Walt Whitman

[JAGwinn]

O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!

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.​

Biographical and Historical: Walt Whitman will always be remembered as the author of this poem. It differs from his other poems in that it shows a great deal of attention to form, to metre, and rhyme. He wrote not so much with the aim to please as to arouse and uplift. He was very democratic in his taste, and loved to mingle with the crowds on the ferries and omnibuses. At different times he was school teacher, carpenter, and journalist. This poem was written in appreciation of Lincoln, at the time of his death.

WALT WHITMAN​

I first heard of him among the sufferers on the Peninsula [Footnote: Peninsula: that part of Virginia between the York and James rivers.] after a battle there. Subsequently I saw him, time and again, in the Washington hospitals, or wending his way there, with basket or haversack [Footnote: Haversack: a bag in which a soldier carried his rations when on a march.] on his arm, and the strength of beneficence suffusing his face. His devotion surpassed the devotion of woman. It would take a volume to tell of his kindness, tenderness, and thoughtfulness.

Never shall I forget one night when I accompanied him on his rounds through a hospital filled with those wounded young Americans whose heroism he has sung in deathless numbers. There were three rows of cots, and each cot bore its man. When he appeared, in passing along, there was a smile of affection and welcome on every face, however wan, and his presence seemed to light up the place as it might be lighted by the presence of the God of Love. From cot to cot they called him, often in tremulous tones or in whispers; they embraced him; they touched his hand; they gazed at him. To one he gave a few words of cheer; for another he wrote a letter home; to others he gave an orange, a few comfits, [Footnote: Comfits: sweetmeats.] a cigar, a pipe and tobacco, a sheet of paper or a postage-stamp, all of which and many other things were in his capacious haversack. From another he would receive a dying message for mother, wife, or sweetheart; for another he would promise to go an errand; [Footnote: To go an errand. What is the usual form?] to another, some special friend very low, he would give a manly farewell kiss. He did things for them no nurse or doctor could do, and he seemed to leave a benediction [Footnote: Benediction: blessing.] at every cot as he passed along. The lights had gleamed for hours in the hospital that night before he left it, and, as he took his way towards the door, you could hear the voices of many a stricken hero calling, "Walt, Walt, Walt! come again! come again!"

He carried among them no sentimentalism nor moralizing; spoke not to any man of his "sins," but gave something good to eat, a buoying [Footnote: Buoying: enlivening, cheering.] word, or trifling gift and a look. He appeared with ruddy face, clean dress, with a flower or a green sprig in the lapel of his coat. Crossing the fields in summer, he would gather a great bunch of dandelion blossoms, and red and while clover, to bring and scatter on the cots, as reminders of out-door air and sunshine.

When practicable, he came to the long and crowded wards of the maimed, the feeble, and the dying, only after preparations as for a festival—strengthened by a good meal, rest, the bath and fresh under-clothes. He entered with a huge haversack slung over his shoulder full of appropriate articles, with parcels under his arms, and protuberant [Footnote: Protuberant: bulging.] pockets. He would sometimes come in summer with a good-sized basket filled with oranges, and would go round for hours paring and dividing them among the feverish and thirsty.

Walt Whitman was of the people, the common people, and always gave out their quality and atmosphere. His commonness, his nearness, as of the things you have always known,—the day, the sky, the soil, your own parents,—were in no way veiled, or kept in abeyance, by his culture or poetic gifts. He was redolent of the human and the familiar. Though capable, on occasions, of great pride and hauteur, yet his habitual mood and presence was that of simple, average, healthful humanity,—the virtue and flavor of sailors, soldiers, laborers, travelers, or people who live with real things in the open air. His commonness rose into the uncommon, the extraordinary, but without any hint of the exclusive or specially favored. He was indeed "no sentimentalist, no stander above men and women or apart from them."

The spirit that animates every page of his book, and that it always effuses, [Footnote: Effuses: sheds, pours out.] is the spirit of common, universal humanity,—humanity apart from creed, schools, conventions, from all special privileges and refinements, as it is in and of itself in its relations to the whole system of things, in contradistinction to the literature of culture which effuses the spirit of the select and exclusive.

His life was the same. Walt Whitman never stood apart from or above any human being. The common people—workingmen, the poor, the illiterate, the outcast—saw themselves in him, and he saw himself in them: the attraction was mutual. He was always content with common, unadorned humanity.

—JOHN BURROUGHS (adapted).

 

[Cavalry Charger]

Quite a eulogy to Whitman. His presence certainly made a difference, and his poetry carried that presence into literature.

 

[John Hartwell]

"The Good Gray Poet" was one of the Great Souls of the Civil War period. John Burroughs' tribute is, if anything, understated. Whitman literally ruined his own health serving the sick and wounded in Washington's hospitals, blue and gray alike.

Walt Whitman in 1855​

Bigots will try to belittle his dedication because he was gay. But, they only show their smallness of spirit.

"O the sad, sad things I see--the noble young men with legs and arms taken off--the deaths--the sick weakness, sicker than death, that some endure, after amputations...just flickering alive, and O so deathly weak and sick." (1863 letter to his mother)

I strongly recommend the very readable Walt Whitman's Civil War, by Walter Lowenfels, and Ted Genoways' more recent Walt Whitman and the Civil War.

 

[Cavalry Charger]

Bigots will try to belittle his dedication because he was gay. But, they only show their smallness of spirit.

I think we let his poetry speak for itself. His compassionate actions have nothing to do with his sexuality, but his humanity. As much as we can leave that at the door, perhaps we can also leave other references at the door which only muddy the waters of appreciation.

 

[wbull1]

A man worthy of respect.

 

[Dom71]

We here are very aware of Walt Whitman, as his name precedes malls, schools, etc. etc.. One of Long Island favorite sons.

Strange, (is it not?) that battles, martyrs, blood, even assassination should so condense - perhaps only really lastingly condense - a Nationality
Walt Whitman