A poem for Presidents’ Day:
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.–Walt Whitman
Yeah? Well, my kids have been singing this all day:
Yakko: Heigh ho, do you know
The names of the U.S. residents
Who then became the presidents
And got a view from the White House loo
Of Pennsylvania Avenue?
Wakko: George Washington was the first, you see
He once chopped down a cherry tree
Dot : President number two would be
John Adams and then number three
Yakko: Tom Jefferson stayed up to write
The Declaration late at night
So he and his wife had a great big fight
And she made him sleep on the couch all night
Wakko: James Madison never had a son
And he fought the War of 1812
Dot : James Monroe’s colossal nose
Was bigger than Pinocchio’s
Yakko: John Quincy Adams was number six
And it’s Andrew Jackson’s butt he kicks
So Jackson learns to play politics
Next time he’s the one that the country picks
Dot : Martin Van Buren, number eight
For a one-term shot as Chief of State
Yakko: William Harrison, how do you praise?
That guy was dead in thirty days
Wakko: John Tyler, he liked country folk
Dot : And after him came President Polk
Yakko: Zachary Taylor liked to smoke
His breath killed friends whenever he spoke
Wakko: Eighteen fifty, really nifty
Millard Fillmore’s in
Yakko: Young and fierce was Franklin Pierce
The man without a chin
Dot : Follows next a period spannin’
Four long years with James Buchanan
Then the South starts shootin’ cannon
And we’ve got a civil war
YW+D : A war, a war down south in Dixie
Yakko: Up to bat comes old Abe Lincoln
Dot : There’s a guy who’s really thinkin’
Wakko: Kept the United States from shrinkin’
Saved the ship of state from sinkin’
Dot : Andrew Johnson’s next
He had some slight defects
Wakko: Congress each
Would impeach
Dot : And so the country now elects
Yakko: Ulysses Simpson Grant
Who would scream and rave and rant
Wakko: While drinking whiskey
Although risky
‘Cause he’d spill it on his pants
Yakko: It’s eighteen seventy-seven
And the Democrats would gloat
But they’re all amazed when Rutherford Hayes
Wins by just one vote
Dot : James Garfield, someone really hated
‘Cause he was assassinated
Wakko: Chester Arthur gets instated
Four years later, he was traded
Dot : For Grover Cleveland, really fat
Elected twice as a Democrat
Then Benjamin Harrison; after that
It’s William McKinley up to bat
Yakko: Teddy Roosevelt charged up San Juan Hill
Wakko: And President Taft, he got the bill
Yakko: In 1913 Woodrow
YW+D : Wil…
…son takes us into World War One
Yakko: Warren Harding next in line
Dot : It’s Calvin Coolidge; he does fine
Wakko: And then in nineteen twenty-nine
The market crashes, and we find
Yakko: It’s Herbert Hoover’s big debut
He gets the blame and loses to
Dot : Franklin Roosevelt, president who
Helped us win in World War Two
Wakko: Harry Truman, weird little human
Serves two terms and when he’s done
Yakko: It’s Eisenhower who’s got the power
From fifty-three to sixty-one
Dot : John Kennedy had Camelot
Then Lyndon Johnson took his spot
Yakko: Richard Nixon, he gets caught
And Gerald Ford fell down a lot
Wakko: Jimmy Carter liked campaign trips
Yakko: And Ronald Reagan’s speeches’ scripts
All came from famous movie clips
And President Bush said “read my lips”
Dot : Now in Washington D.C.
Wakko: There’s Democrats and the G.O.P.
Yakko: But the ones in charge are plain to see
Dot : The Clintons, Bill and Hillary
Yakko: The next President to lead the way
Well, it just might be yourself one day
Then the press’ll distort everything you say
YW+D : So jump in your plane and fly away
Julie–how could you give us those beautiful lyrics without telling us which melody to sing them to? You’ve totally wrecked my FHE.
Nate–A good one for Presidents’ Day. I know so little of the history of that poem–just that it was dedicated to Lincoln. I do wonder if it became controversial in certain areas of the nation, or if the press was so divided after the Civil War that Southerners never heard of it until _Dead Poets’ Society_.
Margaret, if you go to youtube and search for animaniacs presidents you will not only get the tune but also the video! (Sorry can’t get the link to work.)
Julie: Sorry, I still prefer Whitman.
Margaret: I don’t know what the contemporary reaction to the poem was like, or even if it was published around the time of Lincolns assination. I think that Whitman incorporated it into his perpetually revised Leaves of Grass. I love this poem, the extremely unfortunate connection with Robin Williams notwithstanding. The shift in tone in the first stanza in particular is masterful in my opinion, the rhythm of the language vividly conveying the jarring shift from the jubilation of a long awaited triumph to the shock and grief of Lincoln’s assination. I live in a part of the world where they have statues of Confederate soldiers on the courthouse lawns, but I still love Lincoln and Whitman.
My, my, Looks like the Animanics have censored their lyrics. I have several CDs of their tunes, and the Clinton verse says something very different………
I love this poem, the extremely unfortunate connection with Robin Williams notwithstanding.
Yep.
This poem was part of a trilogy of mourning poems in the aftermath of Lincoln’s death, which for Whitman could not be separated from the overwhelming death associated with the Civil War. My favorite of the cycle is When Lilacs Last Bloom’d.
Whitman was not as widely read then as now, but he did express the feelings of many of his compatriots.
Drew Gilpin Faust’s new history of death culture and the Civil War (This Republic of Suffering) situates these poems quite well.
#5 – Ivan beat me to it. The unedited version is much funnier.
What do you find extremely unfortunate about the poem’s connection to Robin Williams?
That they cut the poem to one line, and made Robin Williams the captain.
What don’t I find extremely unfortunate about the poem’s connection to Robin Williams?
Of course, it wasn’t Robin Williams, but John Keating, a character played by Robin Williams.
I think that Mark B and Adam have said what I would say. I also object to the notion that Robin Williams does this wierd emoting thing where he looks like a constipated psychoanalyst and it gets billed as great acting. I just rather not have such images chasing themselves around my brain when I am trying to enjoy Whitman.
Well, ok. I must not have my finger on the poetry/method acting connoisseur’s pulse. The poem just makes me think of Wilson.
Peter LLC: Now you have hit on an association that I may find even more distasteful than Robin Williams. Wilson?!?