I. WHEN LILACS LAST IN THE DOORYARD BLOOM'D_Memories of Lincoln

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.

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.

In the dooryard fronting an old farmhouse

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.

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The hermit withdrawn to himself, avoiding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.)

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.

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 bell's perpetual

clang,

Here, coffin that slowly passes,

I give you my sprig of lilac.

(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.)

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,)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Song 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.

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--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.

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.

_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

praise! praise!

For the sure-enwinding arms of

cool-enfolding death.

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._

_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.

Over the tree-tops I float thee a song,

Over the rising and sinking leaves, 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._

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.

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.

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.

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 dooryard,

blooming, returning with spring.

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.

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.