]
_O CAPTAIN!
_O CAPTAIN!
Whitman
18.
I saw the vision of armies;
And I saw, as in noiseless dreams, hundreds of battle-flags;
Borne through the smoke of the battles, and pierced with missiles, I saw
them,
And carried hither and yon through the smoke, and torn and bloody;
And at last but a few shreds of the flags left on the staffs, (and all in
silence,)
And the staffs all splintered and broken.
I saw battle-corpses, myriads of them,
And the white skeletons of young men--I saw them;
I saw the debris and debris of all dead soldiers.
But I saw they were not as was thought;
They themselves were fully at rest--they suffered not;
The living remained and suffered--the mother suffered,
And the wife and the child, and the musing comrade suffered,
And the armies that remained suffered.
19.
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.
20.
Must I leave thee, lilac with heart-shaped leaves?
Must I leave thee there in the door-yard, blooming, returning with spring?
Must I pass 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?
21.
Yet each I keep, and all;
The song, the wondrous chant of the grey-brown bird,
And the tallying chant, the echo aroused in my soul,
With the lustrous and drooping star, with the countenance full of woe;
With the lilac tali, and its blossoms of mastering odour;
Comrades mine, and I in the midst, and their memory ever I 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,
With the holders holding my hand, nearing the call of the bird,
There in the fragrant pines, and the cedars dusk and dim.
[Footnote 1: "The evening star, which, as many may remember night after
night, in the early part of that eventful spring, hung low in the west with
unusual and tender brightness. "--JOHN BURROUGHS.
]
_O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN! _
(FOR THE DEATH OF LINCOLN. )
1.
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done!
The ship has weathered every wrack, 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!
Leave you not the little spot
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
2.
O Captain! my Captain!
