when lilacs in the dooryard bloomed

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When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard BloomdSummary and Form

This 1865 poem is part of a series of pieces written afterLincolns assassination. While it does

not display all the conventions of the form, this is nevertheless considered to be a pastoral elegy:

a poem of mourning that makes use of elaborate conventions drawn from the natural world and

rustic human society.Virgilis the most prominent classical practitioner of the form; MiltonsLycidas andShelleys Adonais are the two best-known examples in the English tradition.

One of the most important features of the pastoral elegy is the depiction of the deceased and thepoet who mourns him as shepherds. While the association is not specifically made in this poem,

it must surely have been in Whitmans mind as he wrote: Lincoln, in many ways, was the

shepherd of the American people during wartime, and his loss left the North in the position ofa flock without a leader. As in traditional pastoral elegies, nature mourns Lincolns death in this

poem, although it does so in some rather unconventional ways (more on that in a moment). The

poem also makes reference to the problems of modern times in its brief, shadowy depictions of

Civil War battles. The natural order is contrasted with the human one, and Whitman goes so faras to suggest that those who have died violent deaths in war are actually the lucky ones, since

they are now beyond suffering.Above all this is a public poem of private mourning. In it Whitman tries to determine the best

way to mourn a public figure, and the best way to mourn in a modern world. In his resignation atthe end of the poem, and in his use of disconnected motifs, he suggests that the kind of

ceremonial poetry a pastoral elegy represents may no longer have a place in society; instead,

symbolic, intensely personal forms must take over.

Commentary

When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomd is composed of three separate yet simultaneouspoems. One follows the progress of Lincolns coffin on its way to the presidents burial. The

second stays with the poet and his sprig of lilac, meant to be laid on the coffin in tribute, as heruminates on death and mourning. The third uses the symbols of a bird and a star to develop anidea of a nature sympathetic to yet separate from humanity.

The progression of the coffin is followed by a sad irony. Mourners, dressed in black and holding

offerings of flowers, turn out in the streets to see Lincolns corpse pass by. The Civil War israging, though, and many of these people have surely lost loved ones of their own. Yet their

losses are subsumed in a greater national tragedy, which in its publicness and in the fact that this

poem is being written as part of the mourning process, is set up to be a far greater loss than thatof their own family members. In this way the poem implicitly asks the question, What is the

worth of a man? Are some men worth more than others?The poets eventual inability to mourn,

and the depictions of anonymous death on the battlefields, suggest that something is wrong here.

The poet vacillates on the nature of symbolic mourning. At times he seems to see his offering ofthe lilac blossom as being symbolically given to all the dead; at other moments he sees it as

futile, merely a broken twig. He wonders how best to do honor to the dead, asking how he would

decorate the tomb. He suggests that he would fill it with portraits of everyday life and everyday

men. This is a far cry from the classical statuary and elaborate floral arrangements usuallyassociated with tombs. The language in the poem follows a similar shift. In the first stanzas the

language is formal and at times even archaic, filled with exhortations and rhetorical devices. By

the end much of the ceremoniousness has been stripped away; the poet offers only lilac and star
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and bird twined with the chant of [his] soul. Eventually the poet simply leaves behind the sprig

of lilac, and cease[s] from [his] song, still unsure of just how to mourn properly.

The final image of the poem is ofthe fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim. All has beenworked through save nature, which remains separate and beyond. The death-song of the bird

expresses an understanding and a beauty that Whitman, even while he incorporates it into his

poem, cannot quite master for himself. Unlike the pastoral elegies of old, which use a temporaryrift with nature to comment on modernity, this one shows a profound and permanentdisconnection between the human and natural worlds. When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard

Bloomd mourns for Lincoln in a way that is all the more profound for seeing the presidents

death as only a smaller, albeit highly symbolic, tragedy in the midst of a world of confusion andsadness...

When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomd (Magills Survey of American

Literature, Revised Edition)

Whitman wrote When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomd in the months following the

assassination of President Lincoln on April 14, 1865. Whitman felt the loss of Lincolnpersonally. He had observed the president on a number of occasions in Washington, D.C. Once

he saw him chatting with a friend at the White House and commented, His face & manner . . .are inexpressibly sweet. . . . I love the President personally.

The elegy contains many of the elements that make up the traditional pastoral elegy, includingthe expression of grief and bewilderment by the poet, the sympathetic mourning of nature for the

dead person (expressed by means of the pathetic fallacy), the rebirth of nature, a funeral

procession, the placing of flowers on the bier, and finally, reconciliation and consolation.

Whitman's elegy is also about how the poet transmutes his sorrow, which at the outset is so great

that it prevents him from writing, to the point where he can once more create poetry.The elegy centers around four symbols: the lilac, the evening star, spring, and the hermit thrush,a bird that sings in seclusion. These symbols recur in varied forms throughout the poem, like

musical motifs.

The poet first declares his grief as, "I mourn'd, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring"and invokes Venus, the evening star, which has now fallen below the horizon and left him in

darkness and sorrow of the night. He then develops the lilac symbol: In the dooryard of an old

some farmhouse, a lilac bush blossoms. Each heart-shaped leaf (a symbol of love) he regards as amiracle, and he breaks off a sprig.

The fourth symbol, the thrush that sings a solitary song, is introduced in section 4. This thrushlives like hermit away from human settlement. Its song is deaths outlet song of life. The poetsays if it does not sing this song, it would die for sure. It seems to indicate that like the bird, if

the poet does not express the overwhelming pain and the feeling of loss at the demise of a great

leader in his heart, he will surely die.

Section 5 describes the coffin of Lincoln journeying night and day across the country (as it did in

reality on its journey from Washington to Springfield, Illinois), as spring bursts through


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everywhere. It describes how thousands of people share the loss and misery of Lincolns death.

Thousands of people come out wearing mourning dresses and line on the road as the coffin of

Lincoln passes through states and cities. Flags were in looped, people sing song of loss and deathat night. Church bells toll, and as the coffin moves slowly past the poet, he places his sprig of

lilac onto it as a fitting tribute, although he makes it clear that this act is not for Lincoln alone

(who is never mentioned by name in the poem) but for all who have died.

After an apostrophe (Address to an absent or imaginary person ) to the evening star, which, in

sympathy with the poet's state of mind, is sinking in woe, the poet returns to the song of the

hermit thrush. Although he hears and understands the call, he cannot yet sing with the thrush,because the star (now clearly associated, as my departing comrade, with Lincoln) still holds

him. He also says that for the dead one and for his large sweet soul, he will fill the grave with

the perfume of his song.

In section 11 and 12, he draws a splendid picture of American physical geography and various

activities of lives and cities in springtime. He declares that on chamber walls of the burial house,

he will hang such pictures of the bustling lives of America in spring time, pictures of all thescenes of life and the workshops, and the workmen home-ward returning and my cities shining

all, enveloping man and land.

Eventually, as he looks out one spring evening on a serene landscape, an understanding of thetrue nature of death comes upon him like a mystical revelation. Now he calls the thoughts of

death and the knowledge of death as his comrades walking alongside him. Now he is able to

interpret the song of the bird as a carol of death. The song of the thrush tells us about thecomplexity of death itself. Though it is something which waits every living thing on this earth,

death is sometimes described as lovely soothing blissful death,; sometimes as the fathomless

universe; sometimes as dark mother; sometimes as a strong deliveressand then as vast and

well-veiled death.

A long aria, reminiscent of the song of the bird in Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking,

follows.

In section 15, the poet sees a surrealistic vision of the debris of battlefield, on which lie myriad

corpses and white skeletons of dead soldiers. The poet sees that the dead are at rest and do notsuffer; it is only those left behindfamilies and comradeswho suffer.

In section 16, he leaves the vision behind and is also able to leave behind the birdsong, the lilac,

and the evening star. The meaning of all these symbols now remains a permanent part of hisawareness. However, the elegy moves on to its stately and moving close: For the sweetest,

wisest soul of all my days and landsand 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.

BibliographyAllen, Gay Wilson.A Reader's Guide to Walt Whitman. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux,

1970.


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Allen, Gay Wilson. The Solitary Singer: A Critical Biography of Walt Whitman. Rev. ed. New

York: New York University Press, 1967.

Asselineau, Roger. The Evolution of Walt Whitman. Expanded ed. Iowa City: University of IowaPress, 1999.

Gold, Arthur, comp. Walt Whitman: A Collection of Criticism. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1974.

Greenspan, Ezra, ed. Walt Whitman's Song of Myself: A Sourcebook and Critical Edition.New York: Routledge, 2005.Kaplan, Justin. Walt Whitman: A Life. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1980.

Miller, James E., Jr. Walt Whitman. Rev. ed. Boston: Twayne, 1990.

Pearce, Roy Harvey, ed. Whitman: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:Prentice-Hall, 1962.

Reynolds, David S., ed. Walt Whitman. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Sowder, Michael. Whitman's Ecstatic Union: Conversion and Ideology in Leaves of Grass.

New York: Routledge, 2005.Woodress, James, ed. Critical Essays on Walt Whitman. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1983.

Zweig, Paul. Walt Whitman: The Making of a Poet. New York: Basic Books, 1984.

Walt Whitman's poem, "When Lilacs last in the Dooryard Bloom'd", mourns the tragic death ofAbraham Lincoln. Whitman utilizes the symbolism of lilacs to effectively convey the depth of

the poem. There are several images of lilacs that pervade the poem with a more sentimental and

emotional meaning. As an elegy, "When Lilacs last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" is exceptionally

important because it brings a sense of closure for both Whitman and the entire nation through thesymbolic nature of the lilac.

Immediately from the beginning, Whitman writes about his continuous state of sadness over

Lincoln's death. He describes his grief as, "I mourn'd, and yet shall mourn with ever-returningspring" (3). Most poets associate the spring with rebirth or resurrection of life. In contrast, he

relates spring as a time of mourning to illustrate the extent of his pain.

Despite the "lilac blooming perennial"(5), Whitman will always feel different from the last timethe lilacs bloomed. Manifestly, his feelings have changed because Lincoln was murdered in

April, a time when spring is at its peak. April is an exuberant month when nature blossoms and

Easter is celebrated. However, Whitman and the country do not share in these blissful feelings.They subtly long for the resurrection of Lincoln. The only way of reviving Lincoln is through

this elegy. (Parkinson)

Whitman recounts from his childhood, "the lilac-bush tall-growing with heart-shaped leaves ofrich green" (13). The elegy uses the heart-shaped leaves to exemplify people's love for Lincoln.

Furthermore, he describes the lilac's wonderful smell in the dooryard. These pleasing memories

once empowered Whitman with a feeling of hope. However, these fond memories are shattered

when Whitman states, "a sprig with its flower I break" (17). The harm inflicted upon the sprig isparallel to the harm inflicted on Lincoln. Whitman draws this comparison to demonstrate the

impact of Lincoln's assassination. Whitman and the nation are unable to cope with this

heartbreaking tragedy. The only coping mechanism for Whitman is writing this elegy.(Parkinson)The lilacs that symbolize grief in the beginning now represent closure. Whitman describes the

extensive funeral procession that occurs throughout the country. He states that as the coffin

passes, "I give you my sprig of lilac" (45). The lilac that was broken off at the end of section


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three is now placed in Lincoln's coffin. The act of placing flowers in a coffin is a symbolic

gesture of honor and respect. Although the flower is dead, a new lilac will be reborn in the

spring. Similarly, when spring returns, Lincoln's memory will be revived through this elegy.Whitman's attempt to deal with death is a turning point in the poem.

Whitman desires to literally bury death along with Lincoln. He states, "O death, I cover you overwithrosesand early lilies, But mostly and now the lilac that blooms the first" (50-51). WhileWhitman wants the lilacs to have a rebirth, he does not wish the same for death. (Baker) These

powerful lines display the level of pain that is felt among the people in the United States.

Lincoln's death must be incredibly overwhelming because Whitman genuinely yearns for death'sown demise. Although death takes away Lincoln's physical body, the elegy serves to retain his

spirit.

Whitman begins to understand the intricate concept of death from analyzing the lilac. Heunderstands that although the lilac will eventually die, it will be reborn again in the spring. On a

deeper level he writes, "And I knew death, its thought, and the sacred knowledge of death" (119).

The thought of death is exactly what he experiences from Lincoln's demise. Whitman'sknowledge of death is an acknowledgment of man's eminent mortality.

The final section represents Whitman's acceptance of Lincoln's death. He writes, "I leave thee

lilac with heart-shaped leaves, I leave thee there in the door-yard, blooming, returning withspring". Although Whitman will always feel some degree of grief, he is ready to continue with

his life. The compelling symbolism of the lilac blooming again clearly demonstrates his

optimistic outlook. (Baker)

The elegy is a source of healing for Whitman and the country. As the elegy progresses, Whitman

is able to reconcile his grief. The poem is analogous to the five stages of grief, with the most

important being acceptance. This elegy simulates the process of accepting death.

Lilacs also symbolize the repeated cycle of life. Whitman understands from the lilacs, that death

is an unavoidable component of this cycle. The cycle will continue and Whitman will againlament for Lincoln when spring arrives. Lincoln's life and memory will always be reborn as

nature begins to flourish. The elegy is Whitman's personal Lincoln Memorial.

The images of the lilac represent love, hope, life, despair, and rebirth. Whitman implicitly

describes the lilac and its dominant affects on him. The lilac serves as a guide that leads

Whitman to accept death. It allows him to honor Lincoln as a great leader and a person. In

addition, the poem is significant because it provides closure for the nation in mourning. Aboveall, the elegy effectively shows that Lincoln's legacy will always be reborn among the

blossoming lilacs when spring returns.

Bibliography:

Author: Baker, David

Title: Elegy and eros: configuring grief.Publication Details: Virginia Quarterly Review: a national journal of literature and discussion
http://www.associatedcontent.com/theme/612/roses.htmlhttp://www.associatedcontent.com/theme/612/roses.htmlhttp://www.associatedcontent.com/theme/612/roses.htmlhttp://www.associatedcontent.com/theme/612/roses.html


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(Univ. of Virginia, Charlottesville)

Source: Literature Online

Author: Parkinson, Thomas

Title: 'When Lilacs Last in the Door-Yard Bloom'd' and the American civil religion.

Publication Details: Southern Review (Baton Rouge, LA) (19) 1-16.Publication Year: 1983Subject: English Literature: Nineteenth Century: Authors: Whitman, Walt

Reference Number: 1983:8931

Source: Literature Online

when lilacs in the dooryard bloomed

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