Is there dactylic hexameter rhythm in the poem, "O Captain! My Captain!" by Walt Whitman?

O Captain! My Captain!” is essentially a threnody, a lament for the dead. It is written in heroic couplets — the last two of each stanza being broken into four lines — that incorporate conventional meter and end rhyme. Also, the refrain of the poem serves to heighten the sense of horror and disbelief felt by the speaker upon discovering his leader and surrogate father has died.

Heroic couplets are characterized as two-line verses that consist primarily of iambic meter and incorporate a fixed (aabb) rhyme scheme. “Iambic” refers to the fact that the poem consists primarily of iambic feet — segments of two syllables, the first unstressed and the second stressed. For example the line below is written entirely in iambs:

Where on/ the deck/ my Cap/ tain lies ...

However, the second half of the above line (or what would be a line if the couplet were not broken apart into what are called hemistiches) is made up of trochaic feet: segments of two syllables in which the first syllable is stressed and the second is unstressed. In addition, a single extra stressed syllable is added to the end of the line to give it a rising rhythm.

Fallen / cold and / dead.

The rhyme scheme is: AABCDEFE, GGHIJEKE, LLMNOEPE. An example of internal rhyme is in line three with the words "The port is near, the bells I hear". Another example of internal rhyme is in line twenty with the words "From fearful trip the victor ship". The rhythm of "O Captain! My Captain!" varies from a medium pace to a slower pace. The rhythm slows down is when the poem gets sadder. The rhythm is consistent throughout each stanza. There is an example of alliteration in line ten, "the flag is flowing". The "f" repeats itself. Another example of alliteration is in line nineteen; the "s" sound is repeated in "safe and sound". There are two examples of repetition in this poem. In lines one and nine, the words ," O Captain! My Captain!" are repeated. In line five, the word heart is repeated in the phrase, "O heart! heart! heart!". This shows the personas despair. Consonance is used in line four where the "r" sound is repeated in the words grim and daring.

Walt Whitman and his mother lived in Washington during the Civil War, and Whitman often saw Lincoln walking or riding to and fro between the White House and the War Department and the Telegraph office, sometimes to visit the wounded soldiers in the makeshift hospitals in the capitol. Whitman admired Lincoln, and his heart went out to him as a man who gave his everything to do his best as the President in spite of storms of opposition, hatred and attempts to have him removed from power; a man who kept the ideal of the United States as a whole when most of the people around him would have let the Confederacy become a separate, slave-owning country. When Lincoln was assassinated, just days after the War had ended and the Union of States had at last been preserved, Whitman was nearly overcome with grief at the tragedy and irony of the act. "O Captain, My Captain" was Whitman's song of grief and his song of tribute for Lincoln. In it, he reminds his readers of just how great Lincoln's task was in guiding the nation through the conflict, and how terrible it was that Lincoln would never see the peaceful time beyond. It is an ode to human sacrifice, to human strength and courage, it is a love song to a fallen friend. That is the very personal message of the poem, and it can apply not only to Lincoln, but to any man or woman who has given their life for a just cause they believe in.