{"id":1135,"date":"2004-03-17T09:43:58","date_gmt":"2004-03-17T14:43:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/?p=1135"},"modified":"2004-03-17T09:43:58","modified_gmt":"2004-03-17T14:43:58","slug":"for-michelle-wh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/2004\/03\/for-michelle-wh\/","title":{"rendered":"For Michelle: When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom’d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michelle’s Famous Poet Quiz result was Walt Whitman,<\/a> so I’d like to offer this especially for her:
\nWhen Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom’d<\/p>\n


\nWhen Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom’d
\n1
\nWHEN lilacs last in the door-yard bloom’d,
\nAnd the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night,
\nI mourn’d—and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.
\nO ever-returning spring! trinity sure to me you bring;
\nLilac blooming perennial, and drooping star in the west,
\nAnd thought of him I love.
\n2
\nO powerful, western, fallen star!
\nO shades of night! O moody, tearful night!
\nO great star disappear’d! O the black murk that hides the star!
\nO cruel hands that hold me powerless! O helpless soul of me!
\nO harsh surrounding cloud, that will not free my soul!
\n3
\nIn the door-yard fronting an old farm-house, near the white-wash’d palings,
\nStands the lilac bush, tall-growing, with heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
\nWith many a pointed blossom, rising, delicate, with the perfume strong I love,
\nWith every leaf a miracle……and from this bush in the door-yard,
\nWith delicate-color’d blossoms, and heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
\nA sprig, with its flower, I break.
\n4
\nIn the swamp, in secluded recesses,
\nA shy and hidden bird is warbling a song.
\nSolitary, the thrush,
\nThe hermit, withdrawn to himself, avoiding the settlements,
\nSings by himself a song.
\nSong of the bleeding throat!
\nDeath’s outlet song of life—(for well, dear brother, I know
\nIf thou wast not gifted to sing, thou would’st surely die.)
\n5
\nOver the breast of the spring, the land, amid cities,
\nAmid lanes, and through old woods, (where lately the violets peep’d from the ground, spotting the gray debris;)
\nAmid the grass in the fields each side of the lanes—passing the endless grass;
\nPassing the yellow-spear’d wheat, every grain from its shroud in the dark-brown fields uprising;
\nPassing the apple-tree blows of white and pink in the orchards;
\nCarrying a corpse to where it shall rest in the grave,
\nNight and day journeys a coffin.
\n6
\nCoffin that passes through lanes and streets,
\nThrough day and night, with the great cloud darkening the land,
\nWith the pomp of the inloop’d flags, with the cities draped in black,
\nWith the show of the States themselves, as of crape-veil’d women, standing,
\nWith processions long and winding, and the flambeaus of the night,
\nWith the countless torches lit—with the silent sea of faces, and the unbared heads,
\nWith the waiting depot, the arriving coffin, and the sombre faces,
\nWith dirges through the night, with the thousand voices rising strong and solemn;
\nWith all the mournful voices of the dirges, pour’d around the coffin,
\nThe dim-lit churches and the shuddering organs—Where amid these you journey,
\nWith the tolling, tolling bells’ perpetual clang;
\nHere! coffin that slowly passes,
\nI give you my sprig of lilac.
\n7
\n(Nor for you, for one, alone;
\nBlossoms and branches green to coffins all I bring:
\nFor fresh as the morning—thus would I carol a song for you, O sane and sacred death.
\nAll over bouquets of roses,
\nO death! I cover you over with roses and early lilies;
\nBut mostly and now the lilac that blooms the first,
\nCopious, I break, I break the sprigs from the bushes;
\nWith loaded arms I come, pouring for you,
\nFor you, and the coffins all of you, O death.)
\n8
\nO western orb, sailing the heaven!
\nNow I know what you must have meant, as a month since we walk’d,
\nAs we walk’d up and down in the dark blue so mystic,
\nAs we walk’d in silence the transparent shadowy night,
\nAs I saw you had something to tell, as you bent to me night after night,
\nAs you droop’d from the sky low down, as if to my side, (while the other stars all look’d on;)
\nAs we wander’d together the solemn night, (for something, I know not what, kept me from sleep;)
\nAs the night advanced, and I saw on the rim of the west, ere you went, how full you were of woe;
\nAs I stood on the rising ground in the breeze, in the cold transparent night,
\nAs I watch’d where you pass’d and was lost in the netherward black of the night,
\nAs my soul, in its trouble, dissatisfied, sank, as where you, sad orb,
\nConcluded, dropt in the night, and was gone.
\n9
\nSing on, there in the swamp!
\nO singer bashful and tender! I hear your notes—I hear your call;
\nI hear—I come presently—I understand you;
\nBut a moment I linger—for the lustrous star has detain’d me;
\nThe star, my departing comrade, holds and detains me.
\n10
\nO how shall I warble myself for the dead one there I loved?
\nAnd how shall I deck my song for the large sweet soul that has gone?
\nAnd what shall my perfume be, for the grave of him I love?
\nSea-winds, blown from east and west,
\nBlown from the eastern sea, and blown from the western sea, till there on the prairies meeting:
\nThese, and with these, and the breath of my chant,
\nI perfume the grave of him I love.
\n11
\nO what shall I hang on the chamber walls?
\nAnd what shall the pictures be that I hang on the walls,
\nTo adorn the burial-house of him I love?
\nPictures of growing spring, and farms, and homes,
\nWith the Fourth-month eve at sundown, and the gray smoke lucid and bright,
\nWith floods of the yellow gold of the gorgeous, indolent, sinking sun, burning, expanding the air;
\nWith the fresh sweet herbage under foot, and the pale green leaves of the trees prolific;
\nIn the distance the flowing glaze, the breast of the river, with a wind-dapple here and there;
\nWith ranging hills on the banks, with many a line against the sky, and shadows;
\nAnd the city at hand, with dwellings so dense, and stacks of chimneys,
\nAnd all the scenes of life, and the workshops, and the workmen homeward returning.
\n12
\nLo! body and soul! this land!
\nMighty Manhattan, with spires, and the sparkling and hurrying tides, and the ships;
\nThe varied and ample land—the South and the North in the light—Ohio’s shores, and flashing Missouri,
\nAnd ever the far-spreading prairies, cover’d with grass and corn.
\nLo! the most excellent sun, so calm and haughty;
\nThe violet and purple morn, with just-felt breezes;
\nThe gentle, soft-born, measureless light;
\nThe miracle, spreading, bathing all—the fulfill’d noon;
\nThe coming eve, delicious—the welcome night, and the stars,
\nOver my cities shining all, enveloping man and land.
\n13
\nSing on! sing on, you gray-brown bird!
\nSing from the swamps, the recesses—pour your chant from the bushes;
\nLimitless out of the dusk, out of the cedars and pines.
\nSing on, dearest brother—warble your reedy song;
\nLoud human song, with voice of uttermost woe.
\nO liquid, and free, and tender!
\nO wild and loose to my soul! O wondrous singer!
\nYou only I hear……yet the star holds me, (but will soon depart;)
\nYet the lilac, with mastering odor, holds me.
\n14
\nNow while I sat in the day, and look’d forth,
\nIn the close of the day, with its light, and the fields of spring, and the farmer preparing his crops,
\nIn the large unconscious scenery of my land, with its lakes and forests,
\nIn the heavenly aerial beauty, (after the perturb’d winds, and the storms;)
\nUnder the arching heavens of the afternoon swift passing, and the voices of children and women,
\nThe many-moving sea-tides,—and I saw the ships how they sail’d,
\nAnd the summer approaching with richness, and the fields all busy with labor,
\nAnd the infinite separate houses, how they all went on, each with its meals and minutia of daily usages;
\nAnd the streets, how their throbbings throbb’d, and the cities pent—lo! then and there,
\nFalling upon them all, and among them all, enveloping me with the rest,
\nAppear’d the cloud, appear’d the long black trail;
\nAnd I knew Death, its thought, and the sacred knowledge of death.
\n15
\nThen with the knowledge of death as walking one side of me,
\nAnd the thought of death close-walking the other side of me,
\nAnd I in the middle, as with companions, and as holding the hands of companions,
\nI fled forth to the hiding receiving night, that talks not,
\nDown to the shores of the water, the path by the swamp in the dimness,
\nTo the solemn shadowy cedars, and ghostly pines so still.
\nAnd the singer so shy to the rest receiv’d me;
\nThe gray-brown bird I know, receiv’d us comrades three;
\nAnd he sang what seem’d the carol of death, and a verse for him I love.
\nFrom deep secluded recesses,
\nFrom the fragrant cedars, and the ghostly pines so still,
\nCame the carol of the bird.
\nAnd the charm of the carol rapt me,
\nAs I held, as if by their hands, my comrades in the night;
\nAnd the voice of my spirit tallied the song of the bird.
\nDEATH CAROL.
\n16
\nCome, lovely and soothing Death,
\nUndulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving,
\nIn the day, in the night, to all, to each,
\nSooner or later, delicate Death.
\nPrais’d be the fathomless universe,
\nFor life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious;
\nAnd for love, sweet love—But praise! praise! praise!
\nFor the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding Death.
\nDark Mother, always gliding near, with soft feet,
\nHave none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome?
\nThen I chant it for thee—I glorify thee above all;
\nI bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, come unfalteringly.
\nApproach, strong Deliveress!
\nWhen it is so—when thou hast taken them, I joyously sing the dead,
\nLost in the loving, floating ocean of thee,
\nLaved in the flood of thy bliss, O Death.
\nFrom me to thee glad serenades,
\nDances for thee I propose, saluting thee—adornments and feastings for thee;
\nAnd the sights of the open landscape, and the high-spread sky, are fitting,
\nAnd life and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful night.
\nThe night, in silence, under many a star;
\nThe ocean shore, and the husky whispering wave, whose voice I know;
\nAnd the soul turning to thee, O vast and well-veil’d Death,
\nAnd the body gratefully nestling close to thee.
\nOver the tree-tops I float thee a song!
\nOver the rising and sinking waves—over the myriad fields, and the prairies wide;
\nOver the dense-pack’d cities all, and the teeming wharves and ways,
\nI float this carol with joy, with joy to thee, O Death!<\/i>
\n17
\nTo the tally of my soul,
\nLoud and strong kept up the gray-brown bird,
\nWith pure, deliberate notes, spreading, filling the night.
\nLoud in the pines and cedars dim,
\nClear in the freshness moist, and the swamp-perfume;
\nAnd I with my comrades there in the night.
\nWhile my sight that was bound in my eyes unclosed,
\nAs to long panoramas of visions.
\n18
\nI saw askant the armies;
\nAnd I saw, as in noiseless dreams, hundreds of battle-flags;
\nBorne through the smoke of the battles, and pierc’d with missiles, I saw them,
\nAnd carried hither and yon through the smoke, and torn and bloody;
\nAnd at last but a few shreds left on the staffs, (and all in silence,)
\nAnd the staffs all splinter’d and broken.
\nI saw battle-corpses, myriads of them,
\nAnd the white skeletons of young men—I saw them;
\nI saw the debris and debris of all the dead soldiers of the war;
\nBut I saw they were not as was thought;
\nThey themselves were fully at rest—they suffer’d not;
\nThe living remain’d and suffer’d—the mother suffer’d,
\nAnd the wife and the child, and the musing comrade suffer’d,
\nAnd the armies that remain’d suffer’d.
\n19
\nPassing the visions, passing the night;
\nPassing, unloosing the hold of my comrades’ hands;
\nPassing the song of the hermit bird, and the tallying song of my soul,
\n(Victorious song, death’s outlet song, yet varying, ever-altering song,
\nAs low and wailing, yet clear the notes, rising and falling, flooding the night,
\nSadly sinking and fainting, as warning and warning, and yet again bursting with joy,
\nCovering the earth, and filling the spread of the heaven,
\nAs that powerful psalm in the night I heard from recesses,)
\nPassing, I leave thee, lilac with heart-shaped leaves;
\nI leave thee there in the door-yard, blooming, returning with spring,
\nI cease from my song for thee;
\nFrom my gaze on thee in the west, fronting the west, communing with thee,
\nO comrade lustrous, with silver face in the night.
\n20
\nYet each I keep, and all, retrievements out of the night;
\nThe song, the wondrous chant of the gray-brown bird,
\nAnd the tallying chant, the echo arous’d in my soul,
\nWith the lustrous and drooping star, with the countenance full of woe,
\nWith the lilac tall, and its blossoms of mastering odor;
\nWith the holders holding my hand, nearing the call of the bird,
\nComrades mine, and I in the midst, and their memory ever I keep—for the dead I loved so well;
\nFor the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands…and this for his dear sake;
\nLilac and star and bird, twined with the chant of my soul,
\nThere in the fragrant pines, and the cedars dusk and dim.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michelle’s Famous Poet Quiz result was Walt Whitman, so I’d like to offer this especially for her: When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom’d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-around-st-blogs","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1135\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}