In the 1850's and 1860's Edwin Booth and his younger brother John Wilkes Booth were considered to be two of the
finest actors in America. The Civil War divided many families, including the Booths. continued
here.
O
Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weathered 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 ribboned
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 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.
Walt Whitman was an American poet, journalist and essayist,
best known for LEAVES OF GRASS (1855), which was occasionally banned ...
Harold Bloom has stated in The Western Canon (1994) that "no Western poet, in the past century
and half, not even Browning, or Leopardi or
Baudelaire, overshadows Walt
Whitman or Emily Dickinson."
