When Lilacs Last
In the Dooryard Bloom'd
By Walt Whitman
Cummings, 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/lilac
s.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.
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Walt Whitman wrote it in free verse, a form of
poetry without a metrical pattern.
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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.
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These characteristics include the following:
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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
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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
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.......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
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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
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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:
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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.
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(lines 136-143)
Themes
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Grief
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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,
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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.
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(lines 8-11)
Themes
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Acceptance of Death
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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.
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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.
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lines 136-143)
Themes
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Rebirth
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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.
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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
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Reunification
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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).
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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
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To help him express the depth of his intense
feeling for his subject, Whitman uses:
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first-person point of view
vivid sensory language
Symbols
and frequent repetition of key words and phrases.
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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.
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Let us look at each of these devices.
First-Person Point of View
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Whitman believed it was incumbent upon a poet to
reveal his feelings, his personality, in his work.
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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
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Whitman creates strong, almost palpable, imagery,
as in the following passage:
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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
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Whitman's use of symbols enables him to
express his feelings succinctly.
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"great star" symbolizes Lincoln
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(The star the speaker sees is actually the planet Venus.)
A star is a source of light. So was Lincoln.
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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
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Consider also the sprig of lilac that the narrator
breaks from the bush:
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"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;
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for the sprig will grow back the following spring and
perfume the air once again.
The leaves of the lilac bush itself are symbols.
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Shaped like a heart, they represent love and compassion.
Repetition (Anaphora)
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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.
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Here are examples:
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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 711)
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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 crapeveil’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)
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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
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I hear your notes—I hear your call;
I hear—I come presently—I understand you
(lines 57-67)
Internal Rhyme
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There is no pattern of end rhyme in the poem.
However, Whitman does use internal rhyme.
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Here are examples:
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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
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Another traditional poetic device Whitman
uses is inversion of word order.
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with the perfume strong I love (line 14).............
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Normal order: with the strong perfume that I love
A sprig, with its flower, I break. (line 17)
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Normal order: I break a sprig, with its flower
Inversion
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every grain from its shroud in the dark-brown
fields uprising (line 29)
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For life and joy, and for objects and
knowledge curious (line 141)
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Normal order: every grain uprising from . . . .
Normal order: curious objects and knowledge
Loud in the pines and cedars dim (line 167)
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Normal order: the dim pines and cedars