When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd is a pastoral elegy poem by Walt Whitman mourning the death of Abraham Lincoln. It uses nature imagery and symbols of a funeral procession to meditate on death and acceptance. The poem follows three simultaneous narratives - Lincoln's coffin journey, the poet's thoughts on death and mourning, and nature as separate yet sympathetic to humanity. The language shifts from formal rhetoric at the beginning to a more informal tone by the end.

1. When Lilacs Last in the
Dooryard Bloom’d
•Pastoral elegy
•A rural locale as its setting.
•An idealized shepherd
•Expressions of grief and praise for the deceased.
•A funeral procession.
•Nature imagery.
•A meditation on death.
•An acceptance of death.

2. When Lilacs Last in the
Dooryard Bloom’d
•Poem
•Natural order contrasted with human order
•Makes reference to problems of modern times
•Public poem of private mourning (Whitman mourning
Lincoln’s death) – elegy for Lincoln’s death
•Whitman wonders if a traditional pastoral elegy has a place
in modern society as a form of mourning

3. When Lilacs Last in the
Dooryard Bloom’d
•Poem
•Three separate and simultaneous poems
•One poem follows the progress of Lincoln’s coffin on it’s way
to the burial
•The second poem is with the poet as he thinks about death
and mourning
•The third develops the idea of nature as sympathetic yet
separate from humanity; uses nature symbols
•Language changes from beginning of poem to the end –
beginning more traditional and formal, filled with rhetorical
devices; end – the formalness is gone

4. When Lilacs Last in the
Dooryard Bloom’d
•Poem – Literary devices
•Irony
•Symbolism – natural elements; Lincoln’s death
•Tone – heavy and somber