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Walt WhitmanA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
“When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” represents Whitman’s expansive free verse style, seen in poems like “Song of Myself” before and “Out of the Cradle, Endlessly Rocking” later. Whitman’s extended lines demonstrate his effort to create a kind of prosody appropriate for America: its complex, busy cities, its open prairies, and its rugged western terrain. Whitman made the Romantic ideal of voicing the common man into a literal reality, rather than a poetic stance. Rather than organizing his poems with meter and rhyme, he employs rhythm and repetition, echoed syllables, and percussive alliteration. The number of syllables per line in “Lilacs” ranges from six to over 20; syllabic stresses can be hard to determine, since line length remains in flux throughout the poem. Even within cantos, the line lengths can widely vary.
For instance, in Canto 12, Whitman portrays the various geometry and geography of the country, contrasting “Manhattan with spires” (Canto 12, Line 2) against the “far-spreading prairies” (Canto 12, Line 4) in one long periodic sentence.
By Walt Whitman
A Glimpse
A Glimpse
Walt Whitman
America
America
Walt Whitman
A Noiseless Patient Spider
A Noiseless Patient Spider
Walt Whitman
Are you the new person drawn toward me?
Are you the new person drawn toward me?
Walt Whitman
As I Walk These Broad Majestic Days
As I Walk These Broad Majestic Days
Walt Whitman
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
Walt Whitman
For You O Democracy
For You O Democracy
Walt Whitman
Hours Continuing Long
Hours Continuing Long
Walt Whitman
I Hear America Singing
I Hear America Singing
Walt Whitman
I Sing the Body Electric
I Sing the Body Electric
Walt Whitman
I Sit and Look Out
I Sit and Look Out
Walt Whitman
Leaves of Grass
Leaves of Grass
Walt Whitman
O Captain! My Captain!
O Captain! My Captain!
Walt Whitman
Song of Myself
Song of Myself
Walt Whitman
Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night
Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night
Walt Whitman
When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer
When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer
Walt Whitman