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sore depression pain of mind passionate regret afflicted with grief cast down downcast gloomy serious Sympathy moving compassion tenderness tender-hearted full of pity obscurity partial or total darkness (as the gloom of a forest—gloom of midnight) cloudy cloudiness (cloudiness) of mind mind sunk in gloom soul ((sunk in gloom)/ dejection dejected
    [illegible]) shades of night heavy dull-sombre sombre shades sombre(ness) affliction oppress-oppressive oppression prostration humble—humility suffering-silent suffering burdensome Distress—distressing calamity Extreme anguish (either of mind or body) Misery torture harassed weighed down trouble deep affliction plaintive Calamity disaster something that strikes down—
                                WALT WHITMAN
                           A collection of vocabulary for
                           “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”

1

    WALT DREAMED HIS BROTHER’S DEATH AT FREDERICKSBURG. General Burnside, appearing as an angel at the foot of his bed, announced the tragedy: “The army regrets to inform you that your brother, George Washington Whitman, was shot in the head by a lewd fellow from Charleston.” The general alit on the bedpost and drew his dark wings close about him, as if to console himself. Moonlight limned his strange whiskers and his hair. His voice shook as he went on. “Such a beautiful boy. I held him in my arms while his life bled out. See? His blood made this spot.” He pointed at his breast, where a dark stain in the shape of a bird lay on the blue wool. “I am so very sorry,” the General said, choking and weeping. Tears fell in streams from his eyes, ran over the bed and out the window, where they joined the Rappahannock, which had somehow come north to flow through Brooklyn, bearing the bodies of all the late battle’s dead.
    In the morning Walt read the wounded list in the Tribune. There it was: “First Lieutenant G. W. Whitmore.” He knew from George’s letters that there was nobody named Whitmore in the company. He walked through snow to his mother’s house. “I’ll go and find him,” he told her.
    Washington, Walt quickly discovered, had become a city of hospitals. He looked in half of them before a cadaverous-looking clerk told him he’d be better off looking at Falmouth, where most of the Fredericksburg wounded still lay in field hospitals. He got himself on a government boat that ran down to the landing at Aquia Creek, and went by railroad to the neighborhood of Falmouth, seeking Fer-rero’s Brigade and the Fifty-first New York, George’s regiment. Walt stood outside a large brick mansion on the banks of the Rappahan-nock, somebody’s splendid residence converted to a hospital, afraid to go in and find his mangled brother. He took a walk around the building, gathering his courage, and found a pile of amputated limbs, arms and legs of varying lengths, all black and blue and rotten in the chill. A thin layer of snow covered some of them. He circled the heap, thinking he must recognize his brother’s hand if he saw it. He closed his eyes and considered the amputation; his brother screaming when he woke from the ether, his brother’s future contracting to something bitter and small.
    But George had only gotten a hole in his cheek. A piece of shell pierced his wispy beard and chipped a tooth. He had spit blood and hot metal into his hand, put the shrapnel in his pocket, and later showed it to his worried brother, who burst into tears and clutched him in a bear hug when they were reunited in Captain Francis’s tent, where George sat with his feet propped on a trunk and a cigar stuck in his bandaged face.
    “You shouldn’t fret,” said George. “I couldn’t be any healthier than I am. And I’ve been promoted. Now you may call me Captain Whitman.” But Walt could not help fretting, even now that he knew his brother was alive and well.