Section 1 Summary

Lines 1-3

When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd,
And the great star early droop'd in the western sky in the night,
I mourn'd, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.

• Whitman's speaker starts us right off with the poem's title. (For more on that, check out "What's Up with the Title?".) We're remembering the last time that some lilacs in a dooryard (the front yard) bloomed. Although, the word "last" may also refer to the last lilacs to bloom for the season. 
• We also know that the poem's setting takes place some time during spring (lilac season). Check out "Setting" for more on that. 
• Adding to the landscape is that "great star" in the western sky. Usually that star (actually a planet) is Venus, since it's the brightest star we can see in the early evening sky. (Check it out.) 
• But since it's "droop'd," we also get the feeling that there's some sadness in these lines. Venus can literally look rather droopy in the early evening because it appears to hang pretty low on the horizon, but here we get the feeling that the speaker is building a particular mood for the poem. We should also say that you shouldn't be thrown for a loop when you see an apostrophe in a word like "droop'd," or later "mourn'd." This just means that a letter's been taken out to ensure that the word doesn't get an extra syllable. Both "droop'd" (drooped) and "mourn'd" (mourned) should be one syllable here (kind of like they are… always). Whitman is just being poetic in a sense with these abbreviations, but he's also making sure that the reader doesn't go the other way and add an extra syllable here, as in "droopéd" (the added accent mark in a poem tells us to add a second beat to the word: "droop-ed"). 
• Line 3 drives that mood home with the speaker mourning the loss of someone or something. We don't know any specifics just yet. But since he will "mourn with ever-returning spring," we understand that spring will forever remind him of what he lost. 
• So, even in the first stanza we see the speaker blending the beauty and vivacity of spring with the pain of mourning and death. 
• We've also got some duality (two opposing forces) occurring here between life (the lilacs) and death (mourning) that indicate that both are getting along just fine in the poem. Even though the speaker is in mourning, he can still appreciate those lilacs in the dooryard and that "great star" in the western sky. So already we get the sense that this elegy won't be just about woe and Kleenex.

Lines 4-6

Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring,
Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west,
And thought of him I love.

• So, with every returning spring, the speaker will get some sort of "trinity." What in the wide world of sports does that mean?
• Lines 5-6 sum it up for us by providing those three things that make up the speaker's trinity: lilacs, drooping star in the west, and "him."
• Lock those three things away, because chances are they will become very important to the poem later on. Perhaps they're even symbols for some bigger ideas. For right now, we can presume that lilacs represent life's vivacity and endurance since they come back every year ("perennial"). But we'll have to wait and see what the speaker does with that "star" and "him."
• So, about that "him I love": who is this guy and what's his relation to the speaker? We don't know yet, but we know there's love there, whether it's romantic, familial, or something else.
• By now we can say for sure that the speaker is missing a man in some way. But we're not feeling engulfed in grief because of all the beautiful and lively imagery of lilacs and stars. Check out "Symbols, Imagery, and Wordplay" for more on them. 
• So, right now we recognize the speaker's sad times, but we also see him weaving some beauty in there too. At the same time, all of those telltale signs of spring's rejuvenation are simultaneously reminders of the man the speaker has lost. Glass half empty, or half full? 
• Actually, it's as if we're getting a sense of balance between life and death in the poem.