

To share, yet rise above

Their shifting hate and love.

Common his mind (it seemed so then),
His thoughts the thoughts of other men :
Plain were his words, and poor -
But now they will endure!

No hasty fool, of stubborn will,
But prudent, cautious, pliant, still;
Who, since his work was good,
Would do it, as he could.

Doubting, was not ashamed to doubt,
And, lacking prescience, went without :
Often appeared to halt,

And was, of course, at fault:

Heard all opinions, nothing loth,
And loving both sides, angered both :
Was not like justice, blind,

But watchful, clement, kind.

No hero this, of Roman mould;
Nor like our stately sires of old :
Perhaps he was not great

But he preserved the State!

O honest face, which all men knew!
O tender heart, but known to few!
O wonder of the age,

Cut off by tragic rage !

Richard Henry Stoddard

1865

By special permission of

Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons.