There is so much good music out there that never, ever hits the mainstream. But if you dig a little bit, you can not only find some good ones, occasionally you hit the gold mine. Such is the case with The Bridge, a Baltimore-based band that I’ll almost definitely come see September 5th when they come through Portland. Take a listen to one of my favorite jams of theirs, Jeremiah Jones:

And you know what’s something I’ve never posted as a Weekend Diversion before, somehow? A poem. So, I present to you O Captain! My Captain! by Walt Whitman, a beautifully sad one written just after the death of Abraham Lincoln.

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.

It’s a poem that almost everyone has heard of, but that hardly anyone I know has read. It’s also one of the most straight-as-an-arrow things about me: that I think Abraham Lincoln was simply a magnificent human being. I hope this oft-forgotten poem touches you a little bit the way it does me.