Having come from a poor family in Brooklyn, NY, Walter Whitman grew to be recognized as one of America’s greatest poets. Whitman was born in 1819. His father, a carpenter and farmer, encouraged him to enter the labor force at an early age. At 12 he left school and carried various jobs as office boy and printer’s assistant at local newspapers. Beginning in 1836, he began writing on various forums for the newspapers and this continued …showed first 75 words of 447 total…

…showed last 75 words of 447 total…extraordinary example of Whitman’s poetry, unique in its own structure and verse. The last four lines of each stanza represent and repeat that the captain is dead, the author is mourning, and is conducted through use of indentation and parallelism from stanza to stanza. Though the poem strays from Whitman’s free verse, it is one of his most famous today, chiefly due to its emotional tie to a tragic event in American history.