O Captain! My Captain!

I dream that music would be put to exalted words by or about beau ideals to regenerate interest in their principles. I conceptualized The Pursuit of Happiness Album. This is the 9th song:

O Captain! My Captain!

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.

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.

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 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 mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

-- By Walt Whitman in 1865, concerning the death of President Abraham Lincoln

Click here for a version on YouTube.