letter to Ann Woodlief about Whitmans Lilacs
... Woodlief — thanks very much for your very helpful piece on “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” (http://www. ... I can picture the scene this way: Lilacs are in full bloom, the glorious Evening Star has been “speaking” to the poet in such dark times as they were, and then comes the news of the death of Lincoln. The lilacs come again, again the star droops, and the thought is forced upon the poet year after year. ... Wouldn’t it be erroneous and ungrammatical (thus un-Whitman-like) to try to make the phrase “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” refer to the current year, when the boughs he’s now breaking were sprung?