From 'When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd' [1865]
R. W. French, Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia
As an elegy on the death of Abraham Lincoln, "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" may
be placed in contexts both historical and literary. The historical facts need only brief mention.
While attending a performance at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C., on the evening of 14 April
1865, President Lincoln was shot by the actor John Wilkes Booth; mortally wounded, he died
the following morning. On 20 April his body lay in state at the Capitol, and the next day it began
a 1,600-mile journey by rail across the landscape and through major cities on its way to
Springfield, Illinois, for interment on 4 May.
At the time of the assassination Whitman was with his mother in Brooklyn. As he recalls
in Specimen Days, "The day of the murder we heard the news very early in the morning. Mother
prepared breakfast—and other meals afterward—as usual; but not a mouthful was eaten all day
by either of us. We each drank half a cup of coffee; that was all. Little was said. We got every
newspaper morning and evening, and the frequent extras of that period, and pass'd them
silently to each other" (Prose Works 1:31). Composition of "Lilacs" began almost immediately
after the assassination and was completed within weeks. Initial publication was in Sequel to
Drum-Taps, issued by Gibson Brothers in the fall of 1865 and bound with Drum-Taps; the poem
made its first appearance in the text of Leaves of Grass in 1881, althoughSequel, along
with Drum-Taps and Songs Before Parting, had been bound with the fourth (1867) edition.
Whitman had for years admired and defended the president. "I believe fully in Lincoln," he
commented in an 1863 letter; "few know the rocks & quicksands he has to steer through"
(Correspondence 1:163-164). Whitman had been present at Lincoln's second inauguration just
weeks before the assassination. The president, he noted in a Specimen Days entry, "look'd very
much worn and tired; the lines, indeed, of vast responsibilities, intricate questions, and demands
of life and death, cut deeper than ever upon his dark brown face; yet all the old goodness,
tenderness, sadness, and canny shrewdness, underneath the furrows. (I never see that man
without feeling that he is one to become personally attach'd to, for his combination of purest,
heartiest tenderness, and native western form of manliness.)" (Prose Works 1:92).
While the assassination of President Lincoln is the occasion of "When Lilacs Last in the
Dooryard Bloom'd," the subject, in the manner of elegy, is both other and broader than its
occasion. "Lilacs" turns out to be not just about the death of Abraham Lincoln, but about death
itself; in section 7, just after the poet has placed a sprig of lilac on the coffin, the poem makes a
pointed transition: "Nor for you, for one alone," the poet chants, "Blossoms and branches green
to coffins all I bring." Significantly, Lincoln is never mentioned by name in "Lilacs," nor does the
poem relate the circumstances of his death; indeed, the absence of the historical Lincoln in the
poem is one of its more striking features. Historical considerations give way to universal
significance. The fact of assassination, for example, is not mentioned, for, while all people die,
assassination is the fate of only a few.
Discussion of the poem has focused largely on its style, on its structure, on the significance of
its three major symbols of lilac, star, and thrush, and on the nature of the final resolution, with its
distinction between "the thought of death" and "the knowledge of death," with whom the poet
walks as companions (section 14).
The general structure of "Lilacs" follows the traditional pattern of elegy in its movement from
grief to consolation, and it includes such traditional elegiac elements as the funeral procession,
the mourning of nature, the placing of flowers upon the coffin, the contrast between nature's
cyclical renewal and humanity's mortality, the eulogy, and the final resolution of sorrow; the
development, however, is notably indirect. "Lilacs" circles and turns back on itself, seeking
direction until it finds rest in the concluding reconciliation; the pattern suggests the fluctuations
of emotion rather than the strict progressions of logical development. The structure of "Lilacs"
has also been likened to music, with its use of themes and motifs recurring in isolation and set
off against each other, but moving always toward a concluding harmony.
The three major symbols of the elegy—lilac, star, and hermit thrush—had particular
significance for Whitman. In his lecture on Lincoln, delivered on a number of occasions from
1879 to 1890, Whitman recalled the day of the assassination. "I remember," he said, "where I
was stopping at the time, the season being advanced, there were many lilacs in full bloom. By
one of those caprices that enter and give tinge to events without being at all a part of them, I find
myself always reminded of the great tragedy of that day by the sight and odor of these
blossoms. It never fails" (Prose Works 2:503).
The star—actually, the planet Venus—was indeed low in the sky at the time of the
assassination, as Whitman describes in the poem. In a Specimen Days entry dating from
around the time of Lincoln's second inauguration, Whitman wrote, "Nor earth nor sky ever knew
spectacles of superber beauty than some of the nights lately here. The western star, Venus, in
the earlier hours of evening, has never been so large, so clear; it seems as if it told something,
as if it held rapport indulgent with humanity, with us Americans" (Prose Works 1:94).
A notebook entry of 1865 suggests the significance of the hermit thrush in the elegy: "Solitary
Thrush . . . sings oftener after sundown sometimes quite in the night / is very secluded / likes
shaded, dark, places in swamps . . . his song is a hymn . . . he never sings near the farm
houses—never in the settlement / is the bird of the solemn primal woods & of Nature pure &
holy" (Notebooks 2:766).
In "Lilacs," the three major symbols accumulate meaning as the poem develops. While there are
differing interpretations of each, the three being resonant and profound, in the nature of complex
symbols, still, it is generally agreed that the star introduced in section 2 ("O great star
disappear'd") is to be associated with the man who has died, although by no means is it to be
considered simply as "Lincoln," and the lilac that enters the poem in section 3 ("tall-growing with
heart-shaped leaves of rich green") suggests an exuberant, vital, sensuous nature, a nature of
fecundity and eternal renewal. The thrush is of course also of nature, but in the poem it
becomes more than merely natural. A creature "of Nature pure & holy," as in the notebook
jotting quoted above, it expresses itself in song, and thus has been considered a figure of the
bardic poet or the seer, a visionary singer of ultimate insight.
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d
WALT WHITMAN
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.)