Then came that mortal day he lost and laughed at,

He knew it as he left the amoured car;

The sky held in its rain and kept its breath;

Over the Liffey and the Lee, the gulls,

They told his fortune which he knew, his death.

Walking to Vespers in my Jesuit school,

The sky was come and gone; 'O captain, my captain!'

Walt Whitman was the lesson that afternoon-

How sometimes death magnifies him who dies,

And some,though mortal, have achieved their race.