“O Captain, My Captain”


(1865) A poem by Walt Whitman about a captain who dies just as his ship has reached the end of a stormy and dangerous voyage. The captain represents Abraham Lincoln, who was assassinated just as the Civil War was ending.

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The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.