Posted on 02/20/2020 3:58:05 PM PST by Ozguy1945
Late last century, when the internet was much younger, some very talented people helped me with a profoundly cross cultural album that could only ever work if it was done in a spirit of freedom.
I tried to write the words to express that myself but in the end I couldn’t.
I had to borrow words and revise them for the context from Walt Whitman.
Where else could I look when I needed to talk about new frontiers of freedom.
God Bless America.
About the only thing I know about him is that Bill and Hillary were fans. That sure doesn’t bode well for him.
He was a communist.
One of my favorites,
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.
Interesting. I did not know that but it does explain the Clinton’s love of him.
My favorite:
AS toilsome I wander’d Virginia’s woods,
To the music of rustling leaves kick’d by my feet, (for ‘twas autumn,)
I mark’d at the foot of a tree the grave of a soldier;
Mortally wounded he and buried on the retreat, (easily all could I understand,)
The halt of a mid-day hour, when up! no time to lose—yet this sign left,
On a tablet scrawl’d and nail’d on the tree by the grave,
Bold, cautious, true, and my loving comrade.
Long, long I muse, then on my way go wandering,
Many a changeful season to follow, and many a scene of life,
Yet at times through changeful season and scene, abrupt, alone, or in the crowded street,
Comes before me the unknown soldier’s grave, comes the inscription rude in Virginia’s woods,
Bold, cautious, true, and my loving comrade.
Unknown soldier and unnamed captain.
My son is in the Virginia foothills tonight on his USMC reserve drill.
Prayers up for all our valorous men and women who keep the watch.
Matthew Fontaine Maury (1806-1873), "the Pathfinder of the Seas," also known as the father of modern oceanography, was a Virginian by birth (the grandson of Thomas Jefferson's teacher James Maury). His family moved to Franklin, TN, a city founded by a relative. Later Matthew Maury served in the US Navy (1825-1861) but resigned when his native state seceded. He was opposed to slavery but served in the Confederate Navy and after the war taught at VMI.
He had a son who was killed in the Vicksburg campaign, whose body was never found, although Gen. Grant tried to have it found.
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