"When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" by Walt Whitman is as much a poem about affirming life as it is a poem about death. Do you agreee?

I definitely agree. If you read this excellent poem
lamenting the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln carefully, you will see, apart
from the many instances of images and words that convey the poet's shock and sorrow
about the death of the President, many images that also celebrate the rebirth of life
and nature's natural cycle. Note first of all that the poem is set in spring, an obvious
time of rebirth and a celebration of the cycle of nature as life emerges. Note the
following quote from the first stanza:

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O ever-returing spring! trinity sure to me you
bring;

Lilac blooming perennial, and drooping star in the
west,

And thought of him I
love.

It is as if the
meditation on death that this poem represents places our lives in the scheme of the
natural cycle of life. As we read through the poem we see many more such examples that
celebrate life and the rebirth inherent in nature. Every leaf of the lilac plant is said
to be a "miracle" as it grows and blossoms, just as the poet mourns the death of his
friend. At every stage, death is coupled with new life, as in the following
stanza:

Over
the breast of the spring, the land, amid cities,

Amid
lanes, and through old woods, (where lately the violets
peep'd

from the ground, spotting the grey
debris;)

Amid the grass in the fields each side of the
lanes--passing the endless grass;

Passing the
yellow-spear'd wheat, every grain from its shroud in the dark-brown fields
uprising;

Passing the apple-tree blows of white and pink in
the orchards;

Carrying a corpse to where it shall rest in
the grave,

Night and day journeys a
coffin.

Note here how there
is ample evidence of the phoenix-like qualities of nature. Violets are emerging, the
wheat is "yellow-spear'd" and growing, the apple trees are blossoming, all alongside the
corpse that "shall rest in the grave."

Thus in this poem it
is clear that Whitman is keen to set this tragic event against a wider framework that
celebrates life and affirms it. This is not a mere lament, but a poem that talks about
the cycle of life and how the world continues and how often death is coupled with
life.