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.
7 comments:
interesting. what does this poem mean to you?
The poem was written by Walt Whitman at the assassination of Abraham Lincoln; some say that it also addresses the death of Whitmans father. To me it speaks of a sacrifice that was made at great cost for a dream to be won. We celebrate a victory in battle, bravely fought. Myself and others have invested our lives for nine years in a dream. We have seen it become something greater that what we imagined but on the way we lost our captain. Will we remember the sacrifice that was made?
Except our captain is alive, with a beautiful life before him, not dead at all.
well, that's the thing with poetry, it's not taken literally but figuratively.
I do love poetry.
Thanks Sue
often a poem or song will echo the feeling in our heart and express it in a way our own words cannot
but how can we say to God, "the cost is too high?" when He has given His all for us?
I find that I can write easilier than I can speak things. I stuggled with a poem but I still think that it would have been harder to express it in words.
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