| O Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done, |
| 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 or 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. |
| |
| Walt Whitman. |
| For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see, |
| Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be; |
| Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails, |
| Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales; |
| Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rained a ghastly dew |
| From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue; |
| Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm, |
| With the standards of the peoples plunging through the thunderstorm; |
| Till the war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the battleflags were furl'd |
| In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world. |
| There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe, |
| And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law. |
| |
| Tennyson, "Locksley Hall," 1842. |