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| Whitman during the Civil War |
Walt Whitman is
undoubtedly the poet most famously associated with the Civil War. He was 51 years old at war’s start and had
already achieved a measure of fame—in the eyes of many more like notoriety—for
the publication of Leaves of Grass. He saw the third, expanded
edition of this constantly evolving life project issued in 1860 and had
finished his last round of supporting himself as a journalist, as editor of the
Daily Times in Brooklyn. He had enthusiastically supported Abraham Lincoln in the election.
With the outbreak of war Whitman published the unabashedly martial Beat!
Beat! Drums! to rally enlistments for the Union cause. His younger brother George Washington Whitman enlisted and as a lieutenant at the front began sending Walt detailed
letters on the life of a soldier. In
December of 1862 he heard that his brother might have been wounded in action. He made his way to Washington, much of the
time on foot or hitching rides after his wallet was stolen, to search for his
brother. He found him with a superficial
wound to the face, but visits to the wretched misery of military hospitals
around the capital city made him resolve to stay.
Whitman secured a part time job as a clerk in the Army Paymaster’s office, enough to pay for a rented room.
He then spent much of his time as a volunteer nurse at the
hospitals. He just showed up,
unaffiliated with the Sanitary
Commission or authorized by anyone. He was allowed to tend the troops anyway due
to desperate shortages of care-givers.
He not only changed dressings, fed, and bathed the wounded, he talked
with them, learning their stories. He
reported on his experiences in dispatches sent to a New York newspaper
which published them as The Great Army of the Sick. In 1875 he wrote again of his
experiences in a memoir, Memoranda During the War.
Eventually, Whitman found better paying employment at the Bureau of Indian Affairs, but was dismissed by a new Secretary of the Interior in 1865, likely
because of objections to employing the notorious author of the “immoral” Leaves of Grass. With the help of patrons, Whitman secured a
post in the office of the Attorney
General where his job included interviewing former Rebel soldiers for
possible Presidential pardons. Whitman
would stay in the Justice
Department until 1872, when he had to resign to tend his
ailing and aging mother.
During the war, Whitman composed many poems based on his personal
experiences and on the accounts of the troops.
They were passionate, raw, devoid of easy sentimentality, and a frank
look at the horror of war. In 1865 they
were published as Drum Taps. At war’s end, Whitman took the
assassination of President Lincoln as a personal loss. He composed three elegies to the martyred
president. O Captain! My
Captain was much more conventionally structured than the
poet’s usual free verse. But the
allegory struck a deep chord with the public and was widely reprinted. It became the only poem by Whitman to be
anthologized in his life time, and also helped rehabilitate his image with the
wider public. When
Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d was a far subtler
work. Both poems were included in an
expanded version of Drum Taps and in
later editions of Leaves of
Grass.
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d
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.)
8
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.
9
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.
10
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.
11
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.
12
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.
13
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.
14
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 love—but
praise! 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
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.
15
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.
16
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.
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
—Walt Whitman
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