Exult, O shores! and ring, O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

WALT WHITMAN.

HELPS TO STUDY

Just after the Civil War ended, Lincoln, who had guided the nation through this critical period with a strong and kindly hand, was shot while witnessing a play in a theater in Washington. The deep grief of the nation was expressed in many ways, but in no form so widely known as this poem of Walt Whitman's. Whitman had spent most of his time during the war in visiting and cheering the sick and wounded soldiers in the hospitals at Washington. He had met Lincoln and admired him for his wisdom and his humanity.

though his name does not occur in the

The poem compares Lincoln poem to a captain who has brought his ship safely into port through a rough and dangerous passage, only to die himself at the end of the voyage. Almost all of Whitman's poems are written without rhyme and in irregular meter; they are so different from other poetry that one knows a Whitman poem as soon as he sees it. But here the meter is regular, and the rhyme scheme holds for all the lines except the third and fourth of the first stanza and the first half of the second stanza. 1. What does the ship represent? What experiences has it been through? Tell exactly what this means. 2. For what is there rejoicing? What does this mean? 3. What contrast is there between the first half and the second in each of the first two stanzas? 4. What is there in the form of the stanzas that helps you to feel the contrast? 5. The poet writes as if he alone felt grief: could this be true? Or could it mean that his own grief is so great that he can think of nothing else?

WHITMAN

Walt Whitman (1819-1892) was born on Long Island, of Quaker parents. His boyhood was spent on the farm, and he later worked as carpenter, printer, and journalist. During one winter he drove a stage on Broadway, New York, in order to keep the position and the money for the regular driver, who was sick. He loved to wander about the streets and wharves of the great city, seeing the crowds and making friends with every one, especially with the ordinary workmen. He found something to be liked and admired in every one.

When the Civil War came he went to Washington to help nurse the sick and wounded soldiers. To him, Union and Confederate soldiers were alike. They were brave men, each fighting for what he thought was the right, and each in need of help and sympathy. He sat up with them, wrote letters for them, brought them flowers and fruit, and cheered them in every way. When he would leave the hospital, there would be calls from all around: “Come again, Walt, come again!”

His health broke under the strain, though he partly recovered. He grew gray early in life, and used to be called “the good, gray poet." He spent the later years of his life in Camden, N. J.

There is not much of his poetry that you would care for now. Later, when you have grown older and have read more, you will appreciate some of it very much.

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THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD

The muffled drum's sad roll has beat
The soldier's last tattoo;

No more on life's parade shall meet
That brave and fallen few.
On Fame's eternal camping ground
Their silent tents are spread,

And glory guards, with solemn round,
The bivouac of the dead.

No rumor of the foe's advance

Now swells upon the wind;

No troubled thought at midnight haunts
Of loved ones left behind;

No vision of the morrow's strife

The warrior's dream alarms;
No braying horn or screaming fife
At dawn shall call to arms.

Their shivered swords are red with rust;
Their plumèd heads are bowed;
Their haughty banner, trailed in dust,

Is now their martial shroud;

And plenteous funeral tears have washed
The red stains from each brow;

And the proud forms, by battle gashed,
Are free from anguish now.