When Lilacs Last In the Dooryard Bloom'd

By Walt WhitmanCummings, Michael. "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard

Bloom'd: A Study Guide." Free Study Guides for Shakespeare and Other Authors. Web. 29 Mar. 2012.<http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides5/lilacs.html>.

Type of Work

"When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" is a lyric poem in the form of an elegy lamenting the death of Abraham Lincoln.

Walt Whitman wrote it in free verse, a form of poetry without a metrical pattern. One line may be short, containing only seven

syllables; another may be long, containing more than

twenty. 

The poem exhibits characteristics of a special type of elegy, the pastoral elegy. These characteristics include the following:

1...A rural locale as its setting. 2...An idealized shepherd (Lincoln figuratively shepherded

the American people through a crisis). 3...Expressions of grief and praise for the deceased. 4...A funeral procession. 5...Nature imagery. 6...A meditation on death. 7...An acceptance of death.

Publication

Gibson Brothers, a Washington company, published "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" in 1865 in a volume that contained another Whitman poem, "Sequel to Drum Taps."

"Lilacs" became part of the 1867 edition of Leaves of Grass, an expanding collection of Whitman's poems. 

Setting

.......The time is April. The place is a rural locale with an old farmhouse.

In front of the house is a yard with a lilac bush.

Nearby is a a swamp.

Historical Background

Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth American president, was mortally wounded by John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C., on the evening of April 14, 1865.

Wilkes had shot him in the back of the head while Lincoln was in the presidential box watching the third act of a play, Our American Cousin.

Lincoln died the next day.

After lying in state at the Capitol on April 20, his body was transported by train to Springfield, Ill., for burial in Oak Ridge Cemetery. 

Tone

The tone of the poem is somber and heavy with grief, but its mournfulness eases somewhat after the speaker observes that death ends suffering.

He even welcomes death: 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. (lines 136-143)

Themes

Grief The poem expresses intense grief at the loss of Abraham

Lincoln. After describing the fallen president as "the great star that

early droop'd in the western sky," the poem's speaker looks at the sky and says,  O shades of night—O moody, tearful night!

O great star disappear'd—O the black murk that hides the star! Cruel hands that hold me powerless—O helpless soul of me! O harsh surrounding cloud that will not free my soul. (lines 8-11)

Themes

Acceptance of Death After expressing his sadness at the death of Lincoln and

his distress at the vision of mangled corpses on the Civil War battlefield, the speaker concludes that death is actually a friend; it ends suffering.

Only the living know affliction and misery.  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. lines 136-143)

Themes

Rebirth Although the speaker says he will mourn the

death of Lincoln every April, he also says he will celebrate the rebirth of Lincoln's spirit at the same time.

This rebirth will coincide with the rebirth of nature in sprouting plants and blooming flowers. Even the sprig that the speaker broke off the lilac bush--

a symbol of Lincoln's broken body after a bullet entered his skull--will grow back and perfume the spring air. 

Themes

Reunification Thanks in large part to Lincoln's leadership, the Union

defeated the Confederacy, and the North and South once again became the United States after the war.

Whitman seems to allude to the reunification when he says that among the pictures he will hang on the wall of Lincoln's tomb is one of "the South and the North in the light" (line 92). This light, the speaker says, is a "miracle spreading bathing all

. . . enveloping man and land." In other words, after the darkness of war, the South and the

North emerged into the light of peace as one nation. The speaker also alludes to the unification of East and West

when he says, 

Style and Literary Devices

To help him express the depth of his intense feeling for his subject, Whitman uses: first-person point of view vivid sensory language Symbols and frequent repetition of key words and phrases.

Also, rather than strait-jacketing his thoughts into an established metrical pattern with fixed line lengths and stress patterns, he casts them in free verse, allowing his content and the power of his passion to dictate line length and rhythm.

Finally, to give the elegy a poetic cast, he uses the traditional devices of inversion of word order, internal rhyme, and archaisms.

Let us look at each of these devices. 

First-Person Point of View

Whitman believed it was incumbent upon a poet to reveal his feelings, his personality, in his work. Consequently, he uses I, me, and my in his poetry to

present his reactions and responses to everything from the activity of a spider ("A Noiseless Patient Spider") and the lecture of a scientist ("When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer") to the death of Lincoln in "Lilacs."

This approach—along with his use of free verse, which has no metrical pattern and therefore somewhat resembles everyday conversation—helps him to establish rapport with the reader.

His poem thus becomes like a signed, handwritten letter to the reader instead of an impersonal form letter.

Sensory Language Whitman creates strong, almost palpable, imagery,

as in the following passage: And what shall the pictures be that I hang on the walls, 

To adorn the burial-house of him I love? (line 80-81) 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. (lines 82-89)

Symbols

Whitman's use of symbols enables him to express his feelings succinctly. 

"great star" symbolizes Lincoln (The star the speaker sees is actually the planet Venus.) A star is a source of light. So was Lincoln.

At a time when the evils of slavery and war darkened the land, Lincoln illumined it with his leadership. Slavery was abolished. The North and South were reunited. 

Symbols

Consider also the sprig of lilac that the narrator breaks from the bush: "A sprig, with its flower, I break" (line 17). This sprig represents Lincoln's broken body after a bullet

entered his skull and mortally wounded him. But it also represents the rebirth of Lincoln's spirit, as

well as the rebirth of the spirit of the soldiers who fell in the Civil War; for the sprig will grow back the following spring and

perfume the air once again.  The leaves of the lilac bush itself are symbols.

Shaped like a heart, they represent love and compassion. 

Repetition (Anaphora)

Whitman frequently repeats words or groups of words in successive phrases or clauses (a figure of speech known as anaphora) to impart rhythm and musicality and to expand on an idea. Here are examples:

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! (lines 7-11)

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 (lines 33-41)

As we walk’d up and down in the dark blue so mystic, As we 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, ere you went, how full you were of woe; As I stood on the rising ground in the breeze, in the cold 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

I hear your notes—I hear your call; I hear—I come presently—I understand you (lines 57-67)

Internal Rhyme

There is no pattern of end rhyme in the poem. However, Whitman does use internal rhyme.

Here are examples: Ever-returning. spring! trinity sure to me you bring (line 4)

And how shall I deck my song for the large sweet soul that has gone? (line 73) till there on the prairies meeting (line 76) Pictures of growing spring, and farms, and homes (line 82) with many a line against the sky (line 87) And the white skeletons of young men—I saw them (line 179)

Inversion

Another traditional poetic device Whitman uses is inversion of word order.  with the perfume strong I love (line 14).............

Normal order: with the strong perfume that I love A sprig, with its flower, I break. (line 17)

Normal order: I break a sprig, with its flower

Inversion

every grain from its shroud in the dark-brown fields uprising (line 29) Normal order: every grain uprising from . . . .

For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious (line 141) Normal order: curious objects and knowledge

Loud in the pines and cedars dim (line 167) Normal order: the dim pines and cedars