The poem , written in free verse in 206 lines , uses many of the literary techniques associated with the pastoral elegy . It was written in the summer of 1865 during a period of profound national mourning in the aftermath of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln on April 14 , 1865 . Despite the poem being an elegy to the fallen president , Whitman neither mentions Lincoln by name nor discusses the circumstances of his death . Instead , Whitman uses a series of rural and natural imagery including the symbols of the lilacs , a drooping star in the western sky ( Venus ) , and the hermit thrush , and employs the traditional progression of the pastoral elegy in moving from grief toward an acceptance and knowledge of death . The poem also addresses the pity of war through imagery vaguely referencing the American Civil War ( 1861 – 1865 ) which ended only days before the assassination
assassination of President Abraham Lincoln
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd