Prayer of Columbus

"Prayer of Columbus" is a poem written by American poet Walt Whitman. The poem evokes the enterprising spirit of the Christopher Columbus in a God-fearing light, who rediscovered the North American continent in 1492, leading to the colonization of the Americas by the emerging European powers. Although the Viking Leif Ericson has generally been credited as having discovered the North American continent roughly 500 years earlier, Columbus' rediscovery has had a more lasting impact on the colonization trends that continued until around the onset of World War I. Thus, Whitman's poem serves as a fitting tribute to the proper explorer.

Portions of Whitman's "Prayer of Columbus" have been inscribed in gilded letters in the marble wall of the Archives/Navy Memorial metro station in Washington, D.C.

Musical settings

In modern times the poem has been set to music by various composers including:

• Robert Strassburg^[1]

References

External links

• Walt Whitman's "Prayer of Columbus"

• v
• t
• e

Walt Whitman

Leaves of Grass
(1855–1892)

• "Come Up from the Fields Father" (1865)
• "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" (1855)
• "Hush'd Be the Camps To-Day" (1865)
• "I Sing the Body Electric" (1855)
• "A Noiseless Patient Spider" (1891)
• "O Captain! My Captain!" (1865)
• "One Hour to Madness and Joy" (1860)
• "One's Self I Sing" (1867)
• "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" (1859)
• "Patrolling Barnegat" (1856)
• "Pioneers! O Pioneers!" (1865)
• "Prayer of Columbus" (1900)
• "The Sleepers" (1855)
• "Song of Myself" (1855)
• "Song of the Open Road" (1856)
• "This Dust Was Once the Man" (1871)
• "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" (1865)

Sections

Calamus

Sea-Drift

Drum-Taps

Other works

• List of poems
• Franklin Evans (1842)
• Life and Adventures of Jack Engle (1852)
• Democratic Vistas (1871)
• Passage to India (1871)

Adaptations

• Elegiac Ode (1884)
• Sea Drift (1906)
• A Sea Symphony (1909)
• Ode to Death (1919)
• Morning Heroes (1930)
• Sea Drift (1933)
• Dona nobis pacem (1936)
• Secular Cantata No. 2: A Free Song (1942)
• When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd (1946)
• The Wound-Dresser (1989)
• Lilacs (1996)
• Symphony No. 2 (1999)
• Dooryard Bloom (2004)

Life and
honoraria

• Walt Whitman Award
• Walt Whitman and Abraham Lincoln
  • Lectures
• Walt Whitman Birthplace State Historic Site
• Walt Whitman House
• The Long Islander
• Walt Whitman Bridge
• Walt Whitman (Davidson)
• Walt Whitman High School (Maryland)
• Walt Whitman High School (New York)
• Walt Whitman Shops
• Whitman-Walker Health

This article related to a poem from the 1900s is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

• v
• t
• e