When Lilacs Last
in the Dooryard Bloom'd
by
Walter Whitman
(Text of the Poem)
Navigation
1.
The Poem
2.
Summary
3.
Analysis
"When
Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" is a long poem written by American
poet Walt Whitman (1819–1892) as an elegy to President Abraham Lincoln. It was
written in the summer of 1865 during a period of profound national mourning in
the aftermath of the president's assassination on April 14 earlier that year.
The
poem, written in free verse in 206 lines, uses many of the literary techniques
associated with the pastoral elegy. Despite being an expression to the fallen
president, Whitman neither mentions Lincoln by name nor discusses the
circumstances of his death in the poem. Instead, he uses a series of rural and
natural imagery including the symbols of the lilacs, a drooping star in the
western sky (Venus), and the hermit thrush; and employs the traditional
progression of the pastoral elegy in moving from grief toward an acceptance and
knowledge of death. The poem also addresses the pity of war through imagery
vaguely referencing the American Civil War (1861–1865), which effectively ended
only days before the assassination.
When Lilacs Last in
the Dooryard Bloom’d
(Text)
1
When lilacs last in
the dooryard bloom’d,
And the great star
early droop’d in the western sky in the night,
I mourn’d, and yet
shall mourn with ever-returning spring.
Ever-returning
spring, trinity sure to me you bring,
Lilac blooming
perennial and drooping star in the west,
And thought of him I
love.
2
O powerful western
fallen star!
O shades of night—O
moody, tearful night!
O great star
disappear’d—O the black murk that hides the star!
O cruel hands that
hold me powerless—O helpless soul of me!
O harsh surrounding
cloud that will not free my soul.
3
In the dooryard
fronting an old farm-house near the white-wash’d palings,
Stands the lilac-bush
tall-growing with heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
With many a pointed
blossom rising delicate, with the perfume strong I love,
With every leaf a
miracle—and from this bush in the dooryard,
With delicate-color’d
blossoms and heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
A sprig with its
flower I break.
4
In the swamp in
secluded recesses,
A shy and hidden bird
is warbling a song.
Solitary the thrush,
The hermit withdrawn
to himself, avoiding the settlements,
Sings by himself a
song.
Song of the bleeding
throat,
Death’s outlet song
of life, (for well dear brother I know,
If thou wast not
granted to sing thou would’st surely die.)
5
Over the breast of
the spring, the land, amid cities,
Amid lanes and
through old woods, where lately the violets peep’d from the ground, spotting
the gray debris,
Amid the grass in the
fields each side of the lanes, passing the endless grass,
Passing the yellow-spear’d
wheat, every grain from its shroud in the dark-brown fields uprisen,
Passing the
apple-tree blows of white and pink in the orchards,
Carrying a corpse to
where it shall rest in the grave,
Night and day
journeys a coffin.
6
Coffin that passes
through lanes and streets,
Through day and night
with the great cloud darkening the land,
With the pomp of the
inloop’d flags with the cities draped in black,
With the show of the
States themselves as of crape-veil’d women standing,
With processions long
and winding and the flambeaus of the night,
With the countless
torches lit, with the silent sea of faces and the unbared heads,
With the waiting
depot, the arriving coffin, and the sombre faces,
With dirges through
the night, with the thousand voices rising strong and solemn,
With all the mournful
voices of the dirges pour’d around the coffin,
The dim-lit churches
and the shuddering organs—where amid these you journey,
With the tolling
tolling bells’ perpetual clang,
Here, coffin that
slowly passes,
I give you my sprig
of lilac.
7
(Nor for you, for one
alone,
Blossoms and branches
green to coffins all I bring,
For fresh as the
morning, thus would I chant a song for you O sane and sacred death.
All over bouquets of
roses,
O death, I cover you
over with roses and early lilies,
But mostly and now
the lilac that blooms the first,
Copious I break, I
break the sprigs from the bushes,
With loaded arms I
come, pouring for you,
For you and the
coffins all of you O death.)
8
O western orb sailing
the heaven,
Now I know what you
must have meant as a month since I walk’d,
As I walk’d in
silence the transparent shadowy night,
As I saw you had
something to tell as you bent to me night after night,
As you droop’d from
the sky low down as if to my side, (while the other stars all look’d on,)
As we wander’d
together the solemn night, (for something I know not what kept me from sleep,)
As the night
advanced, and I saw on the rim of the west how full you were of woe,
As I stood on the
rising ground in the breeze in the cool transparent night,
As I watch’d where
you pass’d and was lost in the netherward black of the night,
As my soul in its
trouble dissatisfied sank, as where you sad orb,
Concluded, dropt in
the night, and was gone.
9
Sing on there in the
swamp,
O singer bashful and
tender, I hear your notes, I hear your call,
I hear, I come
presently, I understand you,
But a moment I
linger, for the lustrous star has detain’d me,
The star my departing
comrade holds and detains me.
10
O how shall I warble
myself for the dead one there I loved?
And how shall I deck
my song for the large sweet soul that has gone?
And what shall my
perfume be for the grave of him I love?
Sea-winds blown from
east and west,
Blown from the
Eastern sea and blown from the Western sea, till there on the prairies meeting,
These and with these
and the breath of my chant,
I’ll perfume the
grave of him I love.
11
O what shall I hang
on the chamber walls?
And what shall the
pictures be that I hang on the walls,
To adorn the
burial-house of him I love?
Pictures of growing
spring and farms and homes,
With the Fourth-month
eve at sundown, and the gray smoke lucid and bright,
With floods of the
yellow gold of the gorgeous, indolent, sinking sun, burning, expanding the air,
With the fresh sweet
herbage under foot, and the pale green leaves of the trees prolific,
In the distance the
flowing glaze, the breast of the river, with a wind-dapple here and there,
With ranging hills on
the banks, with many a line against the sky, and shadows,
And the city at hand
with dwellings so dense, and stacks of chimneys,
And all the scenes of
life and the workshops, and the workmen homeward returning.
12
Lo, body and
soul—this land,
My own Manhattan with
spires, and the sparkling and hurrying tides, and the ships,
The varied and ample
land, the South and the North in the light, Ohio’s shores and flashing
Missouri,
And ever the
far-spreading prairies cover’d with grass and corn.
Lo, the most
excellent sun so calm and haughty,
The violet and purple
morn with just-felt breezes,
The gentle soft-born
measureless light,
The miracle spreading
bathing all, the fulfill’d noon,
The coming eve
delicious, the welcome night and the stars,
Over my cities
shining all, enveloping man and land.
13
Sing on, sing on you
gray-brown bird,
Sing from the swamps,
the recesses, pour your chant from the bushes,
Limitless out of the
dusk, out of the cedars and pines.
Sing on dearest
brother, warble your reedy song,
Loud human song, with
voice of uttermost woe.
O liquid and free and
tender!
O wild and loose to
my soul—O wondrous singer!
You only I hear—yet
the star holds me, (but will soon depart,)
Yet the lilac with
mastering odor holds me.
14
Now while I sat in
the day and look’d forth,
In the close of the
day with its light and the fields of spring, and the farmers preparing their
crops,
In the large
unconscious scenery of my land with its lakes and forests,
In the heavenly
aerial beauty, (after the perturb’d winds and the storms,)
Under the arching
heavens of the afternoon swift passing, and the voices of children and women,
The many-moving
sea-tides, and I saw the ships how they sail’d,
And the summer
approaching with richness, and the fields all busy with labor,
And the infinite
separate houses, how they all went on, each with its meals and minutia of daily
usages,
And the streets how
their throbbings throbb’d, and the cities pent—lo, then and there,
Falling upon them all
and among them all, enveloping me with the rest,
Appear’d the cloud,
appear’d the long black trail,
And I knew death, its
thought, and the sacred knowledge of death.
Then with the
knowledge of death as walking one side of me,
And the thought of
death close-walking the other side of me,
And I in the middle
as with companions, and as holding the hands of companions,
I fled forth to the
hiding receiving night that talks not,
Down to the shores of
the water, the path by the swamp in the dimness,
To the solemn shadowy
cedars and ghostly pines so still.
And the singer so shy
to the rest receiv’d me,
The gray-brown bird I
know receiv’d us comrades three,
And he sang the carol
of death, and a verse for him I love.
From deep secluded
recesses,
From the fragrant
cedars and the ghostly pines so still,
Came the carol of the
bird.
And the charm of the
carol rapt me,
As I held as if by
their hands my comrades in the night,
And the voice of my
spirit tallied the song of the bird.
Come lovely and
soothing death,
Undulate round the
world, serenely arriving, arriving,
In the day, in the
night, to all, to each,
Sooner or later
delicate death.
Prais’d be the
fathomless universe,
For life and joy, and
for objects and knowledge curious,
And for love, sweet
love—but praise! praise! praise!
For the
sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death.
Dark mother always
gliding near with soft feet,
Have none chanted for
thee a chant of fullest welcome?
Then I chant it for
thee, I glorify thee above all,
I bring thee a song
that when thou must indeed come, come unfalteringly.
Approach strong
deliveress,
When it is so, when
thou hast taken them I joyously sing the dead,
Lost in the loving
floating ocean of thee,
Laved in the flood of
thy bliss O death.
From me to thee glad
serenades,
Dances for thee I
propose saluting thee, adornments and feastings for thee,
And the sights of the
open landscape and the high-spread sky are fitting,
And life and the
fields, and the huge and thoughtful night.
The night in silence
under many a star,
The ocean shore and
the husky whispering wave whose voice I know,
And the soul turning
to thee O vast and well-veil’d death,
And the body
gratefully nestling close to thee.
Over the tree-tops I
float thee a song,
Over the rising and
sinking waves, over the myriad fields and the prairies wide,
Over the dense-pack’d
cities all and the teeming wharves and ways,
I float this carol
with joy, with joy to thee O death.
15
To the tally of my
soul,
Loud and strong kept
up the gray-brown bird,
With pure deliberate
notes spreading filling the night.
Loud in the pines and
cedars dim,
Clear in the
freshness moist and the swamp-perfume,
And I with my
comrades there in the night.
While my sight that
was bound in my eyes unclosed,
As to long panoramas
of visions.
And I saw askant the
armies,
I saw as in noiseless
dreams hundreds of battle-flags,
Borne through the
smoke of the battles and pierc’d with missiles I saw them,
And carried hither
and yon through the smoke, and torn and bloody,
And at last but a few
shreds left on the staffs, (and all in silence,)
And the staffs all
splinter’d and broken.
I saw battle-corpses,
myriads of them,
And the white
skeletons of young men, I saw them,
I saw the debris and
debris of all the slain soldiers of the war,
But I saw they were
not as was thought,
They themselves were
fully at rest, they suffer’d not,
The living remain’d
and suffer’d, the mother suffer’d,
And the wife and the
child and the musing comrade suffer’d,
And the armies that
remain’d suffer’d.
16
Passing the visions,
passing the night,
Passing, unloosing
the hold of my comrades’ hands,
Passing the song of
the hermit bird and the tallying song of my soul,
Victorious song,
death’s outlet song, yet varying ever-altering song,
As low and wailing,
yet clear the notes, rising and falling, flooding the night,
Sadly sinking and
fainting, as warning and warning, and yet again bursting with joy,
Covering the earth
and filling the spread of the heaven,
As that powerful
psalm in the night I heard from recesses,
Passing, I leave thee
lilac with heart-shaped leaves,
I leave thee there in
the door-yard, blooming, returning with spring.
I cease from my song
for thee,
From my gaze on thee
in the west, fronting the west, communing with thee,
O comrade lustrous
with silver face in the night.
Yet each to keep and
all, retrievements out of the night,
The song, the
wondrous chant of the gray-brown bird,
And the tallying
chant, the echo arous’d in my soul,
With the lustrous and
drooping star with the countenance full of woe,
With the holders
holding my hand nearing the call of the bird,
Comrades mine and I
in the midst, and their memory ever to keep, for the dead I loved so well,
For the sweetest,
wisest soul of all my days and lands—and this for his dear sake,
Lilac and star and
bird twined with the chant of my soul,
There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim.
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2. Summary
3. Analysis
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