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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman
Born on May 31, 1819, Walt Whitman was the second son of Walter Whitman, a housebuilder, and Louisa Van Velsor. The family, which consisted of nine children, lived in Brooklyn and Long...
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FURTHER READING
Poems About Funerals
"To Sleep I give my powers away" from In Memoriam
by Lord Alfred Tennyson
A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London
by Dylan Thomas
Because I could not stop for Death (712)
by Emily Dickinson
Bomb Crater Sky
by Lam Thi My Da
For the Union Dead
by Robert Lowell
Fugue of Death
by Paul Celan
In Flanders Fields
by John McCrae
Question
by May Swenson
What Came to Me
by Jane Kenyon
Related Prose
Dead Poets Society
From Rose, Where Did You Get That Red?
by Kenneth Koch
Groundbreaking Book: Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman (1855)
Poetic Form: Elegy
Other Elegies
Elegy
by Thomas Gray
For the Union Dead
by Robert Lowell
Fugue of Death
by Paul Celan
In Memory of W. B. Yeats
by W. H. Auden
The Role of Elegy
by Mary Jo Bang
To An Athlete Dying Young
by A. E. Housman
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O Captain! My Captain!  
by Walt Whitman

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.
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