O Captain! My Captain!

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Facsimile of the Author's Proof.

"O Captain! My Captain!" is a poem by Walt Whitman. It was written in homage to U.S. President Abraham Lincoln after his assassination in 1865, and was first published the same year in an appendix attached to the latest version of Whitman's continually expanding anthology, Leaves of Grass.

The poem consists of three stanzas, its layout appearing like a ship approaching its destination, and begins with the famous apostrophe of its title:

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;

The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;

[edit] Full poem

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.

II.

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.

III.

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.

[edit] References in popular culture

After the assassination of Israel's Prime Minister Itzhak Rabin in 1995, the famous Israeli song writer Naomi Shemer translated the poem into Hebrew and composed her own melody, making it a popular song in memorial services.

One of the best-known instances in which popular culture has appropriated the apostrophe and exploited its historical connotations is the film Dead Poets Society. On the first day of his return to his alma mater as a prep school English teacher, John Keating (played by Robin Williams) invites his students to call him "O Captain! My Captain!". Keating is apparently bent on transforming the lives of his students, in the emancipatory style of a Lincoln, so that they might learn to think individually and recognize the urgency of carpe diem, instead of being enslaved to custom or fashion and leading "lives of quiet desperation" (Thoreau, Walden). Although the invitation is initially treated as a gimmick by most of his charges, it later becomes a poignant, heroic and almost immortalizing slogan for the students when the school administration blames and fires Keating for exhorting the pupils to hedonism and insolence in their attempts to seize the day. The film was parodied in an episode of Family Guy in a scene which also made reference to the poem.

In the 1993 TV-series Wild Palms the poem O Captain! My Captain! is repeatedly used as a prayer by the "Friends" faction.

In the Batman storyarch "Hush", Bruce Wayne recites "O Captain! My Captain!" at the funeral of Thomas Elliot. When Selina Kyle objects to the reading, Leslie Thompkins reveals that this poem is one of Bruce's favorites.

The Leonard Cohen song "The Captain" is a homage to this poem, it appears on his album Various Positions.

In the TV series Full House, Uncle Jesse memorizes "O Captain! My Captain!" for his English class during his efforts to earn his high school diploma. He confidently recites the opening lines, but is speechless when the teacher asks him what the poem is about.

In the James Tiptree, Jr. short story "Houston, Houston, Do You Read?", Lorimer remembers the line "... on the deck my captain lies" after subduing Major Davis, who floats near him in the zero-gravity of the clones' ship, Gloria.

In the episode "They Keep Killing Suzie" of the BBC TV series Torchwood, Suzie uses the first words in her last speech addressed to Captain Jack, who is shooting her at the time.

In Enter The Matrix, the first video game spinoff of The Matrix series, the Operator of the Logos, Sparks speaks the line:
"Your wish, Captain, my Captain, is my keystroke, colon, double backslash, execute, command."

The Chicago based punk rock band, The Lawrence Arms, reference this poem in their song 'Necrotism: Decanting The Insalubrious (Cyborg Midnight) Part 7'. It is likely that the song itself was inspired by this poem.

In Baldur's Gate II, a Beholder in the Underdark addresses a Drow officer with the phrase "O Captain! my Captain!"; the Drow officer then asks the Beholder why it speaks so oddly.