I |
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.
|
II |
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 clouds that will
not free my soul.
|
III |
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.
|
IV |
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The hermit withdrawn to himself,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.)
|
V |
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.
|
VI |
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.
|
VII |
(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.)
|
VIII |
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.
|
IX |
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.
|
X |
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.
|
XI |
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.
|
XII |
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.
|
XIII |
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.
|
XIV |
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 labour, |
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.
|
XV |
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 therein 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.
|
XVI |
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 |
Classic Poems |
|
[ Song of Myself XXIV ] [ Song of Myself LII ] [ Crossing Brooklyn Ferry ] [ When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd ] [ To a Locomotive in Winter ] |