Wikipedia:Today's featured article/November 18, 2021

Walt Whitman, c. 1860

Walt Whitman and Abraham Lincoln never met, but the American poet greatly admired Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, and was deeply affected by his assassination, writing several poems as elegies and giving a series of lectures on Lincoln. Shortly after the assassination, Whitman hastily wrote the first of his Lincoln poems, "Hush'd Be the Camps To-Day". Two more appeared in his collection Sequel to Drum-Taps later in 1865: "O Captain! My Captain!" and "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd". The poems—particularly "My Captain!"—were popular upon publication and, in the following years, Whitman styled himself as an interpreter of Lincoln. In 1871, his fourth poem on Lincoln, "This Dust Was Once the Man", was published. "My Captain!" is still one of Whitman's most popular works, despite slipping in popularity and critical assessment since the early 1900s. "Lilacs" is often listed as one of Whitman's finest works. (This article is part of a featured topic: Walt Whitman and Abraham Lincoln.)