When a tragedy strikes a nation, artists often turn to their work as means of expressing grief. Such the case is the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. In the days and months following Lincoln’s assassination on April 14, 1865, Walt Whitman with “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” and William Cullen Bryant with “Abraham Lincoln”, both offer poetic elegies for this much loved president. Although Whitman’s and Bryant’s tributes to Lincoln share …showed first 75 words of 404 total…

…showed last 75 words of 404 total…lines, he again shows Lincoln’s renown by showing Lincoln’s willingness to die for his cause. Both Bryant and Whitman expertly capture the greatness of a man loved by countless people. Mutually respectful of the President of the United States, both men mourn in the form they do best, poetry. Although each poet has his own, individual style and technique, together these poets offer a legacy of a man that will live without end.