With Every Leaf a Miracle

The lilacs in our front yard are just beginning to bloom, although most of the deep purple buds are still tightly closed. As I press my nose to the burgeoning blossoms, there is the merest tantalizing whiff of scent. The "heart-shaped leaves of rich green" are now lush and cover what were bare branches not long ago.

Last spring, I endeavored to memorize Whitman's great elegy on the death of Abraham Lincoln When Lilacs Last in the Door-Yard Bloom'd. The 1865 version of the poem consists of twenty-one sections of several stanzas each. Over two and a half months, I managed to memorize seven sections.

It is impossible adequately to express what this poem means to me. It encompasses so much of what I love--Walt Whitman, bard and passionate lover of all; Abraham Lincoln, my great hero since earliest childhood and an ongoing subject of study; the lilac, ancient shrub of exquisite scent known to me since early boyhood; spring, when new life emerges so sensuously and extravagantly; the hermit thrush, whose ethereal song evokes an earthy spirituality; the elegy, that artistic form of grief and longing; death, its mystery and allure ever captivating.

Here is Whitman's mesmerizing ode to death at the heart of Lilacs:

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! O praise and 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, encompassing Death-- strong Deliveress!
When it is so--when you have 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 treetops 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!

(Photo from Google Image)