{"id":185,"date":"2025-08-17T19:07:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-17T19:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/?page_id=185"},"modified":"2025-10-27T13:33:56","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T13:33:56","slug":"walt-whitman-o-captain-my-captain-1865","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/texts\/walt-whitman-o-captain-my-captain-1865\/","title":{"rendered":"Walt Whitman, \u201cO Captain! My Captain! (1865)"},"content":{"rendered":"

INTRODUCTION<\/h3>\n
\n
\n
\"Whitman\"<\/a>
Walt Whitman (Britannica)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Walt Whitman<\/a> (1819 \u2013 1892) grew up in Long Island and Brooklyn, New York, apprenticing to become a printer until he turned to teaching and then eventually to journalism.\u00a0 Regardless, Whitman was devoted to reading and writing from an early age.\u00a0 He self-published his first volume of poetry, Leaves of Grass,\u00a0<\/em>in 1855 (where \u201cSong of Myself\u201d first appeared, untitled) and then kept revising and expanding the volume over the remaining decades of his life.\u00a0 During the Civil War, Whitman returned to newspaper work, writing for New York newspapers as an occasional correspondent based in Washington, where he also volunteered as a nurse in wartime hospitals.\u00a0 \u00a0In the summer of 1863, Whitman wrote a column for the New York Times<\/em><\/a> describing Abraham Lincoln, whom he noted he saw \u201calmost every day\u201d as the president rode into the White House from his summer cottage at the Soldiers\u2019 Home, a military community on the outskirts of town (and like a 19th-century Camp David presidential retreat).\u00a0 “O, Captain! My Captain!” was Whitman’s elegy to Lincoln after his assassination in 1865. Whitman lived in Washington for years following Lincoln’s death, before eventually settling in New Jersey.\u00a0 Whitman became celebrated as an American poet while he was alive during the decades after the Civil War.\u00a0 Dubbed \u201cAmerica\u2019s world poet,\u201d by the Poetry Foundation<\/a>, and exalted as \u201ca latter-day successor to Homer, Virgil, Dante, and Shakespeare,\u201d Whitman today is regarded by many critics as the nation\u2019s greatest poet.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

O Captain! My Captain!<\/strong><\/h3>\n

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,<\/span>
\nThe ship has weather\u2019d every rack, the prize we sought is won,<\/span>
\nThe port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,<\/span>
\nWhile follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;<\/span>
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0But O heart! heart! heart!<\/span>
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0O the bleeding drops of red,<\/span>
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Where on the deck my Captain lies,<\/span>
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Fallen cold and dead.<\/span><\/p>\n

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;<\/span>
\nRise up- for you the flag is flung- for you the bugle trills,<\/span>
\nFor you bouquets and ribbon\u2019d wreaths- for you the shores a-crowding,<\/span>
\nFor you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;<\/span>
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Here Captain! dear father!<\/span>
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0This arm beneath your head!<\/span>
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0It is some dream that on the deck,<\/span>
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0You\u2019ve fallen cold and dead.<\/span><\/p>\n

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,<\/span>
\nMy father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,<\/span>
\nThe ship is anchor\u2019d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,<\/span>
\nFrom fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;<\/span>
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Exult O shores, and ring O bells!<\/span>
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0But I with mournful tread,<\/span>
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Walk the deck my Captain lies,<\/span>
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Fallen cold and dead.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

INTRODUCTION Walt Whitman (1819 \u2013 1892) grew up in Long Island and Brooklyn, New York, apprenticing to become a printer until he turned to teaching and then eventually to journalism.\u00a0 Regardless, Whitman was devoted to reading and writing from an early age.\u00a0 He self-published his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":373,"featured_media":0,"parent":258,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-185","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/373"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1086,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/185\/revisions\/1086"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}