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 where my Captain lies, Fallen, cold and dead. [Illustration: STATUE OF LINCOLN By Lott Flannery, in front of the Court House, Washington Unveiled April 16, 1868] Henry de Garrs, of Sheffield, England, wrote these lines on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865. They were published in England in 1889, and later in America, in the _Century_. ON THE ASSASSINATION OF LINCOLN What dreadful rumor, hurtling o'er the sea, Too monstrous for belief, assails our shore? Men pause and question, Can such foul crime be? Till lingering doubt may cling to hope no more. Not when great Caesar weltered in his gore, Nor since, in time, or circumstance, or place, Hath crime so shook the World's great heart before. O World! O World! of all thy records base, Time wears no fouler scar on his time-smitten face. A king of men, inured to hardy toil, Rose truly royal up the steeps of life, Till Europe's monarchs seemed to dwarf the while Beneath his greatness--great when traitors rife Pierced deep his country's heart with treason-knife; But greatest when victorious he stood, Crowning with mercy freedom's greatest strife. The world saw the new light of godlike good Ere the assassin's hand shed his most precious blood. Lament thy loss, sad sister of the West: Not one, but many nations with thee weep; Cherish thy martyr on thy wounded breast, And lay him with thy Washington to sleep. Earth holds no fitter sepulcher to keep His royal heart--one of thy kings to be Who reign even from the grave; whose scepters sweep More potent over human destiny Than all ambition's pride and power and majesty.