The poem "O Captain! My Captain!" is about the assassination of US president Abraham Lincoln who accomplished many things in his lifetime. Walt Whitman obviously felt some emotions regarding the assassination as you can tell in these lines
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 ribboned 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.
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead
All those lines reflect the compassion Walt Whitman felt for the president, and they are all over the poem, there are even more but these where the most emotional. Whitman calls Licholn Father which is a pretty meaningful title.
The poem makes me feel sad as on line is "But I, with mournful tread," just sounds so serious and sad as mourning is what you do when some one's died. Also I think this poem is a compliment to Lincoln for the lines "Rise up--for you the flag is flung for you the bugle trills, For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths for you the shores a-crowding, For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;" sounds that Walt Whitman is trying to wake up his Captain who is dead.
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