Hush'd Be the Camps To-Day | |
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by Walt Whitman | |
Written | April 19, 1865 |
First published in | The Poet and the President |
Language | English |
Subject(s) | Death of Abraham Lincoln |
Publication date | May 4, 1865 |
"Hush'd Be the Camps To-Day" is a poem by Walt Whitman dedicated to Abraham Lincoln. The poem was written on April 19, 1865, shortly after Lincoln's assassination. Whitman greatly admired Lincoln and went on to write additional poetry about him: "O Captain! My Captain!", "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd", and "This Dust Was Once the Man." "Hush'd" is not particularly well known, and is generally considered to have been hastily written. Some critics highlight the poem as Whitman's first attempt to respond to Lincoln's death and emphasize that it would have drawn comparatively little attention if Whitman had not written his other poems on Lincoln.