“When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” was written by the American poet Walt Whitman. Composed in the wake of President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, the poem takes the form of a pastoral elegy, mourning Lincoln’s death while praising the beauty of springtime and the natural world. The speaker comes to accept death as part of life and suggests that, just as spring follows winter, the American people will flourish again after this period of grief. Whitman included the poem in his 1865 collection Drum-Taps, a sequence of poems based on his experiences working as a nurse during the American Civil War.
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The Full Text of “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”
1
1When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d,
2And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night,
3I mourn’d, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.
4Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring,
5Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west,
6And thought of him I love.
2
7O powerful western fallen star!
8O shades of night—O moody, tearful night!
9O great star disappear’d—O the black murk that hides the star!
10O cruel hands that hold me powerless—O helpless soul of me!
11O harsh surrounding cloud that will not free my soul.
3
12In the dooryard fronting an old farm-house near the white-wash’d palings,
13Stands the lilac-bush tall-growing with heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
14With many a pointed blossom rising delicate, with the perfume strong I love,
15With every leaf a miracle—and from this bush in the dooryard,
16With delicate-color’d blossoms and heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
17A sprig with its flower I break.
4
18In the swamp in secluded recesses,
19A shy and hidden bird is warbling a song.
20Solitary the thrush,
21The hermit withdrawn to himself, avoiding the settlements,
22Sings by himself a song.
23Song of the bleeding throat,
24Death’s outlet song of life, (for well dear brother I know,
25If thou wast not granted to sing thou would’st surely die.)
5
26Over the breast of the spring, the land, amid cities,
27Amid lanes and through old woods, where lately the violets peep’d from the ground, spotting the gray debris,
28Amid the grass in the fields each side of the lanes, passing the endless grass,
29Passing the yellow-spear’d wheat, every grain from its shroud in the dark-brown fields uprisen,
30Passing the apple-tree blows of white and pink in the orchards,
31Carrying a corpse to where it shall rest in the grave,
32Night and day journeys a coffin.
6
33Coffin that passes through lanes and streets,
34Through day and night with the great cloud darkening the land,
35With the pomp of the inloop’d flags with the cities draped in black,
36With the show of the States themselves as of crape-veil’d women standing,
37With processions long and winding and the flambeaus of the night,
38With the countless torches lit, with the silent sea of faces and the unbared heads,
39With the waiting depot, the arriving coffin, and the sombre faces,
40With dirges through the night, with the thousand voices rising strong and solemn,
41With all the mournful voices of the dirges pour’d around the coffin,
42The dim-lit churches and the shuddering organs—where amid these you journey,
43With the tolling tolling bells’ perpetual clang,
44Here, coffin that slowly passes,
45I give you my sprig of lilac.
7
46(Nor for you, for one alone,
47Blossoms and branches green to coffins all I bring,
48For fresh as the morning, thus would I chant a song for you O sane and sacred death.
49All over bouquets of roses,
50O death, I cover you over with roses and early lilies,
51But mostly and now the lilac that blooms the first,
52Copious I break, I break the sprigs from the bushes,
53With loaded arms I come, pouring for you,
54For you and the coffins all of you O death.)
8
55O western orb sailing the heaven,
56Now I know what you must have meant as a month since I walk’d,
57As I walk’d in silence the transparent shadowy night,
58As I saw you had something to tell as you bent to me night after night,
59As you droop’d from the sky low down as if to my side, (while the other stars all look’d on,)
60As we wander’d together the solemn night, (for something I know not what kept me from sleep,)
61As the night advanced, and I saw on the rim of the west how full you were of woe,
62As I stood on the rising ground in the breeze in the cool transparent night,
63As I watch’d where you pass’d and was lost in the netherward black of the night,
64As my soul in its trouble dissatisfied sank, as where you sad orb,
65Concluded, dropt in the night, and was gone.
9
66Sing on there in the swamp,
67O singer bashful and tender, I hear your notes, I hear your call,
68I hear, I come presently, I understand you,
69But a moment I linger, for the lustrous star has detain’d me,
70The star my departing comrade holds and detains me.
10
71O how shall I warble myself for the dead one there I loved?
72And how shall I deck my song for the large sweet soul that has gone?
73And what shall my perfume be for the grave of him I love?
74Sea-winds blown from east and west,
75Blown from the Eastern sea and blown from the Western sea, till there on the prairies meeting,
76These and with these and the breath of my chant,
77I’ll perfume the grave of him I love.
11
78O what shall I hang on the chamber walls?
79And what shall the pictures be that I hang on the walls,
80To adorn the burial-house of him I love?
81Pictures of growing spring and farms and homes,
82With the Fourth-month eve at sundown, and the gray smoke lucid and bright,
83With floods of the yellow gold of the gorgeous, indolent, sinking sun, burning, expanding the air,
84With the fresh sweet herbage under foot, and the pale green leaves of the trees prolific,
85In the distance the flowing glaze, the breast of the river, with a wind-dapple here and there,
86With ranging hills on the banks, with many a line against the sky, and shadows,
87And the city at hand with dwellings so dense, and stacks of chimneys,
88And all the scenes of life and the workshops, and the workmen homeward returning.
12
89Lo, body and soul—this land,
90My own Manhattan with spires, and the sparkling and hurrying tides, and the ships,
91The varied and ample land, the South and the North in the light, Ohio’s shores and flashing Missouri,
92And ever the far-spreading prairies cover’d with grass and corn.
93Lo, the most excellent sun so calm and haughty,
94The violet and purple morn with just-felt breezes,
95The gentle soft-born measureless light,
96The miracle spreading bathing all, the fulfill’d noon,
97The coming eve delicious, the welcome night and the stars,
98Over my cities shining all, enveloping man and land.
13
99Sing on, sing on you gray-brown bird,
100Sing from the swamps, the recesses, pour your chant from the bushes,
101Limitless out of the dusk, out of the cedars and pines.
102Sing on dearest brother, warble your reedy song,
103Loud human song, with voice of uttermost woe.
104O liquid and free and tender!
105O wild and loose to my soul—O wondrous singer!
106You only I hear—yet the star holds me, (but will soon depart,)
107Yet the lilac with mastering odor holds me.
14
108Now while I sat in the day and look’d forth,
109In the close of the day with its light and the fields of spring, and the farmers preparing their crops,
110In the large unconscious scenery of my land with its lakes and forests,
111In the heavenly aerial beauty, (after the perturb’d winds and the storms,)
112Under the arching heavens of the afternoon swift passing, and the voices of children and women,
113The many-moving sea-tides, and I saw the ships how they sail’d,
114And the summer approaching with richness, and the fields all busy with labor,
115And the infinite separate houses, how they all went on, each with its meals and minutia of daily usages,
116And the streets how their throbbings throbb’d, and the cities pent—lo, then and there,
117Falling upon them all and among them all, enveloping me with the rest,
118Appear’d the cloud, appear’d the long black trail,
119And I knew death, its thought, and the sacred knowledge of death.
120Then with the knowledge of death as walking one side of me,
121And the thought of death close-walking the other side of me,
122And I in the middle as with companions, and as holding the hands of companions,
123I fled forth to the hiding receiving night that talks not,
124Down to the shores of the water, the path by the swamp in the dimness,
125To the solemn shadowy cedars and ghostly pines so still.
126And the singer so shy to the rest receiv’d me,
127The gray-brown bird I know receiv’d us comrades three,
128And he sang the carol of death, and a verse for him I love.
129From deep secluded recesses,
130From the fragrant cedars and the ghostly pines so still,
131Came the carol of the bird.
132And the charm of the carol rapt me,
133As I held as if by their hands my comrades in the night,
134And the voice of my spirit tallied the song of the bird.
135Come lovely and soothing death,
136Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving,
137In the day, in the night, to all, to each,
138Sooner or later delicate death.
139Prais’d be the fathomless universe,
140For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious,
141And for love, sweet love—but praise! praise! praise!
142For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death.
143Dark mother always gliding near with soft feet,
144Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome?
145Then I chant it for thee, I glorify thee above all,
146I bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, come unfalteringly.
147Approach strong deliveress,
148When it is so, when thou hast taken them I joyously sing the dead,
149Lost in the loving floating ocean of thee,
150Laved in the flood of thy bliss O death.
151From me to thee glad serenades,
152Dances for thee I propose saluting thee, adornments and feastings for thee,
153And the sights of the open landscape and the high-spread sky are fitting,
154And life and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful night.
155The night in silence under many a star,
156The ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice I know,
157And the soul turning to thee O vast and well-veil’d death,
158And the body gratefully nestling close to thee.
159Over the tree-tops I float thee a song,
160Over the rising and sinking waves, over the myriad fields and the prairies wide,
161Over the dense-pack’d cities all and the teeming wharves and ways,
162I float this carol with joy, with joy to thee O death.
15
163To the tally of my soul,
164Loud and strong kept up the gray-brown bird,
165With pure deliberate notes spreading filling the night.
166Loud in the pines and cedars dim,
167Clear in the freshness moist and the swamp-perfume,
168And I with my comrades there in the night.
169While my sight that was bound in my eyes unclosed,
170As to long panoramas of visions.
171And I saw askant the armies,
172I saw as in noiseless dreams hundreds of battle-flags,
173Borne through the smoke of the battles and pierc’d with missiles I saw them,
174And carried hither and yon through the smoke, and torn and bloody,
175And at last but a few shreds left on the staffs, (and all in silence,)
176And the staffs all splinter’d and broken.
177I saw battle-corpses, myriads of them,
178And the white skeletons of young men, I saw them,
179I saw the debris and debris of all the slain soldiers of the war,
180But I saw they were not as was thought,
181They themselves were fully at rest, they suffer’d not,
182The living remain’d and suffer’d, the mother suffer’d,
183And the wife and the child and the musing comrade suffer’d,
184And the armies that remain’d suffer’d.
16
185Passing the visions, passing the night,
186Passing, unloosing the hold of my comrades’ hands,
187Passing the song of the hermit bird and the tallying song of my soul,
188Victorious song, death’s outlet song, yet varying ever-altering song,
189As low and wailing, yet clear the notes, rising and falling, flooding the night,
190Sadly sinking and fainting, as warning and warning, and yet again bursting with joy,
191Covering the earth and filling the spread of the heaven,
192As that powerful psalm in the night I heard from recesses,
193Passing, I leave thee lilac with heart-shaped leaves,
194I leave thee there in the door-yard, blooming, returning with spring.
195I cease from my song for thee,
196From my gaze on thee in the west, fronting the west, communing with thee,
197O comrade lustrous with silver face in the night.
198Yet each to keep and all, retrievements out of the night,
199The song, the wondrous chant of the gray-brown bird,
200And the tallying chant, the echo arous’d in my soul,
201With the lustrous and drooping star with the countenance full of woe,
202With the holders holding my hand nearing the call of the bird,
203Comrades mine and I in the midst, and their memory ever to keep, for the dead I loved so well,
204For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands—and this for his dear sake,
205Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul,
206There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim.
The Full Text of “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”
1
1When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d,
2And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night,
3I mourn’d, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.
4Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring,
5Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west,
6And thought of him I love.
2
7O powerful western fallen star!
8O shades of night—O moody, tearful night!
9O great star disappear’d—O the black murk that hides the star!
10O cruel hands that hold me powerless—O helpless soul of me!
11O harsh surrounding cloud that will not free my soul.
3
12In the dooryard fronting an old farm-house near the white-wash’d palings,
13Stands the lilac-bush tall-growing with heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
14With many a pointed blossom rising delicate, with the perfume strong I love,
15With every leaf a miracle—and from this bush in the dooryard,
16With delicate-color’d blossoms and heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
17A sprig with its flower I break.
4
18In the swamp in secluded recesses,
19A shy and hidden bird is warbling a song.
20Solitary the thrush,
21The hermit withdrawn to himself, avoiding the settlements,
22Sings by himself a song.
23Song of the bleeding throat,
24Death’s outlet song of life, (for well dear brother I know,
25If thou wast not granted to sing thou would’st surely die.)
5
26Over the breast of the spring, the land, amid cities,
27Amid lanes and through old woods, where lately the violets peep’d from the ground, spotting the gray debris,
28Amid the grass in the fields each side of the lanes, passing the endless grass,
29Passing the yellow-spear’d wheat, every grain from its shroud in the dark-brown fields uprisen,
30Passing the apple-tree blows of white and pink in the orchards,
31Carrying a corpse to where it shall rest in the grave,
32Night and day journeys a coffin.
6
33Coffin that passes through lanes and streets,
34Through day and night with the great cloud darkening the land,
35With the pomp of the inloop’d flags with the cities draped in black,
36With the show of the States themselves as of crape-veil’d women standing,
37With processions long and winding and the flambeaus of the night,
38With the countless torches lit, with the silent sea of faces and the unbared heads,
39With the waiting depot, the arriving coffin, and the sombre faces,
40With dirges through the night, with the thousand voices rising strong and solemn,
41With all the mournful voices of the dirges pour’d around the coffin,
42The dim-lit churches and the shuddering organs—where amid these you journey,
43With the tolling tolling bells’ perpetual clang,
44Here, coffin that slowly passes,
45I give you my sprig of lilac.
7
46(Nor for you, for one alone,
47Blossoms and branches green to coffins all I bring,
48For fresh as the morning, thus would I chant a song for you O sane and sacred death.
49All over bouquets of roses,
50O death, I cover you over with roses and early lilies,
51But mostly and now the lilac that blooms the first,
52Copious I break, I break the sprigs from the bushes,
53With loaded arms I come, pouring for you,
54For you and the coffins all of you O death.)
8
55O western orb sailing the heaven,
56Now I know what you must have meant as a month since I walk’d,
57As I walk’d in silence the transparent shadowy night,
58As I saw you had something to tell as you bent to me night after night,
59As you droop’d from the sky low down as if to my side, (while the other stars all look’d on,)
60As we wander’d together the solemn night, (for something I know not what kept me from sleep,)
61As the night advanced, and I saw on the rim of the west how full you were of woe,
62As I stood on the rising ground in the breeze in the cool transparent night,
63As I watch’d where you pass’d and was lost in the netherward black of the night,
64As my soul in its trouble dissatisfied sank, as where you sad orb,
65Concluded, dropt in the night, and was gone.
9
66Sing on there in the swamp,
67O singer bashful and tender, I hear your notes, I hear your call,
68I hear, I come presently, I understand you,
69But a moment I linger, for the lustrous star has detain’d me,
70The star my departing comrade holds and detains me.
10
71O how shall I warble myself for the dead one there I loved?
72And how shall I deck my song for the large sweet soul that has gone?
73And what shall my perfume be for the grave of him I love?
74Sea-winds blown from east and west,
75Blown from the Eastern sea and blown from the Western sea, till there on the prairies meeting,
76These and with these and the breath of my chant,
77I’ll perfume the grave of him I love.
11
78O what shall I hang on the chamber walls?
79And what shall the pictures be that I hang on the walls,
80To adorn the burial-house of him I love?
81Pictures of growing spring and farms and homes,
82With the Fourth-month eve at sundown, and the gray smoke lucid and bright,
83With floods of the yellow gold of the gorgeous, indolent, sinking sun, burning, expanding the air,
84With the fresh sweet herbage under foot, and the pale green leaves of the trees prolific,
85In the distance the flowing glaze, the breast of the river, with a wind-dapple here and there,
86With ranging hills on the banks, with many a line against the sky, and shadows,
87And the city at hand with dwellings so dense, and stacks of chimneys,
88And all the scenes of life and the workshops, and the workmen homeward returning.
12
89Lo, body and soul—this land,
90My own Manhattan with spires, and the sparkling and hurrying tides, and the ships,
91The varied and ample land, the South and the North in the light, Ohio’s shores and flashing Missouri,
92And ever the far-spreading prairies cover’d with grass and corn.
93Lo, the most excellent sun so calm and haughty,
94The violet and purple morn with just-felt breezes,
95The gentle soft-born measureless light,
96The miracle spreading bathing all, the fulfill’d noon,
97The coming eve delicious, the welcome night and the stars,
98Over my cities shining all, enveloping man and land.
13
99Sing on, sing on you gray-brown bird,
100Sing from the swamps, the recesses, pour your chant from the bushes,
101Limitless out of the dusk, out of the cedars and pines.
102Sing on dearest brother, warble your reedy song,
103Loud human song, with voice of uttermost woe.
104O liquid and free and tender!
105O wild and loose to my soul—O wondrous singer!
106You only I hear—yet the star holds me, (but will soon depart,)
107Yet the lilac with mastering odor holds me.
14
108Now while I sat in the day and look’d forth,
109In the close of the day with its light and the fields of spring, and the farmers preparing their crops,
110In the large unconscious scenery of my land with its lakes and forests,
111In the heavenly aerial beauty, (after the perturb’d winds and the storms,)
112Under the arching heavens of the afternoon swift passing, and the voices of children and women,
113The many-moving sea-tides, and I saw the ships how they sail’d,
114And the summer approaching with richness, and the fields all busy with labor,
115And the infinite separate houses, how they all went on, each with its meals and minutia of daily usages,
116And the streets how their throbbings throbb’d, and the cities pent—lo, then and there,
117Falling upon them all and among them all, enveloping me with the rest,
118Appear’d the cloud, appear’d the long black trail,
119And I knew death, its thought, and the sacred knowledge of death.
120Then with the knowledge of death as walking one side of me,
121And the thought of death close-walking the other side of me,
122And I in the middle as with companions, and as holding the hands of companions,
123I fled forth to the hiding receiving night that talks not,
124Down to the shores of the water, the path by the swamp in the dimness,
125To the solemn shadowy cedars and ghostly pines so still.
126And the singer so shy to the rest receiv’d me,
127The gray-brown bird I know receiv’d us comrades three,
128And he sang the carol of death, and a verse for him I love.
129From deep secluded recesses,
130From the fragrant cedars and the ghostly pines so still,
131Came the carol of the bird.
132And the charm of the carol rapt me,
133As I held as if by their hands my comrades in the night,
134And the voice of my spirit tallied the song of the bird.
135Come lovely and soothing death,
136Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving,
137In the day, in the night, to all, to each,
138Sooner or later delicate death.
139Prais’d be the fathomless universe,
140For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious,
141And for love, sweet love—but praise! praise! praise!
142For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death.
143Dark mother always gliding near with soft feet,
144Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome?
145Then I chant it for thee, I glorify thee above all,
146I bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, come unfalteringly.
147Approach strong deliveress,
148When it is so, when thou hast taken them I joyously sing the dead,
149Lost in the loving floating ocean of thee,
150Laved in the flood of thy bliss O death.
151From me to thee glad serenades,
152Dances for thee I propose saluting thee, adornments and feastings for thee,
153And the sights of the open landscape and the high-spread sky are fitting,
154And life and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful night.
155The night in silence under many a star,
156The ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice I know,
157And the soul turning to thee O vast and well-veil’d death,
158And the body gratefully nestling close to thee.
159Over the tree-tops I float thee a song,
160Over the rising and sinking waves, over the myriad fields and the prairies wide,
161Over the dense-pack’d cities all and the teeming wharves and ways,
162I float this carol with joy, with joy to thee O death.
15
163To the tally of my soul,
164Loud and strong kept up the gray-brown bird,
165With pure deliberate notes spreading filling the night.
166Loud in the pines and cedars dim,
167Clear in the freshness moist and the swamp-perfume,
168And I with my comrades there in the night.
169While my sight that was bound in my eyes unclosed,
170As to long panoramas of visions.
171And I saw askant the armies,
172I saw as in noiseless dreams hundreds of battle-flags,
173Borne through the smoke of the battles and pierc’d with missiles I saw them,
174And carried hither and yon through the smoke, and torn and bloody,
175And at last but a few shreds left on the staffs, (and all in silence,)
176And the staffs all splinter’d and broken.
177I saw battle-corpses, myriads of them,
178And the white skeletons of young men, I saw them,
179I saw the debris and debris of all the slain soldiers of the war,
180But I saw they were not as was thought,
181They themselves were fully at rest, they suffer’d not,
182The living remain’d and suffer’d, the mother suffer’d,
183And the wife and the child and the musing comrade suffer’d,
184And the armies that remain’d suffer’d.
16
185Passing the visions, passing the night,
186Passing, unloosing the hold of my comrades’ hands,
187Passing the song of the hermit bird and the tallying song of my soul,
188Victorious song, death’s outlet song, yet varying ever-altering song,
189As low and wailing, yet clear the notes, rising and falling, flooding the night,
190Sadly sinking and fainting, as warning and warning, and yet again bursting with joy,
191Covering the earth and filling the spread of the heaven,
192As that powerful psalm in the night I heard from recesses,
193Passing, I leave thee lilac with heart-shaped leaves,
194I leave thee there in the door-yard, blooming, returning with spring.
195I cease from my song for thee,
196From my gaze on thee in the west, fronting the west, communing with thee,
197O comrade lustrous with silver face in the night.
198Yet each to keep and all, retrievements out of the night,
199The song, the wondrous chant of the gray-brown bird,
200And the tallying chant, the echo arous’d in my soul,
201With the lustrous and drooping star with the countenance full of woe,
202With the holders holding my hand nearing the call of the bird,
203Comrades mine and I in the midst, and their memory ever to keep, for the dead I loved so well,
204For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands—and this for his dear sake,
205Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul,
206There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim.
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“When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” Summary
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“When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” Themes
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American Resilience
- See where this theme is active in the poem.
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Death as a Natural Part of Life
- See where this theme is active in the poem.
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Public and Private Grief
- See where this theme is active in the poem.
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”
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Lines 1-6
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. -
Lines 7-11
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 12-17
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. -
Lines 18-25
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.) -
Lines 26-32
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. -
Lines 33-38
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, -
Lines 39-45
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. -
Lines 46-54
(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.) -
Lines 55-60
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,) -
Lines 61-65
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. -
Lines 66-70
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. -
Lines 71-77
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. -
Lines 78-88
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. -
Lines 89-98
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. -
Lines 99-107
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. -
Lines 108-116
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— -
Lines 116-125
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. -
Lines 126-134
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. -
Lines 135-142
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 143-150
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. -
Lines 151-158
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. -
Lines 159-162
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. -
Lines 163-170
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. -
Lines 171-176
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. -
Lines 177-184
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. -
Lines 185-194
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. -
Lines 195-197
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. -
Lines 198-206
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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“When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” Symbols
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The Lilacs
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The Star
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The Bird
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Night and Darkness
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The Spring
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“When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Imagery
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Asyndeton
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Anaphora
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Allusion
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Rhetorical Question
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Personification
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Apostrophe
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Repetition
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Juxtaposition
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Metaphor
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Alliteration
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Consonance
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Assonance
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“When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Bloom’d
- Trinity
- Perennial
- Shades
- Palings
- Sprig
- Recesses
- Warbling
- Hermit
- Yellow-spear’d
- Shroud
- Crape-veil’d
- Dirges
- Shuddering
- Sane
- Copious
- Orb
- Woe
- Netherward
- Comrade
- Chamber
- Adorn
- Fourth-month eve
- Lo
- Ample
- Haughty
- Measureless
- Reedy
- Unconscious
- Aerial
- Perturb’d
- Swift
- Throbbings
- Receiving
- Carol
- Undulate
- Fathomless
- Cool-enfolding
- Saluting
- Husky
- Myriad
- Teeming wharves
- Askant
- Hither and yon
- Tallying chant
- Dusk and dim
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”
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Form
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Meter
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Rhyme Scheme
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“When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” Speaker
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“When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” Setting
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Literary and Historical Context of “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”
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More “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” Resources
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External Resources
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A Short Biography — Read a brief biography of Whitman from the Poetry Foundation, and find links to more of his works.
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Whitman on Lincoln — Learn more about how Whitman thought of Lincoln in this letter, examined in an article published by the Lincoln Cottage Museum in Washington, D.C.
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An Article on the Poem — Learn more about the poem, how Whitman saw Lincoln, and why the poem can be read as claiming “an invisible brotherhood” between Whitman and Lincoln in this article from the New York Times.
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An Early Copy of the Poem — See an image of an early printing of the poem at the Whitman Archive.
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Lincoln's Funeral Train — Learn more about the journey of President Lincoln's funeral train.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Walt Whitman
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