O Captain! My Captain!
April 15, 2020Walt Whitham |
Walt Whitman
(1819–1892)
Vol. 42, pp. 1412-1420
of The Harvard Classics
(Lincoln died April
15, 1865.)
The rugged, genuine
Lincoln was idealized by Walt Whitman - the founder of the new school
of American poetry. Two of Whitman's finest poems were inspired by
Lincoln.
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, 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.
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard
Bloom’d
1
WHEN lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d,
And the great star early droop’d in the western
sky in the night,
I mourn’d, and yet shall mourn with
ever-returning spring.
Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you
bring,
Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the
west,
And thought of him I love.
2
O powerful western fallen star!
O shades of night—O moody, tearful night!
O great star disappear’d—O the black murk that
hides the star!
O cruel hands that hold me powerless—O helpless
soul of me!
O harsh surrounding cloud that will not free my
soul.
3
In the dooryard fronting an old farm-house near the white-wash’d palings,
Stands the lilac-bush tall-growing with
heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
With many a pointed blossom rising delicate, with
the perfume strong I love,
With every leaf a miracle—and from this bush in
the dooryard,
With delicate-color’d blossoms and heart-shaped
leaves of rich green,
A sprig with its flower I break.
4
In the swamp in secluded recesses,
A shy and hidden bird is warbling a song.
Solitary the thrush,
The hermit withdrawn to himself, avoiding the
settlements,
Sings by himself a song.
Song of the bleeding throat,
Death’s outlet song of life (for well dear
brother I know,
If thou wast not granted to sing thou would’st
surely die).
5
Over the breast of the spring, the land, amid cities,
Amid lanes and through old woods, where lately the
violets peep’d from the ground, spotting the gray débris,
Amid the grass in the fields each side of the
lanes, passing the endless grass,
Passing the yellow-spear’d wheat, every grain
from its shroud in the dark-brown fields uprisen,
Passing the apple-tree blows of white and pink in
the orchards,
Carrying a corpse to where it shall rest in the
grave,
Night and day journeys a coffin.
6
Coffin that passes through lanes and streets,
Through day and night with the great cloud
darkening the land,
With the pomp of the inloop’d flags with the
cities draped in black,
With the show of the States themselves as of
crape-veil’d women standing,
With processions long and winding and the
flambeaus of the night,
With the countless torches lit, with the silent
sea of faces and the unbared heads,
With the waiting depot, the arriving coffin, and
the sombre faces,
With dirges through the night, with the thousand
voices rising strong and solemn,
With all the mournful voices of the dirges pour’d
around the coffin,
The dim-lit churches and the shuddering
organs—where amid these you journey,
With the tolling tolling bells’ perpetual clang,
Here, coffin that slowly passes,
I give you my sprig of lilac.
7
(Nor for you, for one alone,
Blossoms and branches green to coffins all I
bring,
For fresh as the morning, thus would I chant a
song for you
O sane and sacred death.
All over bouquets of roses,
O death, I cover you over with roses and early
lilies,
But mostly and now the lilac that blooms the
first,
Copious I break, I break the sprigs from the
bushes,
With loaded arms I come, pouring for you,
For you and the coffins all of you O death.)
8
O western orb sailing the heaven,
Now I know what you must have meant as a month
since I walk’d,
As I walk’d in silence the transparent shadowy
night,
As I saw you had something to tell as you bent to
me night after night,
As you droop’d from the sky low down as if to my
side (while the other stars all look’d on),
As we wander’d together the solemn night (for
something I know not what kept me from sleep),
As the night advanced, and I saw on the rim of the
west how full you were of woe,
As I stood on the rising ground in the breeze in
the cool transparent night,
As I watch’d where you pass’d and was lost in
the netherward black of the night,
As my soul in its trouble dissatisfied sank, as
where you sad orb,
Concluded, dropt in the night, and was gone.
9
Sing on there in the swamp,
O singer bashful and tender, I hear your notes, I
hear your call,
I hear, I come presently, I understand you,
But a moment I linger, for the lustrous star has
detain’d me,
The star my departing comrade holds and detains
me.
10
O how shall I warble myself for the dead one there I loved?
And how shall I deck my song for the large sweet
soul that has gone?
And what shall my perfume be for the grave of him
I love?
Sea-winds blown from east and west,
Blown from the Eastern sea and blown from the
Western sea, till there on the prairies meeting,
These and with these and the breath of my chant,
I’ll perfume the grave of him I love.
11
O what shall I hang on the chamber walls?
And what shall the pictures be that I hang on the
walls,
To adorn the burial-house of him I love?
Pictures of growing spring and farms and homes,
With the Fourth-month eve at sundown, and the gray
smoke lucid and bright,
With floods of the yellow gold of the gorgeous,
indolent, sinking sun, burning, expanding the air,
With the fresh sweet herbage under foot, and the
pale green leaves of the trees prolific,
In the distance the flowing glaze, the breast of
the river, with a wind-dapple here and there,
With ranging hills on the banks, with many a line
against the sky, and shadows,
And the city at hand with dwellings so dense, and
stacks of chimneys,
And all the scenes of life and the workshops, and
the workmen homeward returning.
12
Lo, body and soul—this land,
My own Manhattan with spires, and the sparkling
and hurrying tides, and the ships,
The varied and ample land, the South and the North
in the light, Ohio’s shores and flashing Missouri,
And ever the far-spreading prairies cover’d with
grass and corn.
Lo, the most excellent sun so calm and haughty,
The violet and purple morn with just-felt breezes,
The gentle soft-born measureless light,
The miracle spreading bathing all, the fulfill’d
noon,
The coming eve delicious, the welcome night and
the stars,
Over my cities shining all, enveloping man and
land.
13
Sing on, sing on you gray-brown bird,
Sing from the swamps, the recesses, pour your
chant from the bushes,
Limitless out of the dusk, out of the cedars and
pines.
Sing on dearest brother, warble your reedy song,
Loud human song, with voice of uttermost woe.
O liquid and free and tender!
O wild and loose to my soul—O wondrous singer!
You only I hear—yet the star holds me (but will
soon depart),
Yet the lilac with mastering odor holds me.
14
Now while I sat in the day and look’d forth,
In the close of the day with its light and the
fields of spring, and the farmers preparing their crops,
In the large unconscious scenery of my land with
its lakes and forests,
In the heavenly aerial beauty (after the perturb’d
winds and the storms),
Under the arching heavens of the afternoon swift
passing, and the voices of children and women,
The many-moving sea-tides, and I saw the ships how
they sail’d,
And the summer approaching with richness, and the
fields all busy with labor,
And the infinite separate houses, how they all
went on, each with its meals and minutia of daily usages,
And the streets how their throbbings throbb’d,
and the cities pent—lo, then and there,
Falling upon them all and among them all,
enveloping me with the rest,
Appear’d the cloud, appear’d the long black
trail,
And I knew death, its thought, and the sacred
knowledge of death.
Then with the knowledge of death as walking one
side of me,
And the thought of death close-walking the other
side of me,
And I in the middle as with companions, and as
holding the hands of companions,
I fled forth to the hiding receiving night that
talks not,
Down to the shores of the water, the path by the
swamp in the dimness,
To the solemn shadowy cedars and ghostly pines so
still.
And the singer so shy to the rest receiv’d me,
The gray-brown bird I know receiv’d us comrades
three,
And he sang the carol of death, and a verse for
him I love.
From deep secluded recesses,
From the fragrant cedars and the ghostly pines so
still,
Came the carol of the bird.
And the charm of the carol rapt me,
As I held as if by their hands my comrades in the
night,
And the voice of my spirit tallied the song of the
bird.
Come lovely and soothing death,
Undulate round the world, serenely arriving,
arriving,
In the day, in the night, to all, to each,
Sooner or later delicate death.
Prais’d be the fathomless universe,
For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge
curious,
And for love, sweet love—but praise! praise!
For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding
death.
Dark mother always gliding near with soft feet,
Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest
welcome?
Then I chant it for thee, I glorify thee above
all,
I bring thee a song that when thou must indeed
come, come unfalteringly.
Approach strong deliveress,
When it is so, when thou hast taken them I
joyously sing the dead,
Lost in the loving floating ocean of thee,
Laved in the flood of thy bliss O death.
From me to thee glad serenades,
Dances for thee I propose saluting thee,
adornments and feastings for thee,
And the sights of the open landscape and the
high-spread sky are fitting,
And life and the fields, and the huge and
thoughtful night.
The night in silence under many a star,
The ocean shore and the husky whispering wave
whose voice I know,
And the soul turning to thee O vast and
well-veil’d death,
And the body gratefully nestling close to thee.
Over the tree-tops I float thee a song,
Over the rising and sinking waves, over the
myriad fields and the prairies wide,
Over the dense-pack’d cities all and the
teeming wharves and ways,
I float this carol with joy, with joy to thee O
death.
15
To the tally of my soul,
Loud and strong kept up the gray-brown bird,
With pure deliberate notes spreading filling the
night.
Loud in the pines and cedars dim,
Clear in the freshness moist and the swamp
perfume,
And I with my comrades there in the night.
While my sight that was bound in my eyes unclosed,
As to long panoramas of visions.
And I saw askant the armies,
I saw as in noiseless dreams hundreds of
battle-flags,
Borne through the smoke of the battles and pierc’d
with missiles I saw them,
And carried hither and you through the smoke, and
torn and bloody,
And at last but a few shreds left on the staffs
(and all in silence),
And the staffs all splinter’d and broken.
I saw battle-corpses, myriads of them,
And the white skeletons of young men, I saw them,
I saw the débris and débris of all the slain
soldiers of the war,
But I saw they were not as was thought,
They themselves were fully at rest, they suffer’d
not,
The living remain’d and suffer’d, the mother
suffer’d,
And the wife and the child and the musing comrade
suffer’d,
And the armies that remain’d suffer’d.
16
Passing the visions, passing the night,
Passing, unloosing the hold of my comrades’
hands,
Passing the song of the hermit bird and the
tallying song of my soul,
Victorious song, death’s outlet song, yet
varying ever-altering song,
As low and wailing, yet clear the notes, rising
and falling, flooding the night,
Sadly sinking and fainting, as warning and
warning, and yet again bursting with joy,
Covering the earth and filling the spread of the
heaven,
As that powerful psalm in the night I heard from
recesses,
Passing, I leave thee lilac with heart-shaped
leaves,
I leave thee there in the door-yard, blooming,
returning with spring.
I cease from my song for thee,
From my gaze on thee in the west, fronting the
west, communing with thee,
O comrade lustrous with silver face in the night.
Yet each to keep and all, retrievements out of the
night,
The song, the wondrous chant of the gray-brown
bird,
And the tallying chant, the echo arous’d in my
soul,
With the lustrous and drooping star with the
countenance full of woe,
With the holders holding my hand nearing the call
of the bird,
Comrades mine and I in the midst, and their memory
ever to keep, for the dead I loved so well,
For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and
lands—and this for his dear sake,
Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of
my soul,
There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk
and dim.
0 comments