The poem rhymes using an AABBCDED
rhyme scheme, and is designed for
recitation. It is written in nine
quatrains, organized in three stanzas. Each stanza has two quatrains of four seven-beat lines, followed by a four-line refrain, which changes slightly from stanza to stanza, in a
tetrameter/
trimeter ballad beat. Historian
Daniel Mark Epstein wrote in 2004 that he considers the structure of the poem to be "uncharacteristically mechanical, formulaic". He described the poem as a conventional ballad, comparable to
Samuel Taylor Coleridge's writing in "
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and much of
Alfred, Lord Tennyson's work, especially "
In Memoriam A.H.H." Literary critic
Jerome Loving wrote to the opposite effect in 1999, saying that the structure gave "My Captain" a "sing-song" quality, evocative of folk groups like the
Hutchinson Family Singers and
Cheney Family Singers. The scholar
Ted Genoways argued that the poem retains distinctive features characteristic to Whitman, such as varying line length. Whitman very rarely wrote poems that rhymed; in a review contemporary to Whitman,
The Atlantic suggested that Whitman was rising "above himself" by writing a poem unlike his others. The writer elaborated that, while his previous work had represented "unchecked nature", the rhymes of "My Captain" were a sincere expression of emotion.