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! | 5 |
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; | 10 |
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, | 15 |
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; | 20 |
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells! | |
But I, with mournful tread, | |
Walk the deck my Captain lies, | |
Fallen cold and dead. |
Whitman wrote this poem after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln; it was translated into Hebrew by poet and songwriter Naomi Shemer; she dedicated it to the memory of Yitzhak Rabin after his assassination, 14 years ago tonight (following the Hebrew calender).
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