loc.02117.001_large.jpg
U.S. Gunboat "Monocacy"
Shanghai, China
Septemr 2. 1874.
My Dear Sir,
Last February, from Hong Kong, I sent you a line or two regarding an original edition of
"Leaves of Grass." Have been able to ascertain where a copy may be got? I am very anxious to obtain one.
Will you oblige me—for a friend—with a copy of annexed lines in your autograph?—on
any scrap of paper.
With best wishes, I remain, your unseen friend, in faith, hope, and charity,
Thomas Gibbons
loc.02117.002_large.jpg
Exult, O shores! and ring, O bells!
But I, with silent Tread,
Walk the spot my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.1
Correspondent:
As yet we have no information about
this correspondent.
Notes
- 1. Whitman's poem "O Captain!
My Captain!," an elegy for Abraham Lincoln, was one of Whitman's most popular,
although it was atypical of his verse and style (the rhyme, meter, stanza and
refrain are conventional, and the poem makes use of traditional metaphors). "O
Captain! My Captain!" was first published in The New-York
Saturday Press on November 4, 1865, and it was reprinted in Sequel to
Drum-Taps (1865–1866). For more information on the poem, see
Gregory Eiselein, "'O Captain! My Captain!' [1865]," Walt Whitman: An
Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]