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, 15 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. 20
1. Explain the references to the safe arrival of the ship in port, the ringing of the bells, and the general exultation.
2. Re-read the poem carefully. Picture to yourself what each stanza contributes as you read. When you have finished, test yourself to see how much of it you can recall exactly. Complete the memorization by this same process of careful re-reading.
3. Whitman had his volume, _Drum Taps_, practically completed when Lincoln's assassination occurred. He held up its publication to include "O Captain! My Captain" and another poem on the death of Lincoln, called "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed." Why is the title of the latter poem appropriate?
By 1781 the French were coöperating with our colonial troops against the armies and navies of the British. Lafayette was in the South helping Greene worry Cornwallis. Rochambeau was working with Washington near New York, to keep Clinton from uniting his forces with those of Cornwallis. De Grasse, in charge of the French fleet, was planning a blow at the British squadron. The stage was thus set for a great military stroke--and Washington readily took up the cue.
Word was received from Lafayette that Cornwallis had moved to Yorktown on the York River, Virginia, close to Chesapeake Bay, and almost at the same moment the long-expected dispatch arrived from de Grasse, advising Washington that he was just on the point of 5 sailing for Chesapeake Bay. The instant he received this news the American commander realized that his chance had come. Cornwallis had evidently brought his army to Yorktown that it might coöperate with a British fleet in the Chesapeake, and by good luck de Grasse was heading 10 directly for this very spot. A bold, swift stroke might now end the war, and the plan which Washington immediately put in operation was daring to a really perilous degree.