Journal #8: The Most Morbid Time in U.S. History

     The poems “Arlington Heights” by Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt and “The Death of Lincoln” by William Cullen Bryant effectively resonate the morbid atmosphere of slavery in the mid-1800s.  Not only were people saddened by slavery at this time, they also had to learn to cope with the assassination of a fantastic president, a hero in the eyes of many, Abraham Lincoln.  The two poems illustrate current events of the mid-1800s.  However, only one persuades readers more to pursue the antislavery movement, and that is “Arlington Heights”.  This is because in Bryant’s poem, he only speaks about the great president and not the effect slavery had on people. Through its imagery and diction, Piatt successfully persuades readers to have compassion for their darker brothers and sisters. 

     Imagery is so important in a poem because it transmits the message to the reader more vividly than just words.  Piatt illustrates the saddened people effected by slavery in lines 24-25 by expressing, “The mothers, sisters, wives with faded eyes That call still names among their broken talk.”  Since her poem is about the Arlington Memorial Cemetery, this explains to the reader that many families were effected by slavery and the war.  Their lives are forever changed because their loved ones will never come back.  They are gone forever.  And yet, still, they call out their names in desperation, in hope, in faith that they will reappear again.  Readers can feel this desperation through Piatt’s fantastic use of imagery.

     Secondly, Piatt exudes exquisite diction to provoke strong emotions in the reader about how somber this time was for many people.  In the same stanza as above, in lines 22-23, Piatt writes, “The dreadful phantoms of the living walk, And by low moons and darkness, with their cries”.  This poem would not have its success if it did not have this word choice.  Expressing the living members of these deceased as “phantoms” tells the reader that these slavery and war victims are suffering and in a severe state of depression and shock.  “The low moons and darkness” give an eerie feel to the picture, almost one of a horror story or a Halloween night, thus explaining the day after day morbid toll this war has had on slave and war families.

     Expressing imagery and diction as successfully as Piatt has explains to the reader exactly how people in the mid-1800s were feeling about the war and slavery and makes the reader feel engulfed in the scene.