To-day, from each and all, a breath of prayer
—a pulse of thought,
To memory of Him—to birth of Him.
O Captain! My Captain!The ship has weathered 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 ribboned 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 anchored 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.
by Walt Whitman
When
lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd,
And the great star early
droop'd in the western sky in the night,
I mourn'd, and yet shall
mourn with ever-returning spring.
Ever-returning spring, trinity
sure to me you bring,
Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star
in the west,
And thought of him I love.
O
powerful western fallen star!
O shades of night--O moody, tearful
night!
O great star disappear'd--O the black murk that hides the
star!
O cruel hands that hold me powerless--O helpless soul of
me!
O harsh surrounding cloud that will not free my soul.
In
the dooryard fronting an old farm-house near the white-wash'd
palings,
Stands the lilac-bush tall-growing with heart-shaped
leaves of rich green,
With many a pointed blossom rising delicate,
with the perfume strong I
love,
With every leaf a miracle--and
from this bush in the dooryard,
With delicate-color'd blossoms and
heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
A sprig with its flower I
break.
In
the swamp in secluded recesses,
A shy and hidden bird is warbling
a song.
Solitary the thrush,
The hermit withdrawn to himself,
avoiding the settlements,
Sings by himself a song.
Song of the
bleeding throat,
Death's outlet song of life, (for well dear
brother I know,
If thou wast not granted to sing thou wouldist
surely die.)
Over the breast of the spring, the land, amid
cities,
Amid lanes and through old woods, where lately the violets
peep'd
from the ground, spotting the gray debris,
Amid the
grass in the fields each side of the lanes, passing the
endless
grass,
Passing the yellow-spear'd wheat, every grain from its
shroud in the
dark-brown fields uprisen,
Passing the apple-tree
blows of white and pink in the orchards,
Carrying a corpse to
where it shall rest in the grave,
Night and day journeys a
coffin.
Coffin that passes through lanes and streets,
Through
day and night with the great cloud darkening the land,
With the
pomp of the inloop'd flags with the cities draped in black,
With
the show of the States themselves as of crape-veil'd women standing,
With
the countless torches lit, with the silent sea of faces and
the
unbared heads,
With the waiting depot, the arriving coffin,
and the sombre faces,
With dirges through the night, with the
thousand voices rising strong
and solemn,
With all the mournful
voices of the dirges pour'd around the coffin,
The dim-lit
churches and the shuddering organs--where amid these
you
journey,
With the tolling tolling bells' perpetual clang,
Here,
coffin that slowly passes,
I give you my sprig of lilac.
(Nor
for you, for one alone,
Blossoms and branches green to coffins all
I bring,
For fresh as the morning, thus would I chant a song for
you O sane
and sacred death.
All over bouquets of roses,
O
death, I cover you over with roses and early lilies,
But mostly
and now the lilac that blooms the first,
Copious I break, I break
the sprigs from the bushes,
With loaded arms I come, pouring for
you,
For you and the coffins all of you O death.)
O
western orb sailing the heaven,
Now I know what you must have
meant as a month since I walk'd,
As I walk'd in silence the
transparent shadowy night,
As I saw you had something to tell as
you bent to me night after night,
As you droop'd from the sky low
down as if to my side, (while the
other stars all look'd on,)
As
we wander'd together the solemn night, (for something I know not
what
kept me from sleep,)
As the night advanced, and I saw on the rim
of the west how full you
were of woe,
As I stood on the rising
ground in the breeze in the cool transparent
night,
As I
watch'd where you pass'd and was lost in the netherward black
of
the night,
As my soul in its trouble dissatisfied sank, as where
you sad orb,
Concluded, dropt in the night, and was gone.
Sing
on there in the swamp,
O singer bashful and tender, I hear your
notes, I hear your call,
I hear, I come presently, I understand
you,
But a moment I linger, for the lustrous star has detain'd
me,
The star my departing comrade holds and detains me.
And how
shall I deck my song for the large sweet soul that has gone?
And
what shall my perfume be for the grave of him I love?
Sea-winds
blown from east and west,
Blown from the Eastern sea and blown
from the Western sea, till
there on the prairies meeting,
These
and with these and the breath of my chant,
I'll perfume the grave
of him I love.
O
what shall I hang on the chamber walls?
And what shall the
pictures be that I hang on the walls,
To adorn the burial-house of
him I love?
Pictures of growing spring and farms and homes,
With
the Fourth-month eve at sundown, and the gray smoke lucid and
bright,
With floods of the yellow gold of the gorgeous, indolent,
sinking
sun, burning, expanding the air,
With the fresh sweet
herbage under foot, and the pale green leaves
of the trees
prolific,
In the distance the flowing glaze, the breast of the
river, with a
wind-dapple here and there,
With ranging hills on
the banks, with many a line against the sky,
and shadows,
And
the city at hand with dwellings so dense, and stacks of chimneys,
And
all the scenes of life and the workshops, and the workmen
homeward
returning.
Lo,
body and soul--this land,
My own Manhattan with spires, and the
sparkling and hurrying tides,
and the ships,
The varied and
ample land, the South and the North in the light,
Ohio's shores
and flashing Missouri,
And ever the far-spreading prairies cover'd
with grass and corn.
Lo, the most excellent sun so calm and
haughty,
The violet and purple morn with just-felt breezes,
The
gentle soft-born measureless light,
The miracle spreading bathing
all, the fulfill'd noon,
The coming eve delicious, the welcome
night and the stars,
Over my cities shining all, enveloping man
and land.
Sing
on, sing on you gray-brown bird,
Sing from the swamps, the
recesses, pour your chant from the bushes,
Limitless out of the
dusk, out of the cedars and pines.
Sing on dearest brother, warble
your reedy song,
Loud human song, with voice of uttermost woe.
O
liquid and free and tender!
O wild and loose to my soul--O
wondrous singer!
You only I hear--yet the star holds me, (but will
soon depart,)
Yet the lilac with mastering odor holds me.
Now
while I sat in the day and look'd forth,
In the close of the day
with its light and the fields of spring, and
the farmers preparing
their crops,
In the large unconscious scenery of my land with its
lakes and forests,
In the heavenly aerial beauty, (after the
perturb'd winds and the storms,)
Under the arching heavens of the
afternoon swift passing, and the
voices of children and women,
The
many-moving sea-tides, and I saw the ships how they sail'd,
And
the summer approaching with richness, and the fields all busy
with
labor,
And the infinite separate houses, how they all went on,
each with
its meals and minutia of daily usages,
And the
streets how their throbbings throbb'd, and the cities pent--
lo,
then and there,
Falling upon them all and among them all,
enveloping me with the rest,
Appear'd the cloud, appear'd the long
black trail,
And I knew death, its thought, and the sacred
knowledge of death.
Then with the knowledge of death as walking
one side of me,
And the thought of death close-walking the other
side of me,
And I in the middle as with companions, and as holding
the hands of
companions,
I fled forth to the hiding receiving
night that talks not,
Down to the shores of the water, the path by
the swamp in the dimness,
To the solemn shadowy cedars and ghostly
pines so still.
And the singer so shy to the rest receiv'd me,
The
gray-brown bird I know receiv'd us comrades three,
And he sang the
carol of death, and a verse for him I love.
From deep secluded
recesses,
From the fragrant cedars and the ghostly pines so
still,
Came the carol of the bird.
And the charm of the carol
rapt me,
As I held as if by their hands my comrades in the
night,
And the voice of my spirit tallied the song of the
bird.
Come lovely and soothing death,
Undulate round the world,
serenely arriving, arriving,
In the day, in the night, to all, to
each,
Sooner or later delicate death.
Prais'd be the fathomless
universe,
For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge
curious,
And for love, sweet love--but praise! praise! praise!
For
the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death.
Dark mother
always gliding near with soft feet,
Have none chanted for thee a
chant of fullest welcome?
Then I chant it for thee, I glorify thee
above all,
I bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come,
come unfalteringly.
Approach strong deliveress,
When it is so,
when thou hast taken them I joyously sing the dead,
Lost in the
loving floating ocean of thee,
Laved in the flood of thy bliss O
death.
From me to thee glad serenades,
Dances for thee I
propose saluting thee, adornments and feastings for
thee,
And
the sights of the open landscape and the high-spread shy are
fitting,
And life and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful
night.
The night in silence under many a star,
The ocean shore
and the husky whispering wave whose voice I know,
And the soul
turning to thee O vast and well-veil'd death,
And the body
gratefully nestling close to thee.
Over the tree-tops I float thee
a song,
Over the rising and sinking waves, over the myriad fields
and the
prairies wide,
Over the dense-pack'd cities all and the
teeming wharves and ways,
I float this carol with joy, with joy to
thee O death.
O the tally of my soul,
Loud and strong kept up the gray-brown
bird,
With pure deliberate notes spreading filling the night.
Loud
in the pines and cedars dim,
Clear in the freshness moist and the
swamp-perfume,
And I with my comrades there in the night.
While
my sight that was bound in my eyes unclosed,
As to long panoramas
of visions.
And I saw askant the armies,
I saw as in noiseless
dreams hundreds of battle-flags,
Borne through the smoke of the
battles and pierc'd with missiles I saw
them,
And carried
hither and yon through the smoke, and torn and bloody,
And at last
but a few shreds left on the staffs, (and all in silence,)
And the
staffs all splinter'd 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 the slain soldiers of the war,
But I
saw they were not as was thought,
They themselves were fully at
rest, they suffer'd not,
The living remain'd and suffer'd, the
mother suffer'd,
And the wife and the child and the musing comrade
suffer'd,
And the armies that remain'd suffer'd.
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,
Passing, I
leave thee lilac with heart-shaped leaves,
I leave thee there in
the door-yard, blooming, returning with spring.
I cease 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.
Yet each to keep and all, retrievements out of the
night,
The song, the wondrous chant of the gray-brown bird,
And
the tallying chant, the echo arous'd in my soul,
With the lustrous
and drooping star with the countenance full of woe,
With the
holders holding my hand nearing the call of the bird,
Comrades
mine and I in the midst, and their memory ever to 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,
There in the fragrant pines and
the cedars dusk and dim.
GLYNN BRAMAN 
