Similar features can be found in stanza seven, from line 46 to line 54. After undergoing the funeral procession, the reader is now faced with a speaker that wants to spread “roses and early lilies” (Whitman, 50) to the dead. He had broken off a sprig of lilac in the dooryard of his home, already, in stanza three and put it onto the Lincoln’s coffin, in stanza six. Thereby the speaker links the sprig and the dead and helps to evokes hope in the reader and himself. Flowers, also the sprig, symbolize growth. The sprig is something that will return next spring, hence the circle of existence will go on. In the current section, section seven, the speaker encounters death by planning to spread more sprigs all over the coffins of other victims of
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It appears throughout the whole poem and plays a key role in the speaker’s contemplating of President Lincoln’s death. In the over fifty line- long stanza fourteen the speaker is accompanied once again by the bird, which sings “the carol of death” (Whitman, 129) that helps him understand and accept what death really is about.
The bird has two functions. First of all, it allows Whitman, the poet, to express his extensive grief and thereby serves as an outlet for his feelings. It supports the tragedy of the circumstances and underlines the gravity of the situation even more than it could have been supported by just the speaker’s or the human grief.
However, there is a second, more important function to the bird. By singing its song the hermit thrush is sharing his wisdom with the speaker. The sad and desperate lyrical “I”, faced with the death of such an important figure as Lincoln, does not know how to cope with death and is furthermore constantly reminded of it, by being in nature, the “mastering odor” (Whitman, 108) of the lilacs and by living life in general. The bird however, by praising death and welcoming it in line 136: “Come, lovely and soothing death” (Whitman, 136), changes
It appears throughout the whole poem and plays a key role in the speaker’s contemplating of President Lincoln’s death. In the over fifty line- long stanza fourteen the speaker is accompanied once again by the bird, which sings “the carol of death” (Whitman, 129) that helps him understand and accept what death really is about.
The bird has two functions. First of all, it allows Whitman, the poet, to express his extensive grief and thereby serves as an outlet for his feelings. It supports the tragedy of the circumstances and underlines the gravity of the situation even more than it could have been supported by just the speaker’s or the human grief.
However, there is a second, more important function to the bird. By singing its song the hermit thrush is sharing his wisdom with the speaker. The sad and desperate lyrical “I”, faced with the death of such an important figure as Lincoln, does not know how to cope with death and is furthermore constantly reminded of it, by being in nature, the “mastering odor” (Whitman, 108) of the lilacs and by living life in general. The bird however, by praising death and welcoming it in line 136: “Come, lovely and soothing death” (Whitman, 136), changes