O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, The ship has weather'd 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 ribbon'd 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 anchor'd 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.

Copyright © 1997-2003 by The Academy of American Poets

A noiseless patient spider,

I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated,

Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,

It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,

Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my soul where you stand,

Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,

Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,

Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile anchor hold,

Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.

Copyright © 1997-2003 by The Academy of American Poets

Whoever you are, I fear you are walking the walks of

dreams,

I fear these supposed realities are to melt from under your

feet and hands,

Even now your features, joys, speech, house, trade, manners,

troubles, follies, costume, crimes, dissipate away from you,

Your true soul and body appear before me,

They stand forth out of affairs, out of commerce, shops,

work, farms, clothes, the house, buying, selling, eating,

drinking, suffering, dying.

Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you

be my poem,

I whisper with my lips close to your ear,

I have loved many women and men, but I love none better

than you.

O I have been dilatory and dumb,

I should have made my way straight to you long ago,

I should have blabb'd nothing but you, I should have chanted

nothing but you.

I will leave all and come and make the hymns of you,

None has understood you, but I understand you,

None has done justice to you, you have not done justice to

yourself,

None but has found you imperfect, I only find no

imperfection in you,

None but would subordinate you, I only am he who will

never consent to subordinate you,

I only am he who places over you no master, owner, better,

God, beyond what waits intrinsically in yourself.

Painters have painted their swarming groups and the centre-

figure of all,

From the head of the centre-figure spreading a nimbus of

gold-color'd light,

But I paint myriads of heads, but paint no head without its

nimbus of gold-color'd light,

From my hand from the brain of every man and woman it

streams, effulgently flowing forever.

O I could sing such grandeurs and glories about you!

You have not known what you are, you have slumber'd upon

yourself all your life,

Your eyelids have been the same as closed most of the time,

What you have done returns already in mockeries,

(Your thrift, knowledge, prayers, if they do not return in

mockeries, what is their return?)

The mockeries are not you,

Underneath them and within them I see you lurk,

I pursue you where none else has pursued you,

Silence, the desk, the flippant expression, the night, the

accustom'd routine, if these conceal you from others or

from yourself, they do not conceal you from me,

The shaved face, the unsteady eye, the impure complexion, if

these balk others they do not balk me,

The pert apparel, the deform'd attitude, drunkenness, greed,

premature death, all these I part aside.

There is no endowment in man or woman that is not tallied

in you,

There is no virtue, no beauty in man or woman, but as good

is in you,

No pluck, no endurance in others, but as good is in you,

No pleasure waiting for others, but an equal pleasure waits

for you.

As for me, I give nothing to any one except I give the like

carefully to you,

I sing the songs of the glory of none, not God, sooner than

I sing the songs of the glory of you.

Whoever you are! claim your own at an hazard!

These shows of the East and West are tame compared to you,

These immense meadows, these interminable rivers, you are

immense and interminable as they,

These furies, elements, storms, motions of Nature, throes of

apparent dissolution, you are he or she who is master or

mistress over them,

Master or mistress in your own right over Nature, elements,

pain, passion, dissolution.

The hopples fall from your ankles, you find an unfailing

sufficiency,

Old or young, male or female, rude, low, rejected by the rest,

whatever you are promulges itself,

Through birth, life, death, burial, the means are provided,

nothing is scanted,

Through angers, losses, ambition, ignorance, ennui, what

you are picks its way.

Copyright © 1997-2003 by The Academy of American Poets