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

VOA: special.2009.12.31

This is how the poem begins: When lilacs last in the dooryard bloomed, And the great star early drooped in the western sky in the night, I mourned, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.

VOA: special.2009.04.12

This is what it said: I,Abraham Lincoln, president of the United States and commander in chief of the Army and Navy, do hereby declare that on the first day of January, eighteen sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any state then in rebellion against the United States, shall then become and be forever free.

VOA: special.2009.10.08

It is rather for us,the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that,from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here, gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve these dead shall not have died in vain;

VOA: special.2011.02.07

Promise This-When You be Dying- Some shall summon Me- "And that way in which she says 'when you be dying', that's so classically the way African Americans structure their sentences, with that interesting use of 'be,'" "Maid as Muse" author Aife Murray says writing her book was a way for her to give credit where credit is due - to the unsung men and women whose language and culture enhanced the work of one of America's best-loved poets.

VOA: standard.2010.06.22