"To the Dead" by Frank Bidart
"O Captain! My Captain!" by Walt Whitman
"Funeral Blues" by W. H. Auden
I don't really have a specific reason why I chose "To the Dead" or "Funeral Blues", but I chose "O Captain! My Captain!" because I had heard it before and was a little familiar with it.
"Funeral Blues" shows how important their loved one was. It shows that their life and death was very significant by saying "The stars are not wanted now: put out every one; Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun."
"To the Dead" expresses the longing to be with that certain person that died. "What I hope (when I hope) is that we'll see each other again,--
. . . and again reach the VEIN
in which we loved each other . .
It existed. It existed."
"O Captain! My Captain!" doesn't really give me a sense of mourning, but of shock. The person writing wasn't expecting/accepting the death of Abe Lincoln.