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Why is O Captain! My Captain! different in form from most of Walt Whitman’s poems?

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“Walt Whitman, an American, one of the roughs, a kosmos” — Walt Whitman American poet Walt Whitman, photograph by Mathew Brady.

"O Captain! My Captain!" is distinct from the majority of Walt Whitman’s work because it utilizes a regular form, meter, and rhyme scheme.1

In contrast, Whitman is primarily known for developing a unique style of free verse that intentionally avoids traditional rhyme and meter. Instead of adhering to fixed metrical structures, his characteristic poetry relies on oratorical rhythms, systematic repetition, and long, enumerative lines that approximate the natural cadence of speech. While his typical approach was often viewed as "unpoetic" by his contemporaries, "O Captain! My Captain!"—an elegy for Abraham Lincoln—stands out as a conventional exception to his otherwise nonmetrical prosody.2314