Songfacts®:

• This was inspired by the Walt Whitman (1819–1892) poem called Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking, which came out around 1858. This poem is about loss and love and life then death, and the rhythm that is given to life from the beginning that continues throughout. It is a grand and spectacular poem!
• The "sunbeam" that illuminated a great deal of Whitman's poetry was Music. It was one of the major sources of his inspiration. Many of his four hundred poems contain musical terms, names of instruments, and names of composers. He insisted that music was "greater than wealth, greater than buildings, ships, religions, paintings."
• When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed and O Captain! My Captain! (1866) are two of Whitman's more famous poems. A poet who was ardently singing on life and himself, Whitman is today claimed as one of the few truly great American men of letters. >>>

  Suggestion credit:
  Mike - Mountlake Terrace, Washington, for all above