When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d

When reading this poem, at first it was hard for me to understand some of the first verses, but as I read on it became apparent that Walt Whitman was referring to the death of someone that he held dear. My favorite passage in the poem was:

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,


When I read this passage it made me think of a soldier's burial or the burial of someone who is held in high regard. As I read this I was reminded of a newspaper article that I had read about a local solider whose body was returned home after he was killed in Afghanistan. I read the article and looked at the pictures - the somberness of the soldier's faces as they unloaded the flag draped coffin and the tears that fell from the eyes of his wife and parent. So when I read this part of the poem it made me think of what the atmosphere was like the day that Abe Lincoln was being buried. All the faces of those that he had inspired and all those who loved him dearly - frozen in a state of sadness, shock, and disbelief.

This could very well be said of the crucifixion of Jesus - watching as they made Him carry His own cross and then crucified him in front of the masses. What utter sadness and disbelief His followers and those who truly loved Him must have felt. But I am so glad He rose again.

Discussing this in my small group gave me some insight on passages that I had no clue how to decipher and it also gave me the opportunity to listen to how others viewed the poem and what it reminded them of. It is so refreshing to have other input outside of my own because helps you look at literature as a "whole" rather that just a "part".