"When Lylacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd"

As I laid there and read this poem out loud to my roommate I couldn't help but think about how the author was writing this poem and how eloquent it was that he could write about a subject so dreary in such depth. Walt Whitman's words are so unique to today's culture and I even said it out loud that these words seem so outdated but this is the way people communicated back in those days. When I read the poem at first it was hard in the beginning to realize it was about a funeral but then as I got into the poem more and more I realized that's what Whitman was talking about. His words are so well put together and I enjoyed reading them but at times they were hard to understand. He paints a picture in our minds of people mourning by the train station and just the many faces of sadness and it really puts into perspective how this one funeral of one man affected an entire nation.

In the activity that we wrote down our favorite parts and our difficult parts it really helped me to understand something’s. I wrote down as my favorite part:

O western orb sailing the heaven,

Now I know what you must have meant as a month since I walk'd,

As I walk'd in silence the transparent shadowy night,

As I saw you had something to tell as you bent to me night after night,

As you droop'd from the sky low down as if to my side, (while the other starts all look'd on)

I read this and just imagined the galaxy talking to him about the death that he was encountering which when we think about it is kind of what happens when death occurs in our lives. We feel like the world should stop in remembrance of the deceased person but it doesn't and these words jus show how in our own world time does stop when someone dies. Even if the death is someone that is not that close to you (in this case the president) death still makes time stand still if even for a little.. everything just pauses in remembrance of that person...