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;
O 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
CHAPTER ONE
The conservative and conventional nature of the American social order had cornered Charlie, like the rest of the Dead Poets Society, all of his life. The concept of standing up for what you believed in seemed so alien to all of his friends, but to Charlie, only one word came to mind when he thought of the idea: freedom.
Neil had done it. Neil had defied every rule ever set, had empowered himself and flaunted his right to make his own decisions. Sure, he may not have gone about it in the right way, his means of escape were too extreme, and Charlie hated him for that reason. But he also loved him for leading by example. Neil had taken the first step, and that’s what made Charlie realize that he could take the second.
His plan had many flaws—too many. There was nothing—nothing at all—saying that it would even work. But there was a spark of hope, and with the right fuel and technique, a spark could turn into an uncontrollable fire. Maybe hope, an emotion that had seemed to disappear altogether after Neil’s death, was all that Charlie and his friends needed to make this plan work.
“Mr. McAllister?” Charlie asked into the telephone, looking over at the clock. His tutor would be arriving any minute. “It’s Charlie—Charlie Dalton.” Mr. McAllister had gone out of his way to makes classes dull for his students—or so Charlie had thought. He was, however, a decent man, and while he may not have been as much fun as Mr. Keating—Charlie’s previous English teacher from his time at the Welton Academy—or as original, he meant well.
