Eighth Grade

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and bear 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

SNOW-BOUND
This poem describes the old home near Haverhill. Where Whit-
tier was born and spent his boyhood. It shows how the life
of a farmer's household may be transfigured by a poet's
imagination. A true poet is a seer. He sees beauty in the
common things of life and helps to open our eyes to that we
too may see it. Whittler was influenced in this poem by
Burn's "The Cotters Saturdays Night" and by Emerson's ''The
Snow Storm" The first nine lines of the last-named poem he
placed at the head of "Snow-Bound" as his text. The follow-
ing selection covers about the first third of "Snow-Bound."

The sun that brief December day
Rose cheerless over hills of gray,
And, darkly circled, gave at noon