Eloquent silence
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In 1865, as the world reeled following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Leaves of Grass poet Walt Whitman began work on an elegy to mark the death of the US President, a man for whom Whitman held great admiration. As he prepared to write the mourning poem that would eventually be known as When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d, Whitman brainstormed by drawing up a list of words related to such loss.
sorrow (saxon)
grieve
sad
mourn (just)
mourning
mournful melancholy
dismal
heavy-hearted
tears
black
sobs -ing
sighing
funeral rites
wailing
lamenting
mute
grief
eloquent silence
bewail
bemoan
deplore
regret deeply
loud lament
pitiful
loud weeping
violent lamentation
anguish
wept sore
depression
pain of mind
passionate regret
afflicted with grief
cast down
downcast
gloomy
serious
sympathy
moving
compassion
tenderness
tender-hearted
full of pity
obscurity
partial or total Darkness
(as the gloom of a forest – gloom of midnight)
cloudy
cloudiness
dejection
dejected
[shades?] of night heavy
dull – sombre
sombre shades
sombreness
affliction
oppress
oppressive
oppression
prostration
humble – humility
suffering – silent suffering
burdensome
Distress – distressing
Calamity
Extreme anguish (either of mind or body)
Misery
torture
harrassed
weighed down
trouble
deep affliction
plaintive
Calamity
disaster
something that strikes down –as by Almighty