When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd Whitman's encounter with the lilacs in bloom in his mother's yard caused the flowers to become "viscerally bound to the memory of Lincoln's death". According to Gregory Eiselein: In the weeks before Lincoln's assassination, Whitman observed the planet Venus shining brightly in the evening sky. He later wrote of the observation, "Nor earth nor sky ever knew spectacles of superber beauty than some of the nights lately here. The western star, Venus, in the earlier hours of evening, has never been so large, so clear; it seems as if it told something, as if it held rapport indulgent with humanity,
The Planet Is Alive...Let It Live! The Planet Is Alive...Let It Live! The Planet Is Alive...Let it Live! is a 1984 studio album by Sarah Vaughan, of the poetry of Pope John Paul II translated by Gene Lees. In 1995 the album was reissued on CD as "The Mystery of Man". The Allmusic review by Scott Yanow awarded the album one and a half stars and said that "Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of everyone involved, the results often sound rather ponderous...The best pieces are the two original ones by Lees ("The Mystery of Man" and "Let It Live") but otherwise this is a difficult set