While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won, O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, However, many of his readers have disagreed, and think this among his finest.Įven those who aren’t familiar with Walt Whitman’s poems may recognise this, thanks to its use in the 1989 Robin Williams film Dead Poets Society: An example of the pastoral elegy, this poem wasn’t considered one of Whitman’s best poems by Whitman himself. The final version is divided into 16 sections, although originally it had 21 Whitman was known for revising his work after its initial publication. The poem’s structure changed slightly over time. This appears to have been the starting-point for Whitman’s elegy for Lincoln, although he didn’t actually complete the poem until some months later. At the time, Whitman was visiting his mother and brother at his mother’s home in New York he stepped out the door and observed that the lilacs were blooming. Whitman’s title, ‘When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d’, refers to the moment he learned that President Abraham Lincoln had died, in April 1865. Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west, I mourn’d, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.Įver-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring, When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d,Īnd the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night,
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