WALT WHITMAN     LITERARY FILE    Poetry    "O Captain! My Captain!" printed with A Ms. corrections, Feb. 1888
Box 1 Folder 8
(LC Catalog # 304)O the bleeding drops of red!

O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!
BY WALT WHITMAN
I.
O CAPTAIN! my captain! our fearful trip is done[!];
The ship has weathered every [w]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!
[Leave you not the little spot] 
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 your bouquets and ribboned wreaths, for you the shores a-crowding:
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning.
O captain! dear father!
This arm  [I push beneath you] 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.
[But the ship,] 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 silent tread,
Walk the spot my captain lies
Fallen cold and dead.Camden New Jersey Feb: 9 '88

Dear Sirs

Thank you for the little books, 
No. 32 "Riverside Literature Series" —
Somehow you have got a couple of 
bad perversions in "O Captain', and I
send you a corrected sheet.

Walt WhitmanMemorandum

From Chief, Accessions Division
To the Acting Chief, Manuscript Division
November 10, 1937

As a matter of record, I have been instructed by Dr. Putnam to inform you of the receipt of the manuscripts described below, which, according to his instructions, have been sent to the Rare Book Room:

1. The proof of Walt Whitman's poem "O Captain! My Captain!" bearing several important corrections in Whitman's hand and with an autograph letter from him to the printer on the verso. (This is a gift from Mrs. Dwight W. Morrow, but we are specifically cautioned by the Librarian to treat the gift as confidential and to give absolutely no publicity to it)

2. A manuscript copy of Edwin Markham's poem "Ode to Lincoln", known also as "Lincoln--The Man of the People", in the poet's handwriting. (This is a gift from Mrs. Florence Hamilton, who was Edwin Markham's secretary for many years)

Photostatic (positive) reproductions of Dr. Joseph Auslander's descriptions of these two gifts are sent you herewith for your files.

3. Framed autograph copy of "The Man with the Hoe", in its final form, inscribed to Florence Hamilton by the author and dated April 23, 1933. (In black wooden frame, under glass)

4. Manuscript of "The Man with the Hoe" by Edwin Markham. A sheet constituting what Mr. Markham termed his "field notes", indicating the first draft, and, with his successive corrections, the gradual evolution of the poem into its final form. (Written on both sides of a single sheet, protected under isinglass)

Note: The two manuscripts of "The Man with the Hoe", are also gifts from Mrs. Florence Hamilton.

Linn R. Blanchard,
Chief, Division of Accessions.[*Ac. 5736*]The Library of Congress * Washington

Office of the Consultant
In English Poetry

O Captain! My Captain!

[The Proof of] Whitman's Most Famous Poem, sternly corrected by the Poet, 
with the following autograph letter on the verso:

"Camden, New Jersey, Feb. 9. '88.
Dear Sirs,
Thank you for the little books, No. 32 'Riverside Literature Series' (Lincoln's 'Gettysburg Speech and Other Papers') --Somehow you have got a couple of bad perversions in 'O Captain', & I send you the corrected sheet.
Walt Whitman."

In the three stanzas of Whitman's great poem the printer has made nine errors. These the poet has corrected, in his autograph. Three of the errors are serious, and two so disastrous that they called forth Whitman's sharp comment. He has crossed them out firmly and has written the correct test in the margin:

".......But O heart! heart! heart!
[Leave you not the little spot] O the bleeding drops of red!
Where on the deck my captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
.........................
O captain! dear father!
This arm [I push beneath you] beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck 
You've fallen cold and dead....."

This [proof] is not only of extraordinary interest and importance, but is a touching and beautiful memento of Whitman and Lincoln. It is a crystalization of one of the momentous events in America, both as to its historical and its literary import.

O Captain! My Captain! has long been Whitman's most popular poem. It is read, and most likely, memorized, at some time or another, by every school-child in the United States. This poem, and his longer dirge, When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed, his Lincoln lectures, and his numerous articles both in magazines and newspapers, are the Good Gray Poet's wreathes and remembrances to the man who was, to him, far more than the ordinary hero. One of Whitman's newspaper columns reads thus, in part:

" -- the grand deaths of the race -- the dramatic deaths of every nationality -- are its most important inheritance-value -- in some respects, beyond itsTHE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS * WASHINGTON

OFFICE OF THE CONSULTANT
IN ENGLISH POETRY

literature and art — (as the hero is beyond his finest portrait,
and the battle itself beyond its choicest song or epic). Is not
here the point underlying all tragedy? the famous pieces of the
Grecian Masters — and all masters? Why, if the old Greeks had had
this man, what trilogies of plays — what epics — would have
been made out of him! How the rhapsodes would have recited him!
How quickly the quaint tall form would have entered into the region
where men vitalize gods, and gods divinity men!

Dear to the Muse — thrice dear to Nationality — to the whole
human race — precious to this Union — precious to democracy —
unspeakably and forever precious — their first great martyr chief."

Leon Bazalgette says:

"O Captain!.My Captain! ....which may be compared in power of
emotion to Seigfried's funeral march in Nibelungenlied and which
are sufficient one day to make Whitman recognized as the poet who
sings the American nation, the Homer and Pindar of the United States.
The death of Lincoln.....appeared as an event, one with the war. The
drama by which this reached its epilogue is an emotion of
consecrated terror and of superb fate. The poet incarnated, in
unforgettable poetry, the sorrow of a people; he was the heart of
America in tears, gathered at the grave of her great son."

[*This has been interpreted as a "proof."
It is not. WW received the book
of poetry, corrected the page, tore it
out and returned it to the Riverside
Press. According to Charles Feinberg,
the book was an anthology. RSW 10-23-79[*Ac. 5734*]