Oh Captain! My Captain!
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
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 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 (1819-1892)
Ich und mein Leben!
Die immer wiederkehrenden Fragen,
der endlose Zug der Ungläubigen,
die Städte voller Narren,
Wozu bin ich da? Wozu nützt dieses Leben?
Die Antwort: Damit du hier bist - damit das
Leben nicht zu Ende geht, Deine Individualität,
damit das Spiel der Mächte weiterbesteht,
und Du Deinen Vers dazu beitragen kannst!
Walt Whitman (gekürzt,aus: ‚O Me! O life!’)
„Es war eine dunkle, verregnete Nacht, und die alte Lady, die leidenschaftlich gerne Puzzles legte, saß mutterseelenallein zu Hause an ihrem Tisch, um ein Puzzle, das sie neu hatte, zu beenden. Aber als sie die Teile zusammenfügte, erkannte sie zu ihrem Erstaunen, dass das Bild, das sich vor ich formte, ihr eigenes Wohnzimmer war, und in der Figur, die in der Mitte des Puzzles dargestellt war, erkannte sie sich selbst, und mit zitternder Hand legte sie die letzten vier Teile zusammen und starrte voll Entsetzen in das Antlitz eines Verrückten am Fenster. Das letzte, was die alte Dame in ihrem Leben hörte, war eine Fensterscheibe, die zersprang ...“
Neil Perry (beim ersten Treffen des Clubs der toten Dichter)
Kommt, meine Freude,
noch ist es nicht zu spät, eine neue Welt zu suchen,
denn ich will weiter segeln,
über den Sonnenuntergang hinaus,
und obwohl wir nicht mehr die Kraft besitzen,
die in alten Tagen Himmel und Erde bewegte,
sind wir dennoch, was wir sind;
noch immer sind wir Helden, deren Herzen
im Gleichklang schlagen,
zwar schwächt das Schicksal uns von Zeit zu Zeit,
doch stark ist unser Wille zu streben, zu suchen,
zu finden, und nicht zu verzagen.
Alfred Lord Tennyson (gekürzt, aus: ‚Ulysses’)
O Me! O Life!
O ME! O life! of the questions of these recurring,
Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill'd with the
foolish,
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I,
and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the
struggle ever renew'd,
Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see
around me,
Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me
intertwined,
The question, O me! so sad, recurring-What good amid these, O me,
O life?
Answer.
That you are here-that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.
Dead Poets Society
Poetry
Excerpt from Walden - Henry David Thoreau
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
For ever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,--
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me--
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads--you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Traditionelle Eröffnungsbotschaft des Clubs der toten Dichter
Ich ging in die Wälder,
denn ich wollte wohlüberlegt leben,
intensiv leben wollte ich,
das Mark des Lebens in mich aufsaugen,
um alles auszurotten,
was nicht Leben war,
damit ich nicht in der Todesstunde innewürde,
dass ich gar nicht gelebt hatte.
Henry David Thoreau