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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Vision of Sir Launfal + And Other Poems + +Author: James Russell Lowell + +Release Date: March 8, 2006 [EBook #17948] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Sankar Viswanathan, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + + +<p class="center"><img src="images/image_3.jpg" alt="Cover" width="400" height="584" /></p> +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><img class="img1" src="images/image_02.jpg" alt="Frontispiece" width="400" height="543" /></p> +<p> </p> +<h1>THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL</h1> +<h2>AND OTHER POEMS</h2> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL</h2> + +<h3>EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY<br /> +JULIAN W. ABERNETHY, PH.D., PRINCIPAL OF<br /> +THE BERKELEY INSTITUTE, BROOKLYN, N.Y.</h3> +<p class="center"><img src="images/image_01.jpg" alt="Seal" width="95" height="82" /></p> +<h4>Merrill's English Texts</h4> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h3>NEW YORK</h3> + +<h2>CHARLES E. MERRILL CO.</h2> + +<h4>44-60 <span class="smcap">East Twenty-third Street</span></h4> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1908, by Charles E. Merrill Co.</span></p> + + + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE</h2> + + +<p>The aim of this edition of the <i>Vision of Sir Launfal</i> is to furnish +the material that must be used in any adequate treatment of the poem +in the class room, and to suggest other material that may be used in +the more leisurely and fruitful method of study that is sometimes +possible in spite of the restrictions of arbitrary courses of study.</p> + +<p>In interpreting the poem with young students, special emphasis should +be given to the ethical significance, the broad appeal to human +sympathy and the sense of a common brotherhood of men, an appeal that +is in accord with the altruistic tendencies of the present time; to +the intimate appreciation and love of nature expressed in the poem, +feelings also in accord with the present movement of cultured minds +toward the natural world; to the lofty and inspiring idealism of +Lowell, as revealed in the poems included in this volume and in his +biography, and also as contrasted with current materialism; and, +finally, to the romantic sources of the story in the legends of King +Arthur and his table round, a region of literary delight too generally +unknown to present-day students.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span></p> + +<p>After these general topics, it is assumed that such matters as +literary structure and poetic beauty will receive due attention. If +the technical faults of the poem, which critics are at much pains to +point out, are not discovered by the student, his knowledge will be +quite as profitable. Additional reading in Lowell's works should be +secured, and can be through the sympathetic interest and enthusiasm of +the instructor. The following selections may be used for rapid +examination and discussion: <i>Under the Willows, The First Snow-Fall, +Under the Old Elm, Auf Wiedersehen, Sunthin' in the Pastoral Line, +Jonathan to John, Mr. Hosea Biglow to the Editor of the Atlantic +Monthly</i>, and the prose essays <i>My Garden Acquaintance</i> and <i>A Good +Word for Winter</i>. The opportunity should not be lost for making the +students forever and interestedly acquainted with Lowell, with the +poet and the man.</p> + +<p>The editor naturally does not assume responsibility for the character +of the examination questions given, at the end of this volume. They +are questions that have been used in recent years in college entrance +papers by two eminent examination boards.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left:83%; ">J.W.A.</span></p> + +<p><span style="margin-left:3em; "><i>October</i> 1, 1908.</span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2> + + + + + + +<table summary="Contents"> +<tr><td> </td><td class="tocpg">PAGE</td></tr> +<tr><td ><span class="smcap"><a href="#INTRODUCTION">Introduction:</a></span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td > </td> +</tr> +<tr><td class="td1"><a href="#LIFE_OF_LOWELL">Life of Lowell</a></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_7">7</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="td1"><a href="#CRITICAL_APPRECIATIONS">Critical Appreciations</a></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_22">22</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="td1"><a href="#THE_VISION_OF_SIR_LAUNFAL">The Vision of Sir Launfal</a></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_26">26</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="td1"><a href="#THE_COMMEMORATION_ODE">The Commemoration Ode</a></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_33">33</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="td1"><a href="#BIBLIOGRAPHY">Bibliography</a></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_39">39</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="td1"><a href="#THE_POETS_TRIBUTES_TO_LOWELL">Poets' Tributes to Lowell</a></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_40">40</a></td></tr> +<tr> + <td class="td1"> </td> + <td class="tocpg"> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td ><span class="smcap"><a href="#POEMS">Poems:</a></span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td > </td> +</tr> +<tr><td class="td1"><a href="#THE_VISION_OF_SIR_LAUNFAL_1">The Vision of Sir Launfal</a></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_41">41</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="td1"><a href="#THE_SHEPHERD_OF_KING_ADMETUS">The Shepherd of King Admetus</a></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_59">59</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="td1"><a href="#AN_INCIDENT_IN_A_RAILROAD_CAR">An Incident in a Railroad Car</a></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_61">61</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="td1"><a href="#HEBE">Hebe</a></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_66">66</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="td1"><a href="#TO_THE_DANDELION">To the Dandelion</a></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_67">67</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="td1"><a href="#MY_LOVE">My Love</a></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_72">72</a></td></tr> +<tr ><td class="td1"><a href="#THE_CHANGELING">The Changeling</a></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_75">75</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="td1"><a href="#AN_INDIAN-SUMMER_REVERIE">An Indian-Summer Reverie</a></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_77">77</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="td1"><a href="#THE_OAK">The Oak</a></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_97">97</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="td1"><a href="#BEAVER_BROOK">Beaver Brook</a></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_100">100</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="td1"><a href="#THE_PRESENT_CRISIS">The Present Crisis</a></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_103">103</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="td1"><a href="#THE_COURTIN">The Courtin'</a></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_111">111</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="td1"><a href="#ODE_RECITED_AT_THE_HARVARD_COMMEMORATION">The Commemoration Ode</a></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_116">116</a></td></tr> +<tr> + <td class="td1"> </td> + <td class="tocpg"> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td ><span class="smcap"><a href="#NOTES">Notes:</a></span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td > </td> +</tr> +<tr><td class="td1"><a href="#THE_VISION_OF_SIR_LAUNFAL_2">The Vision of Sir Launfal</a></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_135">135</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="td1"><a href="#THE_SHEPHERD_OF_KING_ADMETUS_1">The Shepherd of King Admetus</a></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_151">151</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="td1"><a href="#HEBE_1">Hebe</a></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_151">151</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="td1"><a href="#TO_THE_DANDELION_1" >To the Dandelion</a></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_152">152</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="td1"><a href="#MY_LOVE_1">My Love</a></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_153">153</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="td1"><a href="#THE_CHANGELING_1">The Changeling</a></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_153">153</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="td1"><a href="#AN_INDIAN-SUMMER_REVERIE_1">An Indian-Summer Reverie</a></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_154">154</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="td1"><a href="#THE_OAK_1">The Oak</a></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_159">159</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="td1"><a href="#BEAVER_BROOK_1">Beaver Brook</a></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_159">159</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="td1"><a href="#THE_PRESENT_CRISIS_1">The Present Crisis</a></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_160">160</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="td1"><a href="#THE_COURTIN_1">The Courtin'</a></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_161">161</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="td1"><a href="#THE_COMMEMORATION_ODE_1">The Commemoration Ode</a></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_162">162</a></td></tr> +<tr> + <td class="td1"> </td> + <td class="tocpg"> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td ><span class="smcap"><a href="#EXAMINATION_QUESTIONS">Examination Questions</a></span></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_171">171</a></td></tr> +</table> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="INTRODUCTION" id="INTRODUCTION"></a>INTRODUCTION</h2> + +<h3><a name="LIFE_OF_LOWELL" id="LIFE_OF_LOWELL"></a>LIFE OF LOWELL</h3> + + +<p>In Cambridge there are two literary shrines to which visitors are sure +to find their way soon after passing the Harvard gates, "Craigie +House," the home of Longfellow and "Elmwood," the home of Lowell. +Though their hallowed retirement has been profaned by the +encroachments of the growing city, yet in their simple dignity these +fine old colonial mansions still bespeak the noble associations of the +past, and stand as memorials of the finest products of American +culture.</p> + +<p>Elmwood was built before the Revolution by Thomas Oliver, the Tory +governor, who signed his abdication at the invitation of a committee +of "about four thousand people" who surrounded his house at Cambridge. +The property was confiscated by the Commonwealth and used by the +American army during the war. In 1818 it was purchased by the Rev. +Charles Lowell, pastor of the West Congregational Church in Boston, +and after ninety years it is still the family home. Here was born, +February 22, 1819, James Russell Lowell, with surroundings most +propitious for the nurturing of a poet-soul. Within the stately home +there was a refined family life; the father had profited by the +unusual privilege of three years' study abroad, and his library of +some four thousand volumes was not limited to theology; the mother, +whose maiden name was Spence and who traced her Scotch ancestry back +to the hero of the ballad of <i>Sir Patrick Spens</i>, taught her children +the good old ballads<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> and the romantic stories in the <i>Fairie Queen</i>, +and it was one of the poet's earliest delights to recount the +adventures of Spenser's heroes and heroines to his playmates.</p> + +<p>An equally important influence upon his early youth was the +out-of-door life at Elmwood. To the love of nature his soul was early +dedicated, and no American poet has more truthfully and beautifully +interpreted the inspired teachings of nature, whispered through the +solemn tree-tops or caroled by the happy birds. The open fields +surrounding Elmwood and the farms for miles around were his familiar +playground, and furnished daily adventures for his curious and eager +mind. The mere delight of this experience with nature, he says, "made +my childhood the richest part of my life. It seems to me as if I had +never seen nature again since those old days when the balancing of a +yellow butterfly over a thistle bloom was spiritual food and lodging +for a whole forenoon." In the <i>Cathedral</i> is an autobiographic passage +describing in a series of charming pictures some of those choice hours +of childhood:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"One summer hour abides, what time I perched,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dappled with noonday, under simmering leaves,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And pulled the pulpy oxhearts, while aloof<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An oriole clattered and the robins shrilled,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Denouncing me an alien and a thief."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Quite like other boys Lowell was subjected to the processes of the +more formal education of books. He was first sent to a "dame school," +and then to the private school of William Wells, under whose rigid +tuition he became thoroughly grounded in the classics. Among his +schoolfellows was W.W. Story, the poet-sculptor, who continued his +life-long friend. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who was one of the +younger boys of the school, recalls the high talk of Story and Lowell +about the <i>Fairie Queen</i>. At fifteen he entered Harvard College, then +an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> institution with about two hundred students. The course of study +in those days was narrow and dull, a pretty steady diet of Greek, +Latin and Mathematics, with an occasional dessert of Paley's +<i>Evidences of Christianity</i> or Butler's <i>Analogy</i>. Lowell was not +distinguished for scholarship, but he read omnivorously and wrote +copiously, often in smooth flowing verse, fashioned after the accepted +English models of the period. He was an editor of <i>Harvardiana</i>, the +college magazine, and was elected class poet in his senior year. But +his habit of lounging with the poets in the secluded alcoves of the +old library, in preference to attending recitations, finally became +too scandalous for official forbearance, and he was rusticated, "on +account of constant neglect of his college duties," as the faculty +records state. He was sent to Concord, where his exile was not without +mitigating profit, as he became acquainted with Emerson and Thoreau. +Here he wrote the class poem, which he was permitted to circulate in +print at his Commencement. This production, which now stands at the +head of the list of his published works, was curiously unprophetic of +his later tendencies. It was written in the neatly, polished couplets +of the Pope type and other imitative metres, and aimed to satirize the +radical movements of the period, especially the transcendentalists and +abolitionists, with both of whom he was soon to be in active sympathy.</p> + +<p>Lowell's first two years out of college were troubled with rather more +than the usual doubts and questionings that attend a young man's +choice of a profession. He studied for a bachelor's degree in law, +which he obtained in two years. But the work was done reluctantly. Law +books, he says, "I am reading with as few wry faces as I may." Though +he was nominally practicing law for two years, there is no evidence +that he ever had a client, except the fictitious one so pleasantly +described in his first magazine article, entitled <i>My First Client</i>.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> +From Coke and Blackstone his mind would inevitably slip away to hold +more congenial communion with the poets. He became intensely +interested in the old English dramatists, an interest that resulted in +his first series of literary articles, <i>The Old English Dramatists</i>, +published in the <i>Boston Miscellany</i>. The favor with which these +articles were received increased, he writes, the "hope of being able +one day to support myself by my pen, and to leave a calling which I +hate, and for which I am not <i>well</i> fitted, to say the least."</p> + +<p>During this struggle between law and literature an influence came into +Lowell's life that settled his purposes, directed his aspirations and +essentially determined his career. In 1839 he writes to a friend about +a "very pleasant young lady," who "knows more poetry than any one I am +acquainted with." This pleasant young lady was Maria White, who became +his wife in 1844. The loves of this young couple constitute one of the +most pleasing episodes in the history of our literature, idyllic in +its simple beauty and inspiring in its spiritual perfectness. "Miss +White was a woman of unusual loveliness," says Mr. Norton, "and of +gifts of mind and heart still more unusual, which enabled her to enter +with complete sympathy into her lover's intellectual life and to +direct his genius to its highest aims." She was herself a poet, and a +little volume of her poems published privately after her death is an +evidence of her refined intellectual gifts and lofty spirit.</p> + +<p>In 1841 Lowell published his first collection of poems, entitled <i>A +Year's Life</i>. The volume was dedicated to "Una," a veiled admission of +indebtedness for its inspiration to Miss White. Two poems +particularly, <i>Irene</i> and <i>My Love</i>, and the best in the volume, are +rapturous expressions of his new inspiration. In later years he +referred to the collection as "poor windfalls of unripe experience." +Only nine of the sixty-eight poems were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> preserved in subsequent +collections. In 1843, with a young friend, Robert Carter, Lowell +launched a new magazine, <i>The Pioneer</i>, with the high purpose, as the +prospectus stated, of giving the public "a rational substitute" for +the "namby-pamby love tales and sketches monthly poured out to them by +many of our popular magazines." These young reformers did not know how +strongly the great reading public is attached to its literary +flesh-pots, and so the <i>Pioneer</i> proved itself too good to live in +just three months. The result of the venture to Lowell was an +interesting lesson in editorial work and a debt of eighteen hundred +dollars. His next venture was a second volume of <i>Poems</i>, issued in +1844, in which the permanent lines of his poetic development appear +more clearly than in <i>A Year's Life</i>. The tone of the first volume was +uniformly serious, but in the second his muse's face begins to +brighten with the occasional play of wit and humor. The volume was +heartily praised by the critics and his reputation as a new poet of +convincing distinction was established. In the following year appeared +<i>Conversations on Some of the Old Poets</i>, a volume of literary +criticism interesting now mainly as pointing to maturer work in this +field.</p> + +<p>It is generally stated that the influence of Maria White made Lowell +an Abolitionist, but this is only qualifiedly true. A year before he +had met her he wrote to a friend: "The Abolitionists are the only ones +with whom I sympathize of the present extant parties." Freedom, +justice, humanitarianism were fundamental to his native idealism. +Maria White's enthusiasm and devotion to the cause served to +crystallize his sentiments and to stimulate him to a practical +participation in the movement. Both wrote for the <i>Liberty Bell</i>, an +annual published in the interests of the anti-slavery agitation. +Immediately after their marriage they went to Philadelphia where +Lowell for a time was an editorial writer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> for the <i>Pennsylvania +Freeman</i>, an anti-slavery journal once edited by Whittier. During the +next six years he was a regular contributor to the <i>Anti-Slavery +Standard</i>, published in New York. In all of this prose writing Lowell +exhibited the ardent spirit of the reformer, although he never adopted +the extreme views of Garrison and others of the ultra-radical wing of +the party.</p> + +<p>But Lowell's greatest contribution to the anti-slavery cause was the +<i>Biglow Papers</i>, a series of satirical poems in the Yankee dialect, +aimed at the politicians who were responsible for the Mexican War, a +war undertaken, as he believed, in the interests of the Southern +slaveholders. Hitherto the Abolitionists had been regarded with +contempt by the conservative, complacent advocates of peace and +"compromise," and to join them was essentially to lose caste in the +best society. But now a laughing prophet had arisen whose tongue was +tipped with fire. The <i>Biglow Papers</i> was an unexpected blow to the +slave power. Never before had humor been used directly as a weapon in +political warfare. Soon the whole country was ringing with the homely +phrases of Hosea Biglow's satiric humor, and deriding conservatism +began to change countenance. "No speech, no plea, no appeal," says +George William Curtis, "was comparable in popular and permanent effect +with this pitiless tempest of fire and hail, in the form of wit, +argument, satire, knowledge, insight, learning, common-sense, and +patriotism. It was humor of the purest strain, but humor in deadly +earnest." As an embodiment of the elemental Yankee character and +speech it is a classic of final authority. Says Curtis, "Burns did not +give to the Scotch tongue a nobler immortality than Lowell gave to the +dialect of New England."</p> + +<p>The year 1848 was one of remarkably productive results for Lowell. +Besides the <i>Biglow Papers</i> and some forty magazine articles and +poems, he published a third<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> collection of <i>Poems</i>, the <i>Vision of Sir +Launfal</i>, and the <i>Fable for Critics</i>. The various phases of his +composite genius were nearly all represented in these volumes. The +<i>Fable</i> was a good-natured satire upon his fellow authors, in which he +touched up in rollicking rhymed couplets the merits and weaknesses of +each, not omitting himself, with witty characterization and acute +critical judgment; and it is still read for its delicious humor and +sterling criticism. For example, the lines on Poe will always be +quoted:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"There comes Poe, with his raven, like Barnaby Rudge,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Three-fifths of him genius and two-fifths sheer fudge."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And so the sketch of Hawthorne:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"There is Hawthorne, with genius so shrinking and rare<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That you hardly at first see the strength that is there;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A frame so robust, with a nature so sweet,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So earnest, so graceful, so lithe and so fleet,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is worth a descent from Olympus to meet."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Lowell was now living in happy content at Elmwood. His father, whom he +once speaks of as a "Dr. Primrose in the comparative degree," had lost +a large portion of his property, and literary journals in those days +sent very small checks to young authors. So humble frugality was an +attendant upon the high thinking of the poet couple, but this did not +matter, since the richest objects of their ideal world could be had +without price. But clouds suddenly gathered over their beautiful +lives. Four children were born, three of whom died in infancy. +Lowell's deep and lasting grief for his first-born is tenderly +recorded in the poems <i>She Came and Went</i> and the <i>First Snow-Fall</i>. +The volume of poems published in 1848 was "reverently dedicated" to +the memory of "our little Blanche," and in the introductory poem +addressed "To<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> M.W.L." he poured forth his sorrow like a libation of +tears:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"I thought our love at fall, but I did err;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Joy's wreath drooped o'er mine eyes: I could not see<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That sorrow in our happy world must be<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Love's deepest spokesman and interpreter."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The year 1851-52 was spent abroad for the benefit of Mrs. Lowell's +health, which was now precarious. At Rome their little son Walter +died, and one year after their return to Elmwood sorrow's crown of +sorrow came to the poet in the death of Mrs. Lowell, October, 1853. +For years after the dear old home was to him <i>The Dead House</i>, as he +wrote of it:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"For it died that autumn morning<br /></span> +<span class="i2">When she, its soul, was borne<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To lie all dark on the hillside<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That looks over woodland and corn."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Before 1854 Lowell's literary success had been won mainly in verse. +With the appearance in the magazines of <i>A Moosehead Journal</i>, +<i>Fireside Travels</i>, and <i>Leaves from My Italian Journal</i> his success +as a prose essayist began. Henceforth, and against his will, his prose +was a stronger literary force than his poetry. He now gave a course of +lectures on the English poets at the Lowell Institute, and during the +progress of these lectures he received notice of his appointment to +succeed Longfellow in the professorship of the French and Spanish +languages and Belles-Lettres in Harvard College. A year was spent in +Europe in preparation for his new work, and during the next twenty +years he faithfully performed the duties of the professorship, pouring +forth the ripening fruits of his varied studies in lectures such as it +is not often the privilege of college students to hear. That pulling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> +in the yoke of this steady occupation was sometimes galling is shown +in his private letters. To W.D. Howells he wrote regretfully of the +time and energy given to teaching, and of his conviction that he would +have been a better poet if he "had not estranged the muse by donning a +professor's gown." But a good teacher always bears in his left hand +the lamp of sacrifice.</p> + +<p>In 1857 Lowell was married to Miss Frances Dunlap, "a woman of +remarkable gifts and grace of person and character," says Charles +Eliot Norton. In the same year the <i>Atlantic Monthly</i> was launched and +Lowell became its first editor. This position he held four years. +Under his painstaking and wise management the magazine quickly became +what it has continued to be, the finest representative of true +literature among periodicals. In 1864 he joined his friend, Professor +Norton, in the editorship of the <i>North American Review</i>, to which he +gave much of the distinction for which this periodical was once so +worthily famous. In this first appeared his masterly essays on the +great poets, Chaucer, Dante, Shakespeare, Spenser, Milton, Dryden, and +the others, which were gathered into the three volumes, <i>Among My +Books</i>, first and second series, and <i>My Study Windows</i>. Variety was +given to this critical writing by such charming essays as <i>A Good Word +for Winter</i> and the deliciously caustic paper <i>On a Certain +Condescension in Foreigners</i>.</p> + +<p>One of the strongest elements of Lowell's character was patriotism. +His love of country and his native soil was not merely a principle, it +was a passion. No American author has done so much to enlarge and +exalt the ideals of democracy. An intense interest in the welfare of +the nation broadened the scope of his literary work and led him at +times into active public life. During the Civil War he published a +second series of <i>Biglow Papers</i>, in which, says Mr. Greenslet, "we +feel the vital stirring of the mind of Lowell as it was moved by the +great war;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> and if they never had quite the popular reverberation of +the first series, they made deeper impression, and are a more +priceless possession of our literature." When peace was declared in +April, 1865, he wrote to Professor Norton: "The news, my dear Charles, +is from Heaven. I felt a strange and tender exaltation. I wanted to +laugh and I wanted to cry, and ended by holding my peace and feeling +devoutly thankful. There is something magnificent in having a country +to love." On July 21 a solemn service was held at Harvard College in +memory of her sons who had died in the war, in which Lowell gave the +<i>Commemoration Ode</i>, a poem which is now regarded, not as popular, but +as marking the highest reach of his poetic power. The famous passage +characterizing Lincoln is unquestionably the finest tribute ever paid +to Lincoln by an American author.</p> + +<p>In the presidential campaign of 1876 Lowell was active, making +speeches, serving as delegate to the Republican Convention, and later +as Presidential Elector. There was even much talk of sending him to +Congress. Through the friendly offices of Mr. Howells, who was in +intimate personal relations with President Hayes, he was appointed +Minister to Spain. This honor was the more gratifying to him because +he had long been devoted to the Spanish literature and language, and +he could now read his beloved Calderon with new joys. In 1880 he was +promoted to the English mission, and during the next four years +represented his country at the Court of St. James in a manner that +raised him to the highest point of honor and esteem in both nations. +His career in England was an extraordinary, in most respects an +unparalleled success. He was our first official representative to win +completely the heart of the English people, and a great part of his +permanent achievement was to establish more cordial relations between +the two countries. His literary reputation had prepared the ground<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> +for his personal popularity. He was greeted as "His Excellency the +Ambassador of American Literature to the Court of Shakespeare." His +fascinating personality won friends in every circle of society. Queen +Victoria declared that during her long reign no ambassador had created +so much interest or won so much regard. He had already been honored by +degrees from Oxford and Cambridge, and now many similar honors were +thrust upon him. He was acknowledged to be the best after-dinner +speaker in England, and no one was called upon so often for addresses +at dedications, the unveiling of tablets, and other civic occasions. +It is not strange that he became attached to England with an +increasing affection, but there was no diminution of his intense +Americanism. His celebrated Birmingham address on <i>Democracy</i> is yet +our clearest and noblest exposition of American political principles +and ideals.</p> + +<p>With the inauguration of Cleveland in 1885 Lowell's official residence +in England came to an end. He returned to America and for a time lived +with his daughter at Deerfoot Farm. Mrs. Lowell had died in England, +and he could not carry his sorrow back to Elmwood alone. He now +leisurely occupied himself with literary work, making an occasional +address upon literature or politics, which was always distinguished by +grace and dignity of style and richness of thought.</p> + +<p>In November, 1886, he delivered the oration at the 250th anniversary +of the founding of Harvard University, and, rising to the requirements +of this notable occasion, he captivated his hearers, among whom were +many distinguished delegates from the great universities of Europe as +well as of America, by the power of his thought and the felicity of +his expression.</p> + +<p>During the period of his diplomatic service he added almost nothing to +his permanent literary product. In 1869 he had published <i>Under the +Willows</i>, a collection<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> that contains some of his finest poems. In the +same year <i>The Cathedral</i> was published, a stately poem in blank +verse, profound in thought, with many passages of great poetic beauty. +In 1888 a final collection of poems was published, entitled +<i>Heartsease and Rue</i>, which opened with the memorial poem, <i>Agassiz</i>, +an elegy that would not be too highly honored by being bound in a +golden volume with <i>Lycidas</i>, <i>Adonais</i> and <i>Thyrsis</i>. Going back to +his earliest literary studies, he again (1887) lectured at the Lowell +Institute on the old dramatists, Occasionally he gave a poem to the +magazines and a collection of these <i>Last Poems</i> was made in 1895 by +Professor Norton. During these years were written many of the charming +<i>Letters</i> to personal friends, which rank with the finest literary +letters ever printed and must always be regarded as an important part +of his prose works.</p> + +<p>It was a gracious boon of providence that Lowell was permitted to +spend his last years at Elmwood, with his daughter, Mrs. Burnett, and +his grandchildren. There again, as in the early days, he watched the +orioles building their nests and listened to the tricksy catbird's +call. To an English friend he writes: "I watch the moon rise behind +the same trees through which I first saw it seventy years ago and have +a strange feeling of permanence, as if I should watch it seventy years +longer." In the old library by the familiar fireplace he sat, when the +shadows were playing among his beloved books, communing with the +beautiful past. What unwritten poems of pathos and sweetness may have +ministered to his great soul we cannot know. In 1890 a fatal disease +came upon him, and after long and heroic endurance of pain he died, +August 12, 1891, and under the trees of Mt. Auburn he rests, as in +life still near his great neighbor Longfellow. In a memorial poem +Oliver Wendell Holmes spoke for the thousands who mourned:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Peace to thy slumber in the forest shade,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Poet and patriot, every gift was thine;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy name shall live while summers bloom and fade<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And grateful memory guard thy leafy shrine."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Lowell's rich and varied personality presents a type of cultured +manhood that is the finest product of American democracy. The +largeness of his interests and the versatility of his intellectual +powers give him a unique eminence among American authors. His genius +was undoubtedly embarrassed by the diffusive tendency of his +interests. He might have been a greater poet had he been less the +reformer and statesman, and his creative impulses were often absorbed +in the mere enjoyment of exercising his critical faculty. Although he +achieved only a qualified eminence as poet, or as prose writer, yet +because of the breadth and variety of his permanent achievement he +must be regarded as our greatest man of letters. His sympathetic +interest, always outflowing toward concrete humanity, was a quality—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"With such large range as from the ale-house bench<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Can reach the stars and be with both at home."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>With marvelous versatility and equal ease he could talk with the +down-east farmer and salty seamen and exchange elegant compliments +with old world royalty. In <i>The Cathedral</i> he says significantly:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"I thank benignant nature most for this,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A force of sympathy, or call it lack<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of character firm-planted, loosing me<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the pent chamber of habitual self<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To dwell enlarged in alien modes of thought,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Haply distasteful, wholesomer for that,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And through imagination to possess,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As they were mine, the lives of other men."<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span></div></div> + +<p>In the delightful little poem, <i>The Nightingale in the Study</i>, we have +a fanciful expression of the conflict between Lowell's love of books +and love of nature. His friend the catbird calls him "out beneath the +unmastered sky," where the buttercups "brim with wine beyond all +Lesbian juice." But there are ampler skies, he answers, "in Fancy's +land," and the singers though dead so long—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Give its best sweetness to all song.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To nature's self her better glory."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>His love of reading is manifest in all his work, giving to his style a +bookishness that is sometimes excessive and often troublesome. His +expression, though generally direct and clear, and happily colored by +personal frankness, is often burdened with learning. To be able to +read his essays with full appreciation is in itself evidence of a +liberal education. His scholarship was broad and profound, but it was +not scholarship in the German sense, exhaustive and exhausting. He +studied for the joy of knowing, never for the purpose of being known, +and he cared more to know the spirit and meaning of things than to +know their causes and origins. A language he learned for the sake of +its literature rather than its philology. As Mr. Brownell observes, he +shows little interest in the large movements of the world's history. +He seemed to prefer history as sublimated in the poet's song. The +field of <i>belles-lettres</i> was his native province; its atmosphere was +most congenial to his tastes. In book-land it was always June for +him—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i5">"Springtime ne'er denied<br /> +</span> +<span class="i0">Indoors by vernal Chaucer, whose fresh woods<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Throb thick with merle and mavis all the year."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But books could never divert his soul from its early endearments with +out-of-door nature. "The older I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> grow," he says, "the more I am +convinced that there are no satisfactions so deep and so permanent as +our sympathies with outward nature." And in the preface to <i>My Study +Windows</i> he speaks of himself as "one who has always found his most +fruitful study in the open air." The most charming element of his +poetry is the nature element that everywhere cheers and stimulates the +reader. It is full of sunshine and bird music. So genuine, spontaneous +and sympathetic are his descriptions that we feel the very heart +throbs of nature in his verse, and in the prose of such records of +intimacies with outdoor friends as the essay, <i>My Garden +Acquaintance</i>. "How I do love the earth," he exclaims. "I feel it +thrill under my feet. I feel somehow as if it were conscious of my +love, as if something passed into my dancing blood from it." It is +this sensitive nearness to nature that makes him a better interpreter +of her "visible forms" than Bryant even; moreover, unlike Bryant he +always catches the notes of joy in nature's voices and feels the +uplift of a happy inspiration.</p> + +<p>In the presence of the immense popularity of Mark Twain, it may seem +paradoxical to call Lowell our greatest American humorist. Yet in the +refined and artistic qualities of humorous writing and in the +genuineness of the native flavor his work is certainly superior to any +other humorous writing that is likely to compete with it for permanent +interest. Indeed, Mr. Greenslet thinks that "it is as the author of +the <i>Biglow Papers</i> that he is likely to be longest remembered." The +perpetual play of humor gave to his work, even to the last, the +freshness of youth. We love him for his boyish love of pure fun. The +two large volumes of his <i>Letters</i> are delicious reading because he +put into them "good wholesome nonsense," as he says, "keeping my +seriousness to bore myself with."</p> + +<p>But this sparkling and overflowing humor never ob<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>scures the deep +seriousness that is the undercurrent of all his writing. A high +idealism characterizes all his work. One of his greatest services to +his country was the effort to create a saner and sounder political +life. As he himself realized, he often moralized his work too much +with a purposeful idealism. In middle life he said, "I shall never be +a poet until I get out of the pulpit, and New England was all +meeting-house when I was growing up." In religion and philosophy he +was conservative, deprecating the radical and scientific tendencies of +the age, with its knife and glass—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"That make thought physical and thrust far off<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Heaven, so neighborly with man of old,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The moral impulse and the poetic impulse were often in conflict, and +much of his early poetry for this reason was condemned by his later +judgment. His maturer poems are filled with deep-thoughted lines, +phrases of high aspiration and soul-stirring ecstasies. Though his +thought is spiritual and ideal, it is always firmly rooted in the +experience of common humanity. All can climb the heights with him and +catch inspiring glimpses at least of the ideal and the infinite.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><a name="CRITICAL_APPRECIATIONS" id="CRITICAL_APPRECIATIONS"></a>CRITICAL APPRECIATIONS</h2> + + +<p>"The proportion of his poetry that can be so called is small. But a +great deal of it is very fine, very noble, and at times very +beautiful, and it discloses the distinctly poetic faculty of which +rhythmic and figurative is native expression. It is impressionable +rather than imaginative in the large sense; it is felicitous in detail +rather than in design; and of a general rather than individual, a +representative rather than original, inspiration. There is a field of +poetry, assuredly not the highest, but ample and admirable—in which +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> +these qualities, more or less unsatisfactory in prose, are +legitimately and fruitfully exercised. All poetry is in the realm of +feeling, and thus less exclusively dependent on the thought that is +the sole reliance of prose. Being genuine poetry, Lowell's profits by +this advantage. Feeling is fitly, genuinely, its inspiration. Its +range and limitations correspond to the character of his +susceptibility, as those of his prose do to that of his thought. The +fusion of the two in the crucible of the imagination is infrequent +with him, because with him it is the fancy rather than the imagination +that is luxuriant and highly developed. For the architectonics of +poetry he had not the requisite reach and grasp, the comprehensive and +constructing vision. Nothing of his has any large design or effective +interdependent proportions. In a technical way an exception should be +noted in his skilful building of the ode—a form in which he was +extremely successful and for which he evidently had a native aptitude +... Lowell's constitutes, on the whole, the most admirable American +contribution to the nature poetry of English literature—far beyond +that of Bryant, Whittier, or Longfellow, I think, and only +occasionally excelled here and there by the magic touch of +Emerson."—<i>W. C. Brownell</i>, in <i>Scribner's Magazine</i>, <i>February,</i> +1907.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>"Lowell is a poet who seems to represent New England more variously +than either of his comrades. We find in his work, as in theirs, her +loyalty and moral purpose. She has been at cost for his training, and +he in turn has read her heart, honoring her as a mother before the +world, and seeing beauty in her common garb and speech.... If Lowell +be not first of all an original genius, I know not where to look for +one. Judged by his personal bearing, who is brighter, more persuasive, +more equal to the occasion than himself,—less open to Doudan's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> +stricture upon writers who hoard and store up their thoughts for the +betterment of their printed works? Lowell's treasury can stand the +drafts of both speech and composition. Judged by his works, as a poet +in the end must be, he is one who might gain by revision and +compression. But think, as is his due, upon the high-water marks of +his abundant tide, and see how enviable the record of a poet who is +our most brilliant and learned critic, and who has given us our best +native idyll, our best and most complete work in dialectic verse, and +the noblest heroic ode that America has produced—each and all ranking +with the first of their kinds in English literature of the modern +time."—<i>Edmund Clarence Stedman</i>.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>"As a racy humorist and a brilliant wit using verse as an instrument +of expression, he has no clear superior, probably no equal, so far at +least as American readers are concerned, among writers who have +employed the English language. As a satirist he has superiors, but +scarcely as an inventor of <i>jeux d'esprit</i>. As a patriotic lyrist he +has few equals and very few superiors in what is probably the highest +function of such a poet—that of stimulating to a noble height the +national instincts of his countrymen.... The rest of his poetry may +fairly be said to gain on that of any of his American contemporaries +save Poe in more sensuous rhythm, in choicer diction, in a more +refined and subtilized imagination, and in a deeper, a more brooding +intelligence."—<i>Prof. William P. Trent</i>.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>"In originality, in virility, in many-sidedness, Lowell is the first +of American poets. He not only possessed, at times in nearly equal +measure, many of the qualities most notable in his fellow-poets, +rivaling Bryant as a painter of nature, and Holmes in pathos, having<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> +a touch too of Emerson's transcendentalism, and rising occasionally to +Whittier's moral fervor, but he brought to all this much beside. In +one vein he produced such a masterpiece of mingled pathos and nature +painting as we find in the tenth Biglow letter of the second series; +in another, such a lyric gem as <i>The Fountain</i>; in another, <i>The First +Snow-Fall</i> and <i>After the Burial</i>; in another, again, the noble +<i>Harvard Commemoration Ode</i>.... He had plainly a most defective ear +for rhythm and verbal harmony. Except when he confines himself to +simple metres, we rarely find five consecutive lines which do <i>not</i> in +some way jar on us. His blank verse and the irregular metres which he, +unfortunately, so often employs, have little or no music, and are +often quite intolerable. But after all the deductions which the most +exacting criticism can make, it still remains that, as a serious poet +Lowell stands high. As a painter of nature, he has, when at his best, +few superiors, and, in his own country, none. Whatever be their +esthetic and technical deficiencies, he has written many poems of +sentiment and pathos which can never fail to come home to all to whom +such poetry appeals. His hortatory and didactic poetry, as it +expresses itself in the <i>Commemoration Ode</i>, is worthy, if not of the +music and felicity of Milton and Wordsworth, at least of their tone, +when that tone is most exalted. As a humorist he is inimitable. His +humor is rooted in a fine sense of the becoming, and in a profounder +insight into the character of his countrymen than that of any other +American writer."—<i>John Churton Collins</i>.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>"He was a brilliant wit and a delightful humorist; a discursive +essayist of unfailing charm; the best American critic of his time; a +scholar of wide learning, deep also when his interest was most +engaged; a powerful writer on great public questions; a patriot +passionately pure; but first, last, and always he was a poet, never +so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> happy as when he was looking at the world from the poet's mount of +vision and seeking for fit words and musical to tell what he had seen. +But his emotion was not sufficiently 'recollected in tranquillity.' +Had he been more an artist he would have been a better poet, for then +he would have challenged the invasions of his literary memory, his +humor, his animal spirits, within limits where they had no right of +way. If his humor was his rarest, it was his most dangerous gift; so +often did it tempt him to laugh out in some holy place.... Less +charming than Longfellow, less homely than Whittier, less artistic +than Holmes, less grave than Bryant, less vivid than Emerson, less +unique than Poe, his qualities, intellectual, moral and esthetic, in +their assemblage and coördination assign him to a place among American +men of letters which is only a little lower than that which is +Emerson's and his alone."—<i>John White Chadwick</i>.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><a name="THE_VISION_OF_SIR_LAUNFAL" id="THE_VISION_OF_SIR_LAUNFAL"></a>THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL</h2> + + +<p>Early in 1848 in a letter to his friend Briggs, Lowell speaks of <i>The +Vision of Sir Launfal</i> as "a sort of story, and more likely to be +popular than what I write generally. Maria thinks very highly of it." +And in another letter he calls it "a little narrative poem." In +December, 1848, it was published in a thin volume alone, and at once +justified the poet's expectations of popularity. The poem was an +improvisation, like that of his "musing organist," for it was written, +we are told, almost at a single sitting, entirely within two days. The +theme may have been suggested by Tennyson's <i>Sir Galahad</i>, but his +familiarity with the old romances and his love of the mystical and +symbolic sense of these good old-time tales were a quite ample source +for such suggestion. Moreover Lowell in his early years was much given +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> +to seeing visions and dreaming dreams. "During that part of my life," +he says, "which I lived most alone, I was never a single night +unvisited by visions, and once I thought I had a personal revelation +from God Himself." The <i>Fairie Queen</i> was "the first poem I ever +read," he says, and the bosky glades of Elmwood were often transformed +into an enchanted forest where the Knight of the Red Cross, and Una +and others in medieval costume passed up and down before his wondering +eyes. This medieval romanticism was a perfectly natural accompaniment +of his intense idealism.</p> + +<p><i>The Vision of Sir Launfal</i> and the <i>Fable for Critics</i>, published in +the same year, illustrate the two dominant and strikingly contrasted +qualities of his nature, a contrast of opposites which he himself +clearly perceived. "I find myself very curiously compounded of two +utterly distinct characters. One half of me is clear mystic and +enthusiast, and the other, humorist," and he adds that "it would have +taken very little to have made a Saint Francis" of him. It was the +Saint Francis of New England, the moral and spiritual enthusiast in +Lowell's nature that produced the poem and gave it power. Thus we see +that notwithstanding its antique style and artificial structure, it +was a perfectly direct and spontaneous expression of himself.</p> + +<p>The allegory of the <i>Vision</i> is easily interpreted, in its main +significance. There is nothing original in the lesson, the humility of +true charity, and it is a common criticism that the moral purpose of +the poem is lost sight of in the beautiful nature pictures. But a +knowledge of the events which were commanding Lowell's attention at +this time and quickening his native feelings into purposeful utterance +gives to the poem a much deeper significance. In 1844, when the +discussion over the annexation of Texas was going on, he wrote <i>The +Present Crisis</i>, a noble appeal to his countrymen to im<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>prove and +elevate their principles. During the next four years he was writing +editorially for the <i>Standard</i>, the official organ of the Anti-Slavery +Society, at the same time he was bringing out the <i>Biglow Papers</i>. In +all these forms of expression he voiced constantly the sentiment of +reform, which now filled his heart like a holy zeal. The national +disgrace of slavery rested heavily upon his soul. He burned with the +desire to make God's justice prevail where man's justice had failed. +In 1846 he said in a letter, "It seems as if my heart would break in +pouring out one glorious song that should be the gospel of Reform, +full of consolation and strength to the oppressed, yet falling gently +and restoringly as dew on the withered youth-flowers of the oppressor. +That way my madness lies, if any." This passionate yearning for reform +is embodied poetically in the <i>Vision</i>. In a broad sense, therefore, +the poem is an expression of ideal democracy, in which equality, +sympathy, and a sense of the common brotherhood of man are the basis +of all ethical actions and standards. It is the Christ-like conception +of human society that is always so alluring in the poetry and so +discouraging in the prose of life.</p> + +<p>The following explanation appeared in the early editions of the poem +as an introductory note:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"According to the mythology of the Romancers, the San Greal, +or Holy Grail, was the cup out of which Jesus Christ partook +of the last supper with his disciples. It was brought into +England by Joseph of Arimathea, and remained there, an +object of pilgrimage and adoration, for many years in the +keeping of his lineal descendants. It was incumbent upon +those who had charge of it to be chaste in thought, word, +and deed; but, one of the keepers having broken this +condition, the Holy Grail disappeared. From that time it was +a favorite enterprise of the Knights of Arthur's court to go +in search of it. Sir Galahad was at last successful in +finding <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>it, as may be read in the seventeenth book of the +Romance of King Arthur. Tennyson has made Sir Galahad the +subject of one of the most exquisite of his poems.</p> + +<p>"The plot (if I may give that name to anything so slight) of +the following poem is my own, and, to serve its purposes, I +have enlarged the circle of competition in search of the +miraculous cup in such a manner as to include not only other +persons than the heroes of the Round Table, but also a +period of time subsequent to the date of King Arthur's +reign."</p></div> + +<p>In the last sentence there is a sly suggestion of Lowell's +playfulness. Of course every one may compete in the search for the +Grail, and the "time subsequent to King Arthur's reign" includes the +present time. The Romance of King Arthur is the <i>Morte Darthur</i> of Sir +Thomas Malory. Lowell's specific indebtedness to the medieval romances +extended only to the use of the symbol of consecration to some noble +purpose in the search for the Grail, and to the name of his hero. It +is a free version of older French romances belonging to the Arthurian +cycle. <i>Sir Launfal</i> is the title of a poem written by Sir Thomas +Chestre in the reign of Henry VI, which may be found in Ritson's +<i>Ancient English Metrical Romances</i>. There is nothing suggestive of +Lowell's poem except the quality of generosity in the hero, who—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">"gaf gyftys largelyche,<br /> +</span> +<span class="i0">Gold and sylver; and clodes ryche,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">To squyer and to knight."<br /> +</span> +</div></div> + +<p>One of Lowell's earlier poems, <i>The Search</i>, contains the germ of <i>The +Vision of Sir Launfal</i>. It represents a search for Christ, first in +nature's fair woods and fields, then in the "proud world" amid "power +and wealth," and the search finally ends in "a hovel rude" where<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">"The King I sought for meekly stood:<br /></span> +<span class="i4">A naked, hungry child<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Clung round his gracious knee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And a poor hunted slave looked up and smiled<br /></span> +<span class="i1">To bless the smile that set him free."<br /> +</span> +</div></div> + +<p>And Christ, the seeker learns, is not to be found by wandering through +the world.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"His throne is with the outcast and the weak."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>A similar fancy also is embodied in a little poem entitled <i>A +Parable</i>. Christ goes through the world to see "How the men, my +brethren, believe in me," and he finds "in church, and palace, and +judgment-hall," a disregard for the primary principles of his +teaching.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Have ye founded your throne and altars, then,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the bodies and souls of living men?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And think ye that building shall endure,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which shelters the noble and crushes the poor?"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>These early poems and passages in others written at about the same +time, taken in connection with the <i>Vision</i>, show how strongly the +theme had seized upon Lowell's mind.</p> + +<p>The structure of the poem is complicated and sometimes confusing. At +the outset the student must notice that there is a story within a +story. The action of the major story covers only a single night, and +the hero of this story is the real Sir Launfal, who in his sleep +dreams the minor story, the Vision. The action of this story covers +the lifetime of the hero, the imaginary Sir Launfal, from early +manhood to old age, and includes his wanderings in distant lands. The +poem is constructed on the principles of contrast and parallelism. By +holding to this method of structure throughout Lowell sacrificed the +important artistic element of unity, especially<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> in breaking the +narrative with the Prelude to the second part. The first Prelude +describing the beauty and inspiring joy of spring, typifying the +buoyant youth and aspiring soul of Sir Launfal, corresponds to the +second Prelude, describing the bleakness and desolation of winter, +typifying the old age and desolated life of the hero. But beneath the +surface of this wintry age there is a new soul of summer beauty, the +warm love of suffering humanity, just as beneath the surface of the +frozen brook there is an ice-palace of summer beauty. In Part First +the gloomy castle with its joyless interior stands as the only cold +and forbidding thing in the landscape, "like an outpost of winter;" so +in Part Second the same castle with Christmas joys within is the only +bright and gladsome object in the landscape. In Part First the castle +gates never "might opened be"; in Part Second the "castle gates stand +open now." And thus the student may find various details contrasted +and paralleled. The symbolic meaning must be kept constantly in mind, +or it will escape unobserved; for example, the cost of earthly things +in comparison with the generosity of June corresponds to the churlish +castle opposed to the inviting warmth of summer; and each symbolizes +the proud, selfish, misguided heart of Sir Launfal in youth, in +comparison with the humility and large Christian charity in old age. +The student should search for these symbolic hints, passages in which +"more is meant than meets the ear," but if he does not find all that +the poet may or may not have intended in his dreamy design, there need +be no detraction from the enjoyment of the poem.</p> + +<p>Critical judgment upon <i>The Vision of Sir Launfal</i> is generally severe +in respect to its structural faults. Mr. Greenslet declares that +"through half a century, nine readers out of ten have mistaken +Lowell's meaning," even the "numerous commentators" have "interpreted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> +the poem as if the young knight actually adventured the quest and +returned from it at the end of years, broken and old." This, however, +must be regarded as a rather exaggerated estimate of the lack of unity +and consistency in the poem. Stedman says: "I think that <i>The Vision +of Sir Launfal</i> owed its success quite as much to a presentation of +nature as to its misty legend. It really is a landscape poem, of which +the lovely passage, 'And what is so rare as a day in June?' and the +wintry prelude to Part Second, are the specific features." And the +English critic, J. Churton Collins, thinks that "<i>Sir Launfal</i>, except +for the beautiful nature pictures, scarcely rises above the level of +an Ingoldsby Legend."</p> + +<p>The popular judgment of the poem (which after all is the important +judgment) is fairly stated by Mr. Greenslet: "There is probably no +poem in American literature in which a visionary faculty like that [of +Lowell] is expressed with such a firm command of poetic background and +variety of music as in <i>Sir Launfal</i> ... its structure is far from +perfect; yet for all that it has stood the searching test of time: it +is beloved now by thousands of young American readers, for whom it has +been a first initiation to the beauty of poetic idealism."</p> + +<p>While studying <i>The Vision of Sir Launfal</i> the student should be made +familiar with Tennyson's <i>Sir Galahad</i> and <i>The Holy Grail</i>, and the +libretto of Wagner's <i>Parsifal</i>. Also Henry A. Abbey's magnificent +series of mural paintings in the Boston Public Library, representing +the Quest of the Holy Grail, may be utilized in the <i>Copley Prints</i>. +If possible the story of Sir Galahad's search for the Grail in the +seventeenth book of Sir Thomas Malory's <i>Morte Darthur</i> should be +read. It would be well also to read Longfellow's <i>King Robert of +Sicily</i>, which to some extent presents a likeness of motive and +treatment.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="THE_COMMEMORATION_ODE" id="THE_COMMEMORATION_ODE"></a>THE COMMEMORATION ODE</h2> + + +<p>In April, 1865, the Civil War was ended and peace was declared. On +July 21 Harvard College held a solemn service in commemoration of her +ninety-three sons who had been killed in the war. Eight of these +fallen young heroes were of Lowell's own kindred. Personal grief thus +added intensity to the deep passion of his utterance upon this great +occasion. He was invited to give a poem, and the ode which he +presented proved to be the supreme event of the noble service. The +scene is thus described by Francis H. Underwood, who was in the +audience:</p> + +<p>"The services took place in the open air, in the presence of a great +assembly. Prominent among the speakers were Major-General Meade, the +hero of Gettysburg, and Major-General Devens. The wounds of the war +were still fresh and bleeding, and the interest of the occasion was +deep and thrilling. The summer afternoon was drawing to its close when +the poet began the recital of the ode. No living audience could for +the first time follow with intelligent appreciation the delivery of +such a poem. To be sure, it had its obvious strong points and its +sonorous charms; but, like all the later poems of the author, it is +full of condensed thought and requires study. The reader to-day finds +many passages whose force and beauty escaped him during the recital, +but the effect of the poem at the time was overpowering. The face of +the poet, always singularly expressive, was on this occasion almost +transfigured—glowing, as if with an inward light. It was impossible +to look away from it. Our age has furnished many great historic +scenes, but this Commemoration combined the elements of grandeur and +pathos, and produced an impression as lasting as life."</p> + +<p>Of the delivery and immediate effect of the poem Mr.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> Greenslet says: +"Some in the audience were thrilled and shaken by it, as Lowell +himself was shaken in its delivery, yet he seems to have felt with +some reason that it was not a complete and immediate success. Nor is +this cause for wonder. The passion of the poem was too ideal, its +woven harmonies too subtle to be readily communicated to so large an +audience, mastered and mellowed though it was by a single deep mood. +Nor was Lowell's elocution quite that of the deep-mouthed odist +capable of interpreting such organ tones of verse. But no sooner was +the poem published, with the matchless Lincoln strophe inserted, than +its greatness and nobility were manifest."</p> + +<p>The circumstances connected with the writing of the ode have been +described by Lowell in his private letters. It appears that he was +reluctant to undertake the task, and for several weeks his mind +utterly refused to respond to the high duty put upon it. At last the +sublime thought came to him upon the swift wings of inspiration. "The +ode itself," he says, "was an improvisation. Two days before the +commemoration I had told my friend Child that it was impossible—that +I was dull as a door-mat. But the next day something gave me a jog, +and the whole thing came out of me with a rush. I sat up all night +writing it out clear, and took it on the morning of the day to Child." +In another letter he says: "The poem was written with a vehement +speed, which I thought I had lost in the skirts of my professor's +gown. Till within two days of the celebration I was hopelessly dumb, +and then it all came with a rush, literally making me lean (mi fece +magro), and so nervous that I was weeks in getting over it." In a note +in Scudder's biography of Lowell (Vol. II., p. 65), it is stated upon +the authority of Mrs. Lowell that the poem was begun at ten o'clock +the night before the commemoration day, and finished at four o'clock +in the morning. "She opened her eyes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> to see him standing haggard, +actually wasted by the stress of labor and the excitement which had +carried him through a poem full of passion and fire, of five hundred +and twenty-three lines, in the space of six hours."</p> + +<p>Critical estimates are essentially in accord as to the deep +significance and permanent poetic worth of this poem. Greenslet, the +latest biographer of Lowell, says that the ode, "if not his most +perfect, is surely his noblest and most splendid work," and adds: +"Until the dream of human brotherhood is forgotten, the echo of its +large music will not wholly die away." Professor Beers declares it to +be, "although uneven, one of the finest occasional poems in the +language, and the most important contribution which our Civil War has +made to song." Of its exalted patriotism, George William Curtis says: +"The patriotic heart of America throbs forever in Lincoln's Gettysburg +address. But nowhere in literature is there a more magnificent and +majestic personification of a country whose name is sacred to its +children, nowhere a profounder passion of patriotic loyalty, than in +the closing lines of the Commemoration Ode. The American whose heart, +swayed by that lofty music, does not thrill and palpitate with solemn +joy and high resolve does not yet know what it is to be an American."</p> + +<p>With the praise of a discriminating criticism Stedman discusses the +ode in his <i>Poets of America</i>: "Another poet would have composed a +less unequal ode; no American could have glorified it with braver +passages, with whiter heat, with language and imagery so befitting +impassioned thought. Tried by the rule that a true poet is at his best +with the greatest theme, Lowell's strength is indisputable. The ode is +no smooth-cut verse from Pentelicus, but a mass of rugged quartz, +beautiful with prismatic crystals, and deep veined here and there with +virgin gold. The early strophes, though opening with a fine abrupt +line, 'weak-winged is song,' are scarcely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> firm and incisive. Lowell +had to work up to his theme. In the third division, 'Many loved Truth, +and lavished life's best oil,' he struck upon a new and musical +intonation of the tenderest thoughts. The quaver of this melodious +interlude carries the ode along, until the great strophe is reached,—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">Such was he, our Martyr-Chief,<br /> +</span> +</div></div> + +<p>in which the man, Abraham Lincoln, whose death had but just closed the +national tragedy, is delineated in a manner that gives this poet a +preëminence, among those who capture likeness in enduring verse, that +we award to Velasquez among those who fasten it upon the canvas. 'One +of Plutarch's men' is before us, face to face; an historic character +whom Lowell fully comprehended, and to whose height he reached in this +great strophe. Scarcely less fine is his tearful, yet transfiguring, +Avete to the sacred dead of the Commemoration. The weaker divisions of +the production furnish a background to these passages, and at the +close the poet rises with the invocation,—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Bow down, dear Land, for thou hast found release!'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>a strain which shows that when Lowell determinedly sets his mouth to +the trumpet, the blast is that of Roncesvalles."</p> + +<p>W.C. Brownell, the latest critic of Lowell's poetry, says of this +poem: "The ode is too long, its evolution is defective, it contains +verbiage, it preaches. But passages of it—the most famous having +characteristically been interpolated after its delivery—are equal to +anything of the kind. The temptation to quote from it is hard to +withstand. It is the cap-sheaf of Lowell's achievement." In this ode +"he reaches, if he does not throughout maintain, his own +'clear-ethered height' and his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> verse has the elevation of ecstasy and +the splendor of the sublime."</p> + +<p>The versification of this poem should be studied with some +particularity. Of the forms of lyric expression the ode is the most +elaborate and dignified. It is adapted only to lofty themes and +stately occasions. Great liberty is allowed in the choice and +arrangement of its meter, rhymes, and stanzaic forms, that its varied +form and movement may follow the changing phases of the sentiment and +passion called forth by the theme. Lowell has given us an account of +his own consideration of this matter. "My problem," he says, "was to +contrive a measure which should not be tedious by uniformity, which +should vary with varying moods, in which the transitions (including +those of the voice) should be managed without jar. I at first thought +of mixed rhymed and blank verses of unequal measures, like those in +the choruses of <i>Samson Agonistes</i>, which are in the main masterly. Of +course, Milton deliberately departed from that stricter form of Greek +chorus to which it was bound quite as much (I suspect) by the law of +its musical accompaniment as by any sense of symmetry. I wrote some +stanzas of the <i>Commemoration Ode</i> on this theory at first, leaving +some verses without a rhyme to match. But my ear was better pleased +when the rhyme, coming at a longer interval, as a far-off echo rather +than instant reverberation, produced the same effect almost, and yet +was gratified by unexpectedly recalling an association and faint +reminiscence of consonance."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="BIBLIOGRAPHY" id="BIBLIOGRAPHY"></a>BIBLIOGRAPHY</h2> + + +<p>Horace E. Scudder: <i>James Russell Lowell: A Biography</i>. 2 vols. The +standard biography.</p> + +<p>Ferris Greenslet: <i>James Russell Lowell: His Life and Work</i>. The +latest biography (1905) and very satisfactory.</p> + +<p>Francis H. Underwood: <i>James Russell Lowell: A Biographical Sketch and +Lowell the Poet and the Man</i>. Interesting recollections of a personal +friend and editorial associate.</p> + +<p>Edward Everett Hale: <i>Lowell and His Friends</i>.</p> + +<p>Edward Everett Hale, Jr.: <i>James Russell Lowell</i>. (Beacon +Biographies.)</p> + +<p>Charles Eliot Norton: <i>Letters of James Russell Lowell</i>. 2 vols. +Invaluable and delightful.</p> + +<p>Edmund Clarence Stedman: <i>Poets of America</i>.</p> + +<p>W.C. Brownell: <i>James Russell Lowell</i>. (Scribner's Magazine, February, +1907.) The most recent critical estimate.</p> + +<p>George William Curtis: <i>James Russell Lowell: An Address</i>.</p> + +<p>John Churton Collins. <i>Studies in Poetry and Criticism</i>, "Poetry and +Poets of America." Excellent as an English estimate.</p> + +<p>Barrett Wendell: <i>Literary History of America</i> and <i>Stelligeri</i>, "Mr. +Lowell as a Teacher."</p> + +<p>Henry James: <i>Essays in London and Library of the World's Best +Literature</i>.</p> + +<p>George E. Woodberry: <i>Makers of Literature</i>.</p> + +<p>William Watson: <i>Excursions in Criticism</i>.</p> + +<p>W.D. Howells: <i>Literary Friends and Acquaintance</i>.</p> + +<p>Charles E. Richardson: <i>American Literature</i>.</p> + +<p>M.A. DeWolfe Howe: <i>American Bookmen</i>.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span></p> + +<p>Thomas Wentworth Higginson: <i>Old Cambridge</i>.</p> + +<p>Frank Preston Stearns: <i>Cambridge Sketches</i>. 1905.</p> + +<p>Richard Burton: <i>Literary Leaders of America</i>. 1904.</p> + +<p>John White Chadwick: Chambers's <i>Cyclopedia of English Literature</i>.</p> + +<p>Hamilton Wright Mabie: <i>My Study Fire</i>. Second Series, "Lowell's +Letters."</p> + +<p>Margaret Fuller: <i>Art, Literature and the Drama</i>. 1859.</p> + +<p>Richard Henry Stoddard: <i>Recollections, Personal and Literary</i>, "At +Lowell's Fireside."</p> + +<p>Edwin P. Whipple: <i>Outlooks on Society, Literature and Politics</i>, +"Lowell as a Prose Writer."</p> + +<p>H.R. Haweis: <i>American Humorists</i>.</p> + +<p>Bayard Taylor: <i>Essays and Notes</i>.</p> + +<p>G.W. Smalley: <i>London Letters</i>, Vol. 1., "Mr. Lowell, why the English +liked him."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><a name="THE_POETS_TRIBUTES_TO_LOWELL" id="THE_POETS_TRIBUTES_TO_LOWELL"></a>THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO LOWELL</h2> + + +<p>Longfellow's <i>Herons of Elmwood</i>; Whittier's <i>A Welcome to Lowell</i>; +Holmes's <i>Farewell to Lowell, At a Birthday Festival</i>, and <i>To James +Russell Lowell</i>; Aldrich's <i>Elmwood</i>; Margaret J. Preston's +<i>Home-Welcome to Lowell</i>; Richard Watson Gilder's <i>Lowell</i>; +Christopher P. Cranch's <i>To J.R.L. on His Fiftieth Birthday</i>, and <i>To +J.R.L. on His Homeward Voyage</i>; James Kenneth Stephen's <i>In Memoriam; +James Russell Lowell</i>, "Lapsus Calami and Other Verses"; William W. +Story's <i>To James Russell Lowell</i>, Blackwood's Magazine, Vol. 150; +Eugene Field's <i>James Russell Lowell</i>; Edith Thomas's <i>On Reading +Lowell's "Heartsease and Rue."</i></p> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="POEMS" id="POEMS"></a>THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL<br /> + +AND OTHER POEMS</h2> + + +<h3><a name="THE_VISION_OF_SIR_LAUNFAL_1" id="THE_VISION_OF_SIR_LAUNFAL_1"></a>THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL</h3> + +<h3>PRELUDE TO PART FIRST</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Over his keys the musing organist,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Beginning doubtfully and far away,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">First lets his fingers wander as they list,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And builds a bridge from Dreamland for his lay:<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>5</span><span class="i0">Then, as the touch of his loved instrument</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Gives hope and fervor, nearer draws his theme,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">First guessed by faint auroral flushes sent<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Along the wavering vista of his dream.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">Not only around our infancy</span><br /> +<span class='linenum'>10</span><span class="i4">Doth heaven with all its splendors lie;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Daily, with souls that cringe and plot,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">We Sinais, climb and know it not.<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> +<span class="i0">Over our manhood bend the skies;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Against our fallen and traitor lives<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>15</span><span class="i0">The great winds utter prophecies;</span><br /> +<span class="i2">With our faint hearts the mountain strives;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its arms outstretched, the druid wood<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Waits with its benedicite;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And to our age's drowsy blood<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>20</span><span class="i2">Still shouts the inspiring sea.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The priest hath his fee who comes and shrives us,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">We bargain for the graves we lie in:<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>25</span><span class="i0">At the Devil's booth are all things sold,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">For a cap and bells our lives we pay,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bubbles we buy with a whole soul's tasking<br /></span> +<span class="i2">'T is heaven alone that is given away,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>30</span><span class="i0">'T is only God may be had for the asking;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">No price is set on the lavish summer;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">June may be had by the poorest comer.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And what is so rare as a day in June?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Then, if ever, come perfect days;<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> +<span class='linenum'>35</span><span class="i0">Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">And over it softly her warm ear lays:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whether we look, or whether we listen,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Every clod feels a stir of might,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>40</span><span class="i2">An instinct within it that reaches and towers,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And, groping blindly above it for light,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The flush of life may well be seen<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Thrilling back over hills and valleys;<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>45</span><span class="i0">The cowslip startles in meadows green,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And there's never a leaf nor a blade too mean<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To be some happy creature's palace;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The little bird sits at his door in the sun,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>50</span><span class="i2">Atilt like a blossom among the leaves,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And lets his illumined being o'errun<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With the deluge of summer it receives;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings;<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span><span class='linenum'>55</span><span class="i0">He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest,—</span><br /> +<span class="i0">In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Now is the high-tide of the year<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And whatever of life hath ebbed away<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Comes flooding back, with a ripply cheer,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>60</span><span class="i2">Into every bare inlet and creek and bay;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We are happy now, because God wills it;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No matter how barren the past may have been,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'T is enough for us now that the leaves are green;<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>65</span><span class="i0">We sit in the warm shade and feel right well</span><br /> +<span class="i0">How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That skies are clear and grass is growing:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The breeze comes whispering in our ear<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>70</span><span class="i0">That dandelions are blossoming near,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That the river is bluer than the sky,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That the robin is plastering his house hard by;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And if the breeze kept the good news back,<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> +<span class='linenum'>75</span><span class="i0">For other couriers we should not lack;</span><br /> +<span class="i2">We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And hark! how clear bold chanticleer,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Warmed with the new wine of the year,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Tells all in his lusty crowing!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='linenum'>80</span><span class="i0">Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Everything is happy now,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Everything is upward striving;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'T is as easy now for the heart to be true<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As for grass to be green or skies to be blue,—<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>85</span><span class="i2">'T is the natural way of living:</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Who knows whither the clouds have fled?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In the unscarred heaven they leave no wake;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the eyes forget the tears they have shed,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The heart forgets its sorrow and ache;<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>90</span><span class="i0">The soul partakes the season's youth,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">And the sulphurous rifts of passion and woe<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lie deep 'neath a silence pure and smooth,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Like burnt-out craters healed with snow.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What wonder if Sir Launfal now<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>95</span><span class="i0">Remembered the keeping of his vow?</span><br /> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span></p> +<h3><span class="smcap">Part First</span></h3> + +<p><span style="margin-left:12em; "><b>I.</b></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"My golden spurs now bring to me.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And bring to me my richest mail,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For to-morrow I go over land and sea<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In search of the Holy Grail:<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>100</span><span class="i0">Shall never a bed for me be spread,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Nor shall a pillow be under my head,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till I begin my vow to keep;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Here on the rushes will I sleep.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And perchance there may come a vision true<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>105</span><span class="i0">Ere day create the world anew,"</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Slowly Sir Launfal's eyes grew dim,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Slumber fell like a cloud on him,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And into his soul the vision flew.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span style="margin-left:12em; "><b>II.</b></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The crows flapped over by twos and threes,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>110</span><span class="i0">In the pool drowsed the cattle up to their knees,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">The little birds sang as if it were<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The one day of summer in all the year,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span><span class="i0">And the very leaves seemed to sing on the trees:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The castle alone in the landscape lay<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>115</span><span class="i0">Like an outpost of winter, dull and gray;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">'T was the proudest hall in the North Countree,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And never its gates might opened be,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Save to lord or lady of high degree;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Summer besieged it on every side,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>120</span><span class="i0">But the churlish stone her assaults defied;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">She could not scale the chilly wall,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though around it for leagues her pavilions tall<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stretched left and right,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Over the hills and out of sight;<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>125</span><span class="i2">Green and broad was every tent,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">And out of each a murmur went<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till the breeze fell off at night.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span style="margin-left:12em; "><b>III.</b></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The drawbridge dropped with a surly clang,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And through the dark arch a charger sprang,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>130</span><span class="i0">Bearing Sir Launfal, the maiden knight,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">In his gilded mail, that flamed so bright<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It seemed the dark castle had gathered all<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span><span class="i0">Those shafts the fierce sun had shot over its wall<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In his siege of three hundred summers long,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>135</span><span class="i0">And, binding them all in one blazing sheaf,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Had cast them forth: so, young and strong,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And lightsome as a locust leaf,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sir Launfal flashed forth in his maiden mail,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To seek in all climes for the Holy Grail.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span style="margin-left:12em; "><b>IV.</b></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class='linenum'>140</span><span class="i0">It was morning on hill and stream and tree,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">And morning in the young knight's heart;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Only the castle moodily<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rebuffed the gifts of the sunshine free,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And gloomed by itself apart;<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>145</span><span class="i0">The season brimmed all other things up</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Full as the rain fills the pitcher-plant's cup.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span style="margin-left:12em; "><b>V.</b></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">As Sir Launfal made morn through the darksome gate,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">He was 'ware of a leper, crouched by the same,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span><span class="i0">Who begged with his hand and moaned as he sate;<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>150</span><span class="i2">And a loathing over Sir Launfal came;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The sunshine went out of his soul with a thrill,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The flesh 'neath his armor 'gan shrink and crawl,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And midway its leap his heart stood still<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Like a frozen waterfall;<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>155</span><span class="i0">For this man, so foul and bent of stature,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Rasped harshly against his dainty nature,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And seemed the one blot on the summer morn,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So he tossed him a piece of gold in scorn.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span style="margin-left:12em; "><b>VI.</b></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The leper raised not the gold from the dust:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Better to me the poor man's crust,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>160</span><span class="i0">Better the blessing of the poor,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Though I turn me empty from his door;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That is no true alms which the hand can hold;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He gives only the worthless gold<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>165</span><span class="i2">Who gives from a sense of duty;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">But he who gives a slender mite,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span><span class="i0">And gives to that which is out of sight.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That thread of the all-sustaining Beauty<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which runs through, ail and doth all unite,—<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>170</span><span class="i0">The hand cannot clasp the whole of his alms,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The heart outstretches its eager palms,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For a god goes with it and makes it store<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the soul that was starving in darkness before."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Prelude to Part Second</span></h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Down swept the chill wind from the mountain peak,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>175</span><span class="i2">From the snow five thousand summers old;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">On open, wold and hill-top bleak<br /></span> +<span class="i2">It had gathered all the cold,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And whirled it like sleet on the wanderer's cheek:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It carried a shiver everywhere<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>180</span><span class="i0">From the unleafed boughs and pastures bare;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The little brook heard it and built a roof<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Neath which he could house him, winter-proof;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All night by the white stars' frosty gleams<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He groined his arches and matched his beams:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span><br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>185</span><span class="i0">Slender and clear were his crystal spars</span><br /> +<span class="i0">As the lashes of light that trim the stars;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He sculptured every summer delight<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In his halls and chambers out of sight;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sometimes his tinkling waters slipt<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>190</span><span class="i0">Down through a frost-leaved forest-crypt,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Long, sparkling aisles of steel-stemmed trees<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bending to counterfeit a breeze;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sometimes the roof no fretwork knew<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But silvery mosses that downward grew;<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>195</span><span class="i0">Sometimes it was carved in sharp relief</span><br /> +<span class="i0">With quaint arabesques of ice-fern leaf;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sometimes it was simply smooth and clear<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For the gladness of heaven to shine through, and here<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He had caught the nodding bulrush-tops<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>200</span><span class="i0">And hung them thickly with diamond-drops,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">That crystalled the beams of moon and sun,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And made a star of every one:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No mortal builder's most rare device<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Could match this winter-palace of ice;<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>205</span><span class="i0">'Twas as if every image that mirrored lay</span><br /> +<span class="i0">In his depths serene through the summer day,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Each fleeting shadow of earth and sky,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span><br /></span> +<span class="i2">Lest the happy model should be lost,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Had been mimicked in fairy masonry<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>210</span><span class="i2">By the elfin builders of the frost.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Within the hall are song and laughter.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The cheeks of Christmas glow red and jolly,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And sprouting is every corbel and rafter<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With lightsome green of ivy and holly:<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>215</span><span class="i0">Through the deep gulf of the chimney wide</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Wallows the Yule-log's roaring tide;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The broad flame-pennons droop and flap<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And belly and tug as a flag in the wind;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like a locust shrills the imprisoned sap,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>220</span><span class="i2">Hunted to death in its galleries blind;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And swift little troops of silent sparks,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Now pausing, now scattering away as in fear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Go threading the soot-forest's tangled darks<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Like herds of startled deer.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='linenum'>225</span><span class="i0">But the wind without was eager and sharp,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Of Sir Launfal's gray hair it makes a harp,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">And rattles and wrings<br /> +</span> +<span class="i3">The icy strings,<br /> +</span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span><span class="i0">Singing, in dreary monotone,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>230</span><span class="i0">A Christmas carol of its own,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Whose burden still, as he might guess,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was—"Shelterless, shelterless, shelterless!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The voice of the seneschal flared like a torch<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As he shouted the wanderer away from the porch,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>235</span><span class="i0">And he sat in the gateway and saw all night</span><br /> +<span class="i2">The great hall-fire, so cheery and bold,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Through the window-slits of the castle old,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Build out its piers of ruddy light<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Against the drift of the cold.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Part Second</span></h3> + +<p><span style="margin-left:12em; "><b>I.</b></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class='linenum'>240</span><span class="i0">There was never a leaf on bush or tree,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The bare boughs rattled shudderingly;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The river was dumb and could not speak,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">For the weaver Winter its shroud had spun;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A single crow on the tree-top bleak<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span><span class='linenum'>245</span><span class="i2">From his shining feathers shed off the cold sun;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Again it was morning, but shrunk and cold,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As if her veins were sapless and old,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And she rose up decrepitly<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For a last dim look at earth and sea.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span style="margin-left:12em; "><b>II.</b></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class='linenum'>250</span><span class="i0">Sir Launfal turned from his own hard gate,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">For another heir in his earldom sate;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An old, bent man, worn out and frail,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He came back from seeking the Holy Grail:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Little he recked of his earldom's loss,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>255</span><span class="i0">No more on his surcoat was blazoned the cross.</span><br /> +<span class="i0">But deep in his soul the sign he wore,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The badge of the suffering and the poor.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span style="margin-left:12em; "><b>III.</b></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Sir Launfal's raiment thin and spare<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was idle mail 'gainst the barbed air,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>260</span><span class="i0">For it was just at the Christmas time;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">So he mused, as he sat, of a sunnier clime,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And sought for a shelter from cold and snow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the light and warmth of long ago;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He sees the snake-like caravan crawl<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span><span class='linenum'>265</span><span class="i0">O'er the edge of the desert, black and small,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Then nearer and nearer, till, one by one,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He can count the camels in the sun,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As over the red-hot sands they pass<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To where, in its slender necklace of grass,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>270</span><span class="i0">The little spring laughed and leapt in the shade,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And with its own self like an infant played,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And waved its signal of palms.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span style="margin-left:12em; "><b>IV.</b></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"For Christ's sweet sake, I beg an alms;"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The happy camels may reach the spring,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>275</span><span class="i0">But Sir Launfal sees only the grewsome thing,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The leper, lank as the rain-blanched bone,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That cowers beside him, a thing as lone<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And white as the ice-isles of Northern seas<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the desolate horror of his disease.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span style="margin-left:12em; "><b>V.</b></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class='linenum'>280</span><span class="i0">And Sir Launfal said,—"I behold in thee</span><br /> +<span class="i0">An image of Him who died on the tree;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou also hast had thy crown of thorns,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou also hast had the world's buffets and scorns,—<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span><span class="i0">And to thy life were not denied<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>285</span><span class="i0">The wounds in the hands and feet and side;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Mild Mary's Son, acknowledge me;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Behold, through him, I give to thee!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span style="margin-left:12em; "><b>VI.</b></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then the soul of the leper stood, up in his eyes<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And looked at Sir Launfal, and straightway he<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>290</span><span class="i0">Remembered in what a haughtier guise</span><br /> +<span class="i2">He had flung an alms to leprosie,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When he girt his young life up in gilded mail<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And set forth in search of the Holy Grail.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The heart within him was ashes and dust;<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>295</span><span class="i0">He parted in twain his single crust.</span><br /> +<span class="i0">He broke the ice on the streamlet's brink.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And gave the leper to eat and drink;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'T was a moldy crust of coarse brown bread,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">'T was water out of a wooden bowl,—<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>300</span><span class="i0">Yet with fine wheaten bread was the leper fed,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And 't was red wine he drank with his thirsty soul.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span></p> + +<p><span style="margin-left:12em; "><b>VII.</b></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">As Sir Launfal mused with a downcast face,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A light shone round about the place;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The leper no longer crouched at his side,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>305</span><span class="i0">But stood before him glorified,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Shining and tall and fair and straight<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As the pillar that stood by the Beautiful Gate,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Himself the Gate whereby men can<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Enter the temple of God in Man.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span style="margin-left:12em; "><b>VIII.</b></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class='linenum'>310</span><span class="i0">His words were shed softer than leaves from the pine,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And they fell on Sir Launfal as snows on the brine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That mingle their softness and quiet in one<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the shaggy unrest they float down upon;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the voice that was softer than silence said,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>315</span><span class="i0">"Lo, it is I, be not afraid!</span><br /> +<span class="i0">In many climes, without avail,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou hast spent thy life for the Holy Grail;<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span><span class="i0">Behold, it is here,—this cup which thou<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Didst fill at the streamlet for me but now;<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>320</span><span class="i0">This crust is my body broken for thee,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">This water his blood that died on the tree;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Holy Supper is kept, indeed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In whatso we share with another's need,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not what we give, but what we share,—<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>325</span><span class="i0">For the gift without the giver is bare;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Who gives himself with his alms feeds three,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span style="margin-left:12em; "><b>IX.</b></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Sir Launfal awoke as from a swound:—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"The Grail in my castle here is found!<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>330</span><span class="i0">Hang my idle armor up on the wall,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Let it be the spider's banquet-hall;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He must be fenced with stronger mail<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who would seek and find the Holy Grail."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span style="margin-left:12em; "><b>X.</b></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The castle gate stands open now,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>335</span><span class="i2">And the wanderer is welcome to the hall</span><br /> +<span class="i0">As the hangbird is to the elm-tree bough;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">No longer scowl the turrets tall,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Summer's long siege at last is o'er;<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span><span class="i0">When the first poor outcast went in at the door,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>340</span><span class="i0">She entered with him in disguise,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And mastered the fortress by surprise;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There is no spot she loves so well on ground,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She lingers and smiles there the whole year round;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The meanest serf on Sir Launfal's land<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>345</span><span class="i0">Has hall and bower at his command;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And there's no poor man in the North Countree<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But is lord of the earldom as much as he.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><a name="THE_SHEPHERD_OF_KING_ADMETUS" id="THE_SHEPHERD_OF_KING_ADMETUS"></a>THE SHEPHERD OF KING ADMETUS</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">There came a youth upon the earth,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Some thousand years ago,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose slender hands were nothing worth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whether to plow, or reap, or sow.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='linenum'>5</span><span class="i0">He made a lyre, and drew therefrom</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Music so strange and rich,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That all men loved to hear,—and some<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Muttered of fagots for a witch.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But King Admetus, one who had<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>10</span><span class="i2">Pure taste by right divine,</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> +<span class="i0">Decreed his singing not too bad<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To hear between the cups of wine.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And so, well pleased with being soothed<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Into a sweet half-sleep,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>15</span><span class="i0">Three times his kingly beard he smoothed.</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And made him viceroy o'er his sheep.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">His words were simple words enough,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And yet he used them so,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That what in other mouths were rough<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>20</span><span class="i0">In his seemed musical and low.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Men called him but a shiftless youth,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In whom no good they saw;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And yet, unwittingly, in truth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They made his careless words their law.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='linenum'>25</span><span class="i0">They knew not how he learned at all,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">For, long hour after hour,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He sat and watched the dead leaves fall,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or mused upon a common flower.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">It seemed the loveliness of things<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span><span class='linenum'>30</span><span class="i2">Did teach him all their use,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">For, in mere weeds, and stones, and springs,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He found a healing power profuse.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Men granted that his speech was wise,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But, when a glance they caught<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>35</span><span class="i0">Of his slim grace and woman's eyes,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">They laughed, and called him good-for-naught.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Yet after he was dead and gone,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And e'en his memory dim,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Earth seemed more sweet to live upon,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>40</span><span class="i0">More full of love, because of him.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And day by day more holy grew<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Each spot where he had trod,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till after-poets only knew<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their first-born brother as a god.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><a name="AN_INCIDENT_IN_A_RAILROAD_CAR" id="AN_INCIDENT_IN_A_RAILROAD_CAR"></a>AN INCIDENT IN A RAILROAD CAR</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">He spoke of Burns: men rude and rough<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Pressed round to hear the praise of one<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose heart was made of manly, simple, stuff,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">As homespun as their own.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> +<span class='linenum'>5</span><span class="i0">And, when he read, they forward leaned,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Drinking, with eager hearts and ears,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His brook-like songs whom glory never weaned<br /></span> +<span class="i2">From humble smiles and tears.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Slowly there grew a tender awe,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>10</span><span class="i2">Sunlike, o'er faces brown and hard.</span><br /> +<span class="i0">As if in him who read they felt and saw<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Some presence of the bard.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">It was a sight for sin and wrong<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And slavish tyranny to see,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>15</span><span class="i0">A sight to make our faith more pure and strong</span><br /> +<span class="i2">In high humanity.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I thought, these men will carry hence<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Promptings their former life above.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And something of a finer reverence<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>20</span><span class="i2">For beauty, truth, and love,</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">God scatters love on every side,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Freely among his children all,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And always hearts are lying open wide,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Wherein some grains may fall.<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='linenum'>25</span><span class="i0">There is no wind but soweth seeds</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Of a more true and open life,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which burst unlocked for, into high-souled deeds,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With wayside beauty rife.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">We find within these souls of ours<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>30</span><span class="i2">Some wild germs of a higher birth,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Which in the poet's tropic heart bear flowers<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Whose fragrance fills the earth.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Within the hearts of all men lie<br /></span> +<span class="i2">These promises of wider bliss,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>35</span><span class="i0">Which blossom into hopes that cannot die,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">In sunny hours like this.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">All that hath been majestical<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In life or death, since time began,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is native in the simple heart of all,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>40</span><span class="i2">The angel heart of man.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And thus, among the untaught poor,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Great deeds and feelings find a home,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That cast in shadow all the golden lore<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of classic Greece and Rome.<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='linenum'>45</span><span class="i0">O, mighty brother-soul of man.</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Where'er thou art, in low or high,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy skyey arches with, exulting span<br /></span> +<span class="i2">O'er-roof infinity!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">All thoughts that mould the age begin<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>50</span><span class="i2">Deep down within the primitive soul,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And from the many slowly upward win<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To one who grasps the whole.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In his wide brain the feeling deep<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That struggled on the many's tongue<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>55</span><span class="i0">Swells to a tide of thought, whose surges leap</span><br /> +<span class="i2">O'er the weak thrones of wrong.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">All thought begins in feeling,—wide<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In the great mass its base is hid,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, narrowing up to thought, stands glorified,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>60</span><span class="i2">A moveless pyramid.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Nor is he far astray, who deems<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That every hope, which rises and grows broad<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span><span class="i0">In the world's heart, by ordered impulse streams<br /></span> +<span class="i2">From the great heart of God.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='linenum'>65</span><span class="i0">God wills, man hopes; in common souls</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Hope is but vague and undefined,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till from the poet's tongue the message rolls<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A blessing to his kind.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Never did Poesy appear<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>70</span><span class="i2">So full of heaven to me, as when</span><br /> +<span class="i0">I saw how it would pierce through pride and fear,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To the lives of coarsest men.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">It may be glorious to write<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Thoughts that shall glad the two or three<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>75</span><span class="i0">High souls, like those far stars that come in sight</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Once in a century;—<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But better far it is to speak<br /></span> +<span class="i2">One simple word, which now and then<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall waken their free nature in the weak</span><br /> +<span class='linenum'>80</span><span class="i2">And friendless sons of men;<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">To write some earnest verse or line<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Which, seeking not the praise of art.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall make a clearer faith and manhood shine<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In the untutored heart.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='linenum'>85</span><span class="i0">He who doth this, in verse or prose,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">May be forgotten in his day,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But surely shall be crowned at last with those<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Who live and speak for aye.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><a name="HEBE" id="HEBE"></a>HEBE</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">I saw the twinkle of white feet.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I saw the flash of robes descending;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Before her ran an influence fleet,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That bowed my heart like barley bending.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='linenum'>5</span><span class="i2">As, in bare fields, the searching bees</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Pilot to blooms beyond our finding,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">It led me on, by sweet degrees<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Joy's simple honey-cells unbinding.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">Those Graces were that seemed grim Fates;<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>10</span><span class="i0">With nearer love the sky leaned o'er me;</span><br /> +<span class="i2">The long-sought Secret's golden gates<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On musical hinges swung before me.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> +<span class="i2">I saw the brimmed bowl in her grasp<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thrilling with godhood; like a lover<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>15</span><span class="i2">I sprang the proffered life to clasp;—</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The beaker fell; the luck was over.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">The Earth has drunk the vintage up;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What boots it patch the goblet's splinters?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Can Summer fill the icy cup,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>20</span><span class="i0">Whose treacherous crystal is but Winter's?</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">O spendthrift Haste! await the gods;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their nectar crowns the lips of Patience;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Haste scatters on unthankful sods<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The immortal gift in vain libations.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='linenum'>25</span><span class="i2">Coy Hebe flies from those that woo,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And shuns the hands would seize upon her;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Follow thy life, and she will sue<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To pour for thee the cup of honor.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><a name="TO_THE_DANDELION" id="TO_THE_DANDELION"></a>TO THE DANDELION</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> +<span class="i2">First pledge of blithesome May,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which children pluck, and, full of pride, uphold,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>5</span><span class="i0">High-hearted buccaneers, o'er joyed that they</span><br /> +<span class="i0">An Eldorado in the grass have found,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Which not the rich earth's ample round.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">May match in wealth—thou art more dear to me<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Than all the prouder summer-blooms may be.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='linenum'>10</span><span class="i0">Gold such as thine ne'er drew the Spanish prow</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Through the primeval hush of Indian seas,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Nor wrinkled the lean brow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of age, to rob the lover's heart of ease;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'T is the Spring's largess, which she scatters now<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>15</span><span class="i0">To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Though most hearts never understand<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To take it at God's value, but pass by<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The offered wealth with unrewarded eye.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Thou art my tropics and mine Italy;<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span><span class='linenum'>20</span><span class="i0">To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime;</span><br /> +<span class="i2">The eyes thou givest me<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are in the heart, and heed not space or time:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not in mid June the golden-cuirassed bee<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Feels a more summer-like, warm ravishment<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>25</span><span class="i2">In the white lily's breezy tent,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">His fragrant Sybaris, than I, when first<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the dark green thy yellow circles burst.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then think I of deep shadows on the grass,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of meadows where in sun the cattle graze,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>30</span><span class="i2">Where, as the breezes pass,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The gleaming rushes lean a thousand ways,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of leaves that slumber in a cloudy mass,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or whiten in the wind, of waters blue<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That from the distance sparkle through<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>35</span><span class="i0">Some woodland gap, and of a sky above,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Where one white cloud like a stray lamb doth move.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">My childhood's earliest thoughts are linked with thee;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sight of thee calls back the robin's song,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Who, from the dark old tree<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span><span class='linenum'>40</span><span class="i0">Beside the door, sang clearly all day long,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And I, secure in childish piety,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Listened as if I heard an angel sing<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With news from Heaven, which he could bring<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fresh every day to my untainted ears,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>45</span><span class="i0">When birds and flowers and I were happy peers.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Thou art the type of those meek charities<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which make up half the nobleness of life,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Those cheap delights the wise<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pluck from the dusty wayside of earth's strife:<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>50</span><span class="i0">Words of frank cheer, glances of friendly eyes,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Love's smallest coin, which yet to some may give<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The morsel that may keep alive<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A starving heart, and teach it to behold<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some glimpse of God where all before was cold.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='linenum'>55</span><span class="i0">Thy wingèd seeds, whereof the winds take care,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Are like the words of poet and of sage<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Which through the free heaven fare,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, now unheeded, in another age<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Take root, and to the gladdened future bear<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span><span class='linenum'>60</span><span class="i0">That witness which the present would not heed,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Bringing forth many a thought and deed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, planted safely in the eternal sky,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bloom into stars which earth is guided by.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Full of deep love thou art, yet not more full<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>65</span><span class="i0">Than all thy common brethren of the ground,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Wherein, were we not dull,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some words of highest wisdom might be found;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet earnest faith from day to day may cull<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some syllables, which, rightly joined, can make<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>70</span><span class="i2">A spell to soothe life's bitterest ache,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And ope Heaven's portals, which are near us still,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yea, nearer ever than the gates of Ill.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">How like a prodigal doth nature seem,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When thou, for all thy gold, so common art!<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>75</span><span class="i2">Thou teachest me to deem</span><br /> +<span class="i0">More sacredly of every human heart,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of Heaven, and could some wondrous secret show,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Did we but pay the love we owe,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span><span class='linenum'>80</span><span class="i0">And with a child's undoubting wisdom look</span><br /> +<span class="i0">On all these living pages of God's book.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But let me read thy lesson right or no,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of one good gift from thee my heart is sure:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Old I shall never grow<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>85</span><span class="i0">While thou each, year dost come to keep me pure</span><br /> +<span class="i0">With legends of my childhood; ah, we owe<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Well more than half life's holiness to these<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Nature's first lowly influences,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At thought of which the heart's glad doors burst ope,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>90</span><span class="i0">In dreariest days, to welcome peace and hope.</span><br /> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><a name="MY_LOVE" id="MY_LOVE"></a>MY LOVE</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Not as all other women are<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Is she that to my soul is dear;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Her glorious fancies come from far,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beneath the silver evening-star,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>5</span><span class="i2">And yet her heart is ever near.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Great feelings hath she of her own,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Which lesser souls may never know;<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> +<span class="i0">God giveth them to her alone,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And sweet they are as any tone<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>10</span><span class="i2">Wherewith the wind may choose to blow.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Yet in herself she dwelleth not,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Although no home were half so fair;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No simplest duty is forgot,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Life hath no dim and lowly spot<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>15</span><span class="i2">That doth not in her sunshine share.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">She doeth little kindnesses,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Which most leave undone, or despise;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For naught that sets one heart at ease,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And giveth happiness or peace,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>20</span><span class="i2">Is low-esteemèd in her eyes.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">She hath no scorn of common things,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And, though she seem of other birth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Round us her heart entwines and clings,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And patiently she folds her wings<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>25</span><span class="i2">To tread the humble paths of earth.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Blessing she is: God made her so,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And deeds of week-day holiness<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span><span class="i0">Fall from her noiseless as the snow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor hath she ever chanced to know<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>30</span><span class="i2">That aught were easier than to bless.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">She is most fair, and thereunto<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Her life doth rightly harmonize;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Feeling or thought that was not true<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ne'er made less beautiful the blue<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>35</span><span class="i2">Unclouded heaven of her eyes.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">She is a woman: one in whom<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The spring-time of her childish years<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hath never lost its fresh perfume,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though knowing well that life hath room<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>40</span><span class="i2">For many blights and many tears.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I love her with a love as still<br /></span> +<span class="i2">As a broad river's peaceful might,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which, by high tower and lowly mill,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Goes wandering at its own will,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>45</span><span class="i2">And yet doth ever flow aright.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And, on its full, deep breast serene,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Like quiet isles my duties lie;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It flows around them and between,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span><span class="i0">And makes them fresh and fair and green,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>50</span><span class="i2">Sweet homes wherein to live and die.</span><br /> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><a name="THE_CHANGELING" id="THE_CHANGELING"></a>THE CHANGELING</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I had a little daughter,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And she was given to me<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To lead me gently backward<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To the Heavenly Father's knee,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>5</span><span class="i0">That I, by the force of nature,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Might in some dim wise divine<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The depth of his infinite patience<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To this wayward soul of mine.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I know not how others saw her,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>10</span><span class="i2">But to me she was wholly fair,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And the light of the heaven she came from<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Still lingered and gleamed in her hair;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For it was as wavy and golden,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And as many changes took,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>15</span><span class="i0">As the shadows of sun-gilt ripples</span><br /> +<span class="i2">On the yellow bed of a brook.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">To what can I liken her smiling<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Upon me, her kneeling lover?<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> +<span class="i0">How it leaped from her lips to her eyelids,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>20</span><span class="i2">And dimpled her wholly over,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Till her outstretched hands smiled also,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And I almost seemed to see<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The very heart of her mother<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Sending sun through her veins to me!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='linenum'>25</span><span class="i0">She had been with us scarce a twelve-month,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">And it hardly seemed a day,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When a troop of wandering angels<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Stole my little daughter away;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or perhaps those heavenly Zingari<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>30</span><span class="i2">But loosed the hampering strings,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And when they had opened her cage-door,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">My little bird used her wings.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But they left in her stead a changeling,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A little angel child,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>35</span><span class="i0">That seems like her bud in full blossom,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">And smiles as she never smiled:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When I wake in the morning, I see it<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Where she always used to lie,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And I feel as weak as a violet<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span><span class='linenum'>40</span><span class="i2">Alone 'neath the awful sky.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">As weak, yet as trustful also;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">For the whole year long I see<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All the wonders of faithful Nature<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Still worked for the love of me;<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>45</span><span class="i0">Winds wander, and dews drip earthward,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Rain falls, suns rise and set,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Earth whirls, and all but to prosper<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A poor little violet.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">This child is not mine as the first was,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>50</span><span class="i2">I cannot sing it to rest,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">I cannot lift it up fatherly<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And bliss it upon my breast;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet it lies in my little one's cradle<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And sits in my little one's chair,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>55</span><span class="i0">And the light of the heaven she's gone to</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Transfigures its golden hair.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><a name="AN_INDIAN-SUMMER_REVERIE" id="AN_INDIAN-SUMMER_REVERIE"></a>AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">What visionary tints the year puts on,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">When falling leaves falter through motionless air<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Or numbly cling and shiver to be gone!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">How shimmer the low flats and pastures bare,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> +<span class='linenum'>5</span><span class="i4">As with her nectar Hebe Autumn fills</span><br /> +<span class="i4">The bowl between me and those distant-hills,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And smiles and shakes abroad her misty, tremulous hair!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">No more the landscape holds its wealth apart,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Making me poorer in my poverty,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>10</span><span class="i4">But mingles with my senses and my heart;</span><br /> +<span class="i2">My own projected spirit seems to me<br /></span> +<span class="i4">In her own reverie the world to steep;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">'T is she that waves to sympathetic sleep,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Moving, as she is moved, each field and hill and tree.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='linenum'>15</span><span class="i4">How fuse and mix, with what unfelt degrees,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Clasped by the faint horizon's languid arms,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Each into each, the hazy distances!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The softened season all the landscape charms;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Those hills, my native village that embay,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span><span class='linenum'>20</span><span class="i4">In waves of dreamier purple roll away,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And floating in mirage seem all the glimmering farms.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">Far distant sounds the hidden chickadee<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Close at my side; far distant sound the leaves;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The fields seem fields of dream, where Memory<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>25</span><span class="i2">Wanders like gleaning Ruth; and as the sheaves</span><br /> +<span class="i4">Of wheat and barley wavered in the eye<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Of Boaz as the maiden's glow went by,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So tremble and seem remote all things the sense receives.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">The cock's shrill trump that tells of scattered corn,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>30</span><span class="i2">Passed breezily on by all his flapping mates,</span><br /> +<span class="i4">Faint and more faint, from barn to barn is borne,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Southward, perhaps to far Magellan's Straits;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Dimly I catch the throb of distant flails;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Silently overhead the hen-hawk sails,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span><span class='linenum'>35</span><span class="i0">With watchful, measuring eye, and for his quarry waits.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">The sobered robin, hunger-silent now,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Seeks cedar-berries blue, his autumn cheer;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The chipmunk, on the shingly shagbark's bough,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Now saws, now lists with downward eye and ear,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>40</span><span class="i4">Then drops his nut, and, cheeping, with a bound</span><br /> +<span class="i4">Whisks to his winding fastness underground;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The clouds like swans drift down the streaming atmosphere.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">O'er yon bare knoll the pointed cedar shadows<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Drowse on the crisp, gray moss; the ploughman's call<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>45</span><span class="i4">Creeps faint as smoke from black, fresh-furrowed meadows;</span><br /> +<span class="i2">The single crow a single caw lets fall;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And all around me every bush and tree<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span><span class="i4">Says Autumn's here, and Winter soon will be,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who snows his soft, white sleep and silence over all.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='linenum'>50</span><span class="i4">The birch, most shy and ladylike of trees,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Her poverty, as best she may, retrieves,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And hints at her foregone gentilities<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With some saved relics of her wealth of leaves;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The swamp-oak, with his royal purple on,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>55</span><span class="i4">Glares red as blood across the sinking sun,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">As one who proudlier to a falling fortune cleaves.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">He looks a sachem, in red blanket wrapt,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Who, 'mid some council of the sad-garbed whites,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Erect and stern, in his own memories lapt,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>60</span><span class="i2">With distant eye broods over other sights,</span><br /> +<span class="i4">Sees the hushed wood the city's flare replace,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The wounded turf heal o'er the railway's trace,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span><span class="i0">And roams the savage Past of his undwindled rights.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">The red-oak, softer-grained, yields all for lost,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>65</span><span class="i2">And, with his crumpled foliage stiff and dry,</span><br /> +<span class="i4">After the first betrayal of the frost,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Rebuffs the kiss of the relenting sky:<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The chestnuts, lavish of their long-hid gold,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">To the faint Summer, beggared now and old,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>70</span><span class="i0">Pour back the sunshine hoarded 'neath her favoring eye.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">The ash her purple drops forgivingly<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And sadly, breaking not the general hush:<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The maple-swamps glow like a sunset sea,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Each leaf a ripple with its separate flush;<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>75</span><span class="i4">All round the wood's edge creeps the skirting blaze</span><br /> +<span class="i4">Of bushes low, as when, on cloudy days,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ere the rain falls, the cautious farmer burns his brush.<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">O'er yon low wall, which guards one unkempt zone,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Where vines and weeds and scrub-oaks intertwine<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>80</span><span class="i4">Safe from the plough, whose rough, discordant stone</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Is massed to one soft gray by lichens fine,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The tangled blackberry, crossed and re-crossed, weaves<br /></span> +<span class="i4">A prickly network of ensanguined leaves;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hard by, with coral beads, the prim black-alders shine.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='linenum'>85</span><span class="i4">Pillaring with flame this crumbling boundary,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Whose loose blocks topple 'neath the plough-boy's foot,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Who, with each sense shut fast except the eye,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Creeps close and scares the jay he hoped to shoot,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The woodbine up the elm's straight stem aspires,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span><span class='linenum'>90</span><span class="i4">Coiling it, harmless, with autumnal fires;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">In the ivy's paler blaze the martyr oak stands mute.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">Below, the Charles, a stripe of nether sky,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Now hid by rounded apple-trees between,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Whose gaps the misplaced sail sweeps bellying by,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>95</span><span class="i2">Now flickering golden through a woodland screen,</span><br /> +<span class="i4">Then spreading out, at his next turn beyond,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">A silver circle like an inland pond—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Slips seaward silently through marshes purple and green.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">Dear marshes! vain to him the gift of sight<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>100</span><span class="i2">Who cannot in their various incomes share,</span><br /> +<span class="i4">From every season drawn, of shade and light,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Who sees in them but levels brown and bare;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Each change of storm or sunshine scatters free<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span><span class="i4">On them its largess of variety,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>105</span><span class="i0">For Nature with cheap means still works her wonders rare.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">In spring they lie one broad expanse of green,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">O'er which the light winds run with glimmering feet:<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Here, yellower stripes track out the creek unseen,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">There, darker growths o'er hidden ditches meet;<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>110</span><span class="i4">And purpler stains show where the blossoms crowd,</span><br /> +<span class="i4">As if the silent shadow of a cloud<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hung there becalmed, with the next breath to fleet.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">All round, upon the river's slippery edge,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Witching to deeper calm the drowsy tide,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>115</span><span class="i4">Whispers and leans the breeze-entangling sedge;</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Through emerald glooms the lingering waters slide,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span><span class="i4">Or, sometimes wavering, throw back the sun,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And the stiff banks in eddies melt and run<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of dimpling light, and with the current seem to glide.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='linenum'>120</span><span class="i4">In summer 't is a blithesome sight to see,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">As, step by step, with measured swing, they pass,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The wide-ranked mowers wading to the knee,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Their sharp scythes panting through the wiry grass;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Then, stretched beneath a rick's shade in a ring,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>125</span><span class="i4">Their nooning take, while one begins to sing</span><br /> +<span class="i0">A stave that droops and dies 'neath the close sky of brass.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">Meanwhile that devil-may-care, the bobolink.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Remembering duty, in mid-quaver stops<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span><span class="i4">Just ere he sweeps o'er rapture's tremulous brink,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>130</span><span class="i2">And 'twixt the winrows most demurely drops,</span><br /> +<span class="i4">A decorous bird of business, who provides<br /></span> +<span class="i4">For his brown mate and fledglings six besides,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And looks from right to left, a farmer 'mid his crops.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">Another change subdues them in the fall,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>135</span><span class="i2">But saddens not; they still show merrier tints,</span><br /> +<span class="i4">Though sober russet seems to cover all;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">When the first sunshine through their dew-drops glints,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Look how the yellow clearness, streamed across,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Redeems with rarer hues the season's loss,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>140</span><span class="i0">As Dawn's feet there had touched and left their rosy prints.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">Or come when sunset gives its freshened zest,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Lean o 'er the bridge and let the ruddy thrill,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span><span class="i4">While the shorn sun swells down the hazy west,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Glow opposite;—the marshes drink their fill<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>145</span><span class="i4">And swoon with purple veins, then, slowly fade</span><br /> +<span class="i4">Through pink to brown, as eastward moves the shade,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lengthening with stealthy creep, of Simond's darkening hill.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">Later, and yet ere winter wholly shuts,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Ere through the first dry snow the runner grates,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>150</span><span class="i4">And the loath cart-wheel screams in slippery ruts,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">While firmer ice the eager boy awaits,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Trying each buckle and strap beside the fire,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And until bedtime plays with his desire,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Twenty times putting on and off his new-bought skates;—<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span><span class='linenum'>155</span><span class="i4">Then, every morn, the river's banks shine bright</span><br /> +<span class="i2">With smooth plate-armor, treacherous and frail,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">By the frost's clinking hammers forged at night,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">'Gainst which the lances of the sun prevail,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Giving a pretty emblem of the day<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>160</span><span class="i4">When guiltier arms in light shall melt away,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And states shall move free-limbed, loosed from war's cramping mail.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">And now those waterfalls the ebbing river<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Twice every day creates on either side<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Tinkle, as through their fresh-sparred grots they shiver<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>165</span><span class="i2">In grass-arched channels to the sun denied;</span><br /> +<span class="i4">High flaps in sparkling blue the far-heard crow,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The silvered flats gleam frostily below,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Suddenly drops the gull and breaks the glassy tide.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">But crowned in turn by vying seasons three,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span><span class='linenum'>170</span><span class="i2">Their winter halo hath a fuller ring;</span><br /> +<span class="i4">This glory seems to rest immovably,—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The others were too fleet and vanishing;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">When the hid tide is at its highest flow,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">O'er marsh and stream one breathless trance of snow<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>175</span><span class="i0">With brooding fulness awes and hushes everything.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">The sunshine seems blown off by the bleak wind,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">As pale as formal candles lit by day;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Gropes to the sea the river dumb and blind;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The brown ricks, snow-thatched by the storm in play,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>180</span><span class="i4">Show pearly breakers combing o'er their lee,</span><br /> +<span class="i4">White crests as of some just enchanted sea,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Checked in their maddest leap and hanging poised midway.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">But when the eastern blow, with rain aslant.<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span><span class="i2">From mid-sea's prairies green and rolling plains<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>185</span><span class="i4">Drives in his wallowing herds of billows gaunt,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">And the roused Charles remembers in his veins<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Old Ocean's blood and snaps his gyves of frost,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">That tyrannous silence on the shores is tost<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In dreary wreck, and crumbling desolation reigns.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='linenum'>190</span><span class="i4">Edgewise or flat, in Druid-like device,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">With leaden pools between or gullies bare,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The blocks lie strewn, a bleak Stonehenge of ice;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">No life, no sound, to break the grim despair,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Save sullen plunge, as through the sedges stiff<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>195</span><span class="i4">Down crackles riverward some thaw-sapped cliff,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Or when the close-wedged fields of ice crunch here and there.<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">But let me turn from fancy-pictured scenes<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To that whose pastoral calm before me lies:<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Here nothing harsh or rugged intervenes;<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>200</span><span class="i2">The early evening with her misty dyes</span><br /> +<span class="i4">Smooths off the ravelled edges of the nigh,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Relieves the distant with her cooler sky,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And tones the landscape down, and soothes the wearied eyes.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">There gleams my native village, dear to me,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>205</span><span class="i2">Though higher change's waves each day are seen,</span><br /> +<span class="i4">Whelming fields famed in boyhood's history,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Sanding with houses the diminished green;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">There, in red brick, which softening time defies,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Stand square and stiff the Muses' factories;—<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>210</span><span class="i0">How with my life knit up is every well-known scene!</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">Flow on, dear river! not alone you flow<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span><span class="i2">To outward sight, and through your marshes wind;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Fed from the mystic springs of long-ago,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Your twin flows silent through my world of mind:<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>215</span><span class="i4">Grow dim, dear marshes, in the evening's gray!</span><br /> +<span class="i4">Before my inner sight ye stretch away,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And will forever, though these fleshly eyes grow blind.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">Beyond the hillock's house-bespotted swell,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Where Gothic chapels house the horse and chaise,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>220</span><span class="i4">Where quiet cits in Grecian temples dwell,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Where Coptic tombs resound with prayer and praise,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Where dust and mud the equal year divide,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">There gentle Allston lived, and wrought, and died,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Transfiguring street and shop with his illumined gaze.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span><span class='linenum'>225</span><span class="i4"><i>Virgilium vidi tantum</i>,—I have seen</span><br /> +<span class="i2">But as a boy, who looks alike on all,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">That misty hair, that fine Undine-like mien.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Tremulous as down to feeling's faintest call;—<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Ah, dear old homestead! count it to thy fame<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>230</span><span class="i4">That thither many times the Painter came;—</span><br /> +<span class="i0">One elm yet bears his name, a feathery tree and tall.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">Swiftly the present fades in memory's glow,—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Our only sure possession is the past;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The village blacksmith died a month ago,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>235</span><span class="i2">And dim to me the forge's roaring blast;</span><br /> +<span class="i4">Soon fire-new medievals we shall see<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Oust the black smithy from its chestnut-tree,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And that hewn down, perhaps, the bee-hive green and vast.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">How many times, prouder than king on throne,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span><span class='linenum'>240</span><span class="i2">Loosed from the village school-dame's A's and B's,</span><br /> +<span class="i4">Panting have I the creaky bellows blown,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And watched the pent volcano's red increase,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Then paused to see the ponderous sledge, brought down<br /></span> +<span class="i4">By that hard arm voluminous and brown,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>245</span><span class="i0">From the white iron swarm its golden vanishing bees.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">Dear native town! whose choking elms each year<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With eddying dust before their time turn gray,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Pining for rain,—to me thy dust is dear;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">It glorifies the eve of summer day,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>250</span><span class="i4">And when the westering sun half sunken burns,</span><br /> +<span class="i4">The mote-thick air to deepest orange turns,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The westward horseman rides through clouds of gold away.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">So palpable, I've seen those unshorn few,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span><span class="i2">The six old willows at the causey's end<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>255</span><span class="i4">(Such trees Paul Potter never dreamed nor drew),</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Through this dry mist their checkering shadows send,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Striped, here and there, with many a long-drawn thread,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Where streamed through leafy chinks the trembling red,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Past which, in one bright trail, the hang-bird's flashes blend.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='linenum'>260</span><span class="i4">Yes, dearer far thy dust than all that e'er,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Beneath the awarded crown of victory,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Gilded the blown Olympic charioteer;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Though lightly prized the ribboned parchments three,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Yet <i>collegisse juvat</i>, I am glad<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>265</span><span class="i4">That here what colleging was mine I had,—</span><br /> +<span class="i0">It linked another tie, dear native town, with thee!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">Nearer art thou than simply native earth,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span><span class="i2">My dust with thine concedes a deeper tie;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">A closer claim thy soil may well put forth,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>270</span><span class="i2">Something of kindred more than sympathy;</span><br /> +<span class="i4">For in thy bounds I reverently laid away<br /></span> +<span class="i4">That blinding anguish of forsaken clay,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That title I seemed to have in earth and sea and sky.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">That portion of my life more choice to me<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>275</span><span class="i2">(Though brief, yet in itself so round and whole)</span><br /> +<span class="i4">Than all the imperfect residue can be;—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The Artist saw his statue of the soul<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Was perfect; so, with one regretful stroke,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The earthen model into fragments broke,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>280</span><span class="i0">And without her the impoverished seasons roll.</span><br /> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><a name="THE_OAK" id="THE_OAK"></a>THE OAK</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">What gnarlèd stretch, what depth of shade, is his!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">There needs no crown to mark the forest's king;<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span> +<span class="i0">How in his leaves outshines full summer's bliss!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Sun, storm, rain, dew, to him their tribute bring,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>5</span><span class="i0">Which he with such benignant royalty</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Accepts, as overpayeth what is lent;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All nature seems his vassal proud to be,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And cunning only for his ornament.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">How towers he, too, amid the billowed snows,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>10</span><span class="i2">An unquelled exile from the summer's throne,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Whose plain, uncinctured front more kingly shows,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Now that the obscuring courtier leaves are flown.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His boughs make music of the winter air,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Jewelled with sleet, like some cathedral front<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>15</span><span class="i0">Where clinging snow-flakes with quaint art repair</span><br /> +<span class="i2">The dents and furrows of time's envious brunt.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">How doth his patient strength the rude March wind<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span><span class="i2">Persuade to seem glad breaths of summer breeze,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And win the soil, that fain would be unkind,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>20</span><span class="i2">To swell his revenues with proud increase!</span><br /> +<span class="i0">He is the gem; and all the landscape wide<br /></span> +<span class="i2">(So doth his grandeur isolate the sense)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Seems but the setting, worthless all beside,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">An empty socket, were he fallen thence.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='linenum'>25</span><span class="i0">So, from oft converse with life's wintry gales,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Should man learn how to clasp with tougher roots<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The inspiring earth; how otherwise avails<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The leaf-creating sap that sunward shoots?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So every year that falls with noiseless flake<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>30</span><span class="i2">Should fill old scars up on the stormward side,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And make hoar age revered for age's sake,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Not for traditions of youth's leafy pride.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">So, from the pinched soil of a churlish fate,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">True hearts compel the sap of sturdier growth,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span><span class='linenum'>35</span><span class="i0">So between earth and heaven stand simply great,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">That these shall seem but their attendants both;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For nature's forces with obedient zeal<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Wait on the rooted faith and oaken will;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As quickly the pretender's cheat they feel,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>40</span><span class="i2">And turn mad Pucks to flout and mock him still.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Lord! all 'Thy works are lessons; each contains<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Some emblem of man's all-containing soul;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall he make fruitless all thy glorious pains,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Delving within thy grace an eyeless mole?<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>45</span><span class="i0">Make me the least of thy Dodona-grove,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Cause me some message of thy truth to bring,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Speak but a word through me, nor let thy love<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Among my boughs disdain to perch and sing.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><a name="BEAVER_BROOK" id="BEAVER_BROOK"></a>BEAVER BROOK</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Hushed with broad sunlight lies the hill,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, minuting the long day's loss,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The cedar's shadow, slow and still,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Creeps o'er its dial of gray moss.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> +<span class='linenum'>5</span><span class="i0">Warm noon brims full the valley's cup,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The aspen's leaves are scarce astir;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Only the little mill sends up<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its busy, never-ceasing burr.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Climbing the loose-piled wall that hems<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>10</span><span class="i0">The road along the mill-pond's brink,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">From 'neath the arching barberry-stems<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My footstep scares the shy chewink.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Beneath a bony buttonwood<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The mill's red door lets forth the din;<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>15</span><span class="i0">The whitened miller, dust-imbued,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Flits past the square of dark within.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">No mountain torrent's strength is here;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sweet Beaver, child of forest still,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>20</span><span class="i0">Heaps its small pitcher to the ear,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And gently waits the miller's will.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Swift slips Undine along the race<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Unheard, and then, with flashing bound,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Floods the dull wheel with light and grace,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, laughing, hunts the loath drudge round.<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='linenum'>25</span><span class="i0">The miller dreams not at what cost,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The quivering millstones hum and whirl,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor how for every turn are tost<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Armfuls of diamond and of pearl.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But Summer cleared my happier eyes<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>30</span><span class="i0">With drops of some celestial juice,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">To see how Beauty underlies,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Forevermore each form of use.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And more; methought I saw that flood,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which now so dull and darkling steals,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>35</span><span class="i0">Thick, here and there, with human blood,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">To turn the world's laborious wheels.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">No more than doth the miller there,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shut in our several cells, do we<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Know with what waste of beauty rare<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>40</span><span class="i0">Moves every day's machinery.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Surely the wiser time shall come<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When this fine overplus of might,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No longer sullen, slow, and dumb,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall leap to music and to light.<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='linenum'>45</span><span class="i0">In that new childhood of the Earth</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Life of itself shall dance and play,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fresh blood in Time's shrunk veins make mirth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And labor meet delight half-way.—<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_PRESENT_CRISIS" id="THE_PRESENT_CRISIS"></a>THE PRESENT CRISIS</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">When a deed is done for Freedom, through the broad earth's aching breast<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Runs a thrill of joy prophetic, trembling on from east to west,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels the soul within him climb<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the awful verge of manhood, as the energy sublime<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>5</span><span class="i0">Of a century bursts full-blossomed on the thorny stem of Time.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Through the walls of hut and palace shoots the instantaneous throe,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When the travail of the Ages wrings earth's systems to and fro;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At the birth of each new Era, with a recognizing start,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span><span class="i0">Nation wildly looks at nation, standing with mute lips apart,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>10</span><span class="i0">And glad Truth's yet mightier man-child leaps beneath the Future's heart.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">So the Evil's triumph sendeth, with a terror and a chill,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Under continent to continent, the sense of coming ill,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels his sympathies with God<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In hot tear-drops ebbing earthward, to be drunk up by the sod,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>15</span><span class="i0">Till a corpse crawls round unburied, delving in the nobler clod.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">For mankind are one in spirit, and an instinct bears along,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Round the earth's electric circle, the swift flash of right or wrong;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whether conscious or unconscious, yet Humanity's vast frame<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through its ocean-sundered fibres feels the gush of joy or shame;—<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span><span class='linenum'>20</span><span class="i0">In the gain or loss of one race all the rest have equal claim.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>25</span><span class="i0">And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Hast thou chosen, O my people, on whose party thou shalt stand,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ere the Doom from its worn sandals shakes the dust against our land?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though the cause of Evil prosper, yet 't is Truth alone is strong,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, albeit she wander outcast now, I see around her throng<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span><span class='linenum'>30</span><span class="i0">Troops of beautiful, tall angels, to enshield her from all wrong.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Backward look across the ages and the beacon-moments see,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That, like peaks of some sunk continent, jut through Oblivion's sea;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not an ear in court or market for the low foreboding cry<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of those Crises, God's stern winnowers, from whose feet earth's chaff must fly;<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>35</span><span class="i0">Never shows the choice momentous till the judgment hath passed by.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Careless seems the great Avenger; history's pages but record<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt old systems and the Word;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the Throne,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>40</span><span class="i0">Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">We see dimly in the Present what is small and what is great,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span><span class="i0">Slow of faith how weak an arm may turn the iron helm of fate,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But the soul is still oracular; amid the market's din,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">List the ominous stern whisper from the Delphic cave within,—<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>45</span><span class="i0">"They enslave their children's children who make compromise with sin."</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Slavery, the earth-born Cyclops, fellest of the giant brood,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sons of brutish Force and Darkness, who have drenched the earth with blood,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Famished in his self-made desert, blinded by our purer day,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Gropes in yet unblasted regions for his miserable prey;—<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>50</span><span class="i0">Shall we guide his gory fingers where our helpless children play?</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched crust,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 'tis prosperous to be just;<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span><span class="i0">Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>55</span><span class="i0">And the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Count me o'er earth's chosen heroes,—they were souls that stood alone,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While the men they agonized for hurled the contumelious stone,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stood serene, and down the future saw the golden beam incline<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith divine,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>60</span><span class="i0">By one man's plain truth to manhood and to God's supreme design.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">By the light of burning heretics Christ's bleeding feet I track,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Toiling up new Calvaries ever with the cross that turns not back,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And these mounts of anguish number how each generation learned<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span><span class="i0">One new word of that grand <i>Credo</i> which in prophet-hearts hath burned<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>65</span><span class="i0">Since the first man stood God-conquered with his face to heaven upturned.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">For Humanity sweeps onward: where to-day the martyr stands,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the morrow crouches Judas with the silver in his hands;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Far in front the cross stands ready and the crackling fagots burn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe return<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>70</span><span class="i0">To glean up the scattered ashes into History's golden urn.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Tis as easy to be heroes as to sit the idle slaves<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of a legendary virtue carved upon our fathers' graves;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Worshippers of light ancestral make the present light a crime;—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was the Mayflower launched by cowards, steered by men behind their time?<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span><span class='linenum'>75</span><span class="i0">Turn those tracks toward Past or Future, that make Plymouth Rock sublime?</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">They were men of present valor, stalwart old iconoclasts,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Unconvinced by axe or gibbet that all virtue was the Past's;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But we make their truth our falsehood, thinking that hath made us free,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hoarding it in mouldy parchments, while our tender spirits flee<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>80</span><span class="i0">The rude grasp of that great Impulse which drove them across the sea.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">They have rights who dare maintain them; we are traitors to our sires,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Smothering in their holy ashes Freedom's new-lit altar-fires;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall we make their creed our jailer? Shall we, in our haste to slay,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the tombs of the old prophets steal the funeral lamps away<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span><span class='linenum'>85</span><span class="i0">To light up the martyr-fagots round the prophets of to-day?</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires! we ourselves must Pilgrims be,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the desperate winter sea,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>90</span><span class="i0">Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's blood-rusted key.</span><br /> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_COURTIN" id="THE_COURTIN"></a>THE COURTIN'</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">God makes sech nights, all white an' still<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Fur 'z you can look or listen,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Moonshine an' snow on field an' hill,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">All silence an' all glisten.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='linenum'>5</span><span class="i0">Zekle crep' up quite unbeknown</span><br /> +<span class="i2">An' peeked in thru' the winder,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' there sot Huldy all alone,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With no one nigh to hender.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">A fireplace filled the room's one side<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span><span class='linenum'>10</span><span class="i2">With half a cord o' wood in,—</span><br /> +<span class="i0">There warn't no stoves till comfort died,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To bake ye to a puddin'.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The wa'nut logs shot sparkles out<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Toward the pootiest, bless her!<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>15</span><span class="i0">An' leetle flames danced all about</span><br /> +<span class="i2">The chiny on the dresser.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Agin the chimbley crook-necks hung,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">An' in amongst 'em rusted<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The ole queen's-arm thet gran'ther Young<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>20</span><span class="i2">Fetched back from Concord busted.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The very room, coz she was in,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Seemed warm from floor to ceilin',<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' she looked full ez rosy agin<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Ez the apples she was peelin'.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='linenum'>25</span><span class="i0">'Twas kin' o' kingdom-come to look</span><br /> +<span class="i2">On sech a blessed cretur,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A dogrose blushin' to a brook<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Ain't modester nor sweeter.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">He was six foot o' man, A 1,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span><span class='linenum'>30</span><span class="i2">Clearn grit an' human natur';</span><br /> +<span class="i0">None couldn't quicker pitch a ton<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Nor dror a furrer straighter.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">He'd sparked it with full twenty gals,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Hed squired 'em, danced 'em, druv 'em,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>35</span><span class="i0">Fust this one, an' then thet, by spells,—</span><br /> +<span class="i2">All is, he couldn't love 'em.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But long o' her his veins 'ould run<br /></span> +<span class="i2">All crinkly like curled maple,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The side she breshed felt full o' sun<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>40</span><span class="i2">Ez a south slope in Ap'il.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">She thought no v'ice hed sech a swing<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Ez hisn in the choir;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My! when he made Ole Hunderd ring,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">She <i>knowed</i> the Lord was nigher.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='linenum'>45</span><span class="i0">An' she'd blush scarlit, right in prayer,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">When her new meetin'-bunnet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Felt somehow thru' its crown a pair<br /></span> +<span class="i2">O' blue eyes sot upon it.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Thet night, I tell ye, she looked <i>some</i>!<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span><span class='linenum'>50</span><span class="i2">She seemed to 've gut a new soul,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">For she felt sartin-sure he'd come.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Down to her very shoe-sole.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">She heered a foot, an' knowed it tu,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A-raspin' on the scraper,—<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>55</span><span class="i0">All ways to once her feelins flew</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Like sparks in burnt-up paper.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">He kin'o' l'itered on the mat,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Some doubtfle o' the sekle,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His heart kep' goin' pity-pat,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>60</span><span class="i2">But hern went pity Zekle.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">An' yit she gin her cheer a jerk<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Ez though she wished him furder,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' on her apples kep' to work,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Parin' away like murder.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='linenum'>65</span><span class="i0">"You want to see my Pa, I s'pose?"</span><br /> +<span class="i2">"Wal ... no ... I come designin'"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"To see my Ma? She's sprinklin' clo'es<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Agin to-morrer's i'nin'."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">To say why gals acts so or so,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span><span class='linenum'>70</span><span class="i2">Or don't, would be presumin';</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Mebby to mean <i>yes</i> an' say <i>no</i><br /></span> +<span class="i2">Comes nateral to women.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">He stood a spell on one foot fust,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Then stood a spell on t'other,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>75</span><span class="i0">An' on which one he felt the wust</span><br /> +<span class="i2">He could n't ha' told ye nuther.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Says he, "I'd better call agin;"<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Says she, "Think likely, Mister:"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That last word pricked him like a pin,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>80</span><span class="i2">An' ... Wal, he up an' kist her.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">When Ma bimeby upon 'em slips,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Huldy sot pale ez ashes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All kin' o' smily roun' the lips<br /></span> +<span class="i2">An' teary roun' the lashes.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='linenum'>85</span><span class="i0">For she was jist the quiet kind</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Whose naturs never vary,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like streams that keep a summer mind<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Snowhid in Jenooary.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The blood clost roun' her heart felt glued<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span><span class='linenum'>90</span><span class="i2">Too tight for all expressin',</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Tell mother see how metters stood.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">An' gin 'em both her blessin'.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then her red come back like the tide<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Down to the Bay o' Fundy,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>95</span><span class="i0">An' all I know is they was cried</span><br /> +<span class="i2">In meetin' come nex' Sunday.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="ODE_RECITED_AT_THE_HARVARD_COMMEMORATION" id="ODE_RECITED_AT_THE_HARVARD_COMMEMORATION"></a>ODE RECITED AT THE HARVARD COMMEMORATION</h2> + +<p class="center">JULY 21, 1865</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left:14em; "><b>I.</b></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">Weak-winged is song,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Nor aims at that clear-ethered height<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Whither the brave deed climbs for light:<br /></span> +<span class="i4">We seem to do them wrong,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>5</span><span class="i0">Bringing our robin's-leaf to deck their hearse</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Who in warm life-blood wrote their nobler verse,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our trivial song to honor those who come<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With ears attuned to strenuous trump and drum,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And shaped in squadron-strophes their desire,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span><span class='linenum'>10</span><span class="i0">Live battle-odes whose lines were steel and fire:</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Yet sometimes feathered words are strong,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A gracious memory to buoy up and save<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From Lethe's dreamless ooze, the common grave<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Of the unventurous throng.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span style="margin-left:14em; "><b>II.</b></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class='linenum'>15</span><span class="i0">To-day our Reverend Mother welcomes back</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Her wisest Scholars, those who understood<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The deeper teaching of her mystic tome,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And offered their fresh lives to make it good:<br /></span> +<span class="i4">No lore of Greece or Rome,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>20</span><span class="i0">No science peddling with the names of things,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Or reading stars to find inglorious fates,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Can lift our life with wings<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Far from Death's idle gulf that for the many waits,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And lengthen out our dates<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>25</span><span class="i0">With that clear fame whose memory sings</span><br /> +<span class="i0">In manly hearts to come, and nerves them and dilates:<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span><span class="i0">Nor such thy teaching, Mother of us all!<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Not such the trumpet-call<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Of thy diviner mood,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>30</span><span class="i4">That could thy sons entice</span><br /> +<span class="i0">From happy homes and toils, the fruitful nest<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of those half-virtues which the world calls best,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Into War's tumult rude:<br /></span> +<span class="i4">But rather far that stern device<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>35</span><span class="i0">The sponsors chose that round thy cradle stood</span><br /> +<span class="i4">In the dim; unventured wood,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The VERITAS that lurks beneath<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The letter's unprolific sheath,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Life of whate'er makes life worth living,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>40</span><span class="i0">Seed-grain of high emprise, immortal food,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">One heavenly thing whereof earth hath the giving.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span style="margin-left:14em; "><b>III.</b></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Many loved Truth, and lavished life's best oil<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Amid the dust of books to find her,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Content at last, for guerdon of their toil,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span><span class='linenum'>45</span><span class="i2">With the cast mantle she hath left behind her.</span><br /> +<span class="i4">Many in sad faith sought for her,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Many with crossed hands sighed for her;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">But these, our brothers, fought for her,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">At life's dear peril wrought for her,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>50</span><span class="i4">So loved her that they died for her,</span><br /> +<span class="i4">Tasting the raptured fleetness<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Of her divine completeness:<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Their higher instinct knew<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Those love her best who to themselves are true,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>55</span><span class="i0">And what they dare to dream of, dare to do;</span><br /> +<span class="i4">They followed her and found her<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Where all may hope to find,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not in the ashes of the burnt-out mind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But beautiful, with danger's sweetness round her.<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>60</span><span class="i4">Where faith made whole with deed</span><br /> +<span class="i4">Breathes its awakening breath<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Into the lifeless creed,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">They saw her plumed and mailed,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">With sweet, stern face unveiled,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span><span class='linenum'>65</span><span class="i0">And all-repaying eyes, look proud on them in death.</span><br /> +</div></div> + +<p><span style="margin-left:14em; "><b>IV.</b></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Our slender life runs rippling by, and glides<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Into the silent hollow of the past;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">What Is there that abides<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To make the next age better for the last?<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>70</span><span class="i4">Is earth too poor to give us</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Something to live for here that shall outlive us,—<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Some more substantial boon<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Than such as flows and ebbs with Fortune's fickle moon?<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The little that we see<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>75</span><span class="i4">From doubt is never free;</span><br /> +<span class="i4">The little that we do<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Is but half-nobly true;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">With our laborious hiving<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What men call treasure, and the gods call dross,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>80</span><span class="i2">Life seems a jest of Fate's contriving,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Only secure in every one's conniving,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A long account of nothings paid with loss,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where we poor puppets, jerked by unseen wires,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span><span class="i2">After our little hour of strut and rave,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>85</span><span class="i0">With all our pasteboard passions and desires,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Loves, hates, ambitions, and immortal fires,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Are tossed pell-mell together in the grave.<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Ah, there is something here<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Unfathomed by the cynic's sneer,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>90</span><span class="i2">Something that gives our feeble light</span><br /> +<span class="i2">A high immunity from Night,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Something that leaps life's narrow bars<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To claim its birthright with the hosts of heaven;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A seed of sunshine that doth leaven<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>95</span><span class="i0">Our earthly dulness with the beams of stars,</span><br /> +<span class="i4">And glorify our clay<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With light from fountains elder than the Day;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A conscience more divine than we,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A gladness fed with secret tears,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>100</span><span class="i2">A vexing, forward-reaching sense</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Of some more noble permanence;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">A light across the sea,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Which haunts the soul and will not let it be,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still glimmering from the heights of undegenerate years.<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span></div></div> + +<p><span style="margin-left:14em; "><b>V.</b></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class='linenum'>105</span><span class="i4">Whither leads the path</span><br /> +<span class="i4">To ampler fates that leads?<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Not down through flowery meads,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">To reap an aftermath<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Of youth's vainglorious weeds,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>110</span><span class="i4">But up the steep, amid the wrath</span><br /> +<span class="i2">And shock of deadly hostile creeds,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Where the world's best hope and stay<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By battle's flashes gropes a desperate way,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And every turf the fierce foot clings to bleeds.<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>115</span><span class="i4">Peace hath her not ignoble wreath,</span><br /> +<span class="i4">Ere yet the sharp, decisive word<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lights the black lips of cannon, and the sword<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Dreams in its easeful sheath:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But some day the live coal behind the thought.<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>120</span><span class="i4">Whether from Baäl's stone obscene,</span><br /> +<span class="i4">Or from the shrine serene<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Of God's pure altar brought,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bursts up in flame; the war of tongue and pen<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Learns with what deadly purpose it was fraught,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span><span class='linenum'>125</span><span class="i0">And, helpless in the fiery passion caught,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Shakes all the pillared state with shock of men:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some day the soft Ideal that we wooed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Confronts us fiercely, foe-beset, pursued,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And cries reproachful: "Was it, then, my praise,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>130</span><span class="i0">And not myself was loved? Prove now thy truth;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">I claim of thee the promise of thy youth;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Give me thy life, or cower in empty phrase,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The victim of thy genius, not its mate!"<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Life may be given in many ways,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>135</span><span class="i2">And loyalty to Truth be sealed</span><br /> +<span class="i0">As bravely in the closet as the field,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">So generous is Fate;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">But then to stand beside her,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">When craven churls deride her,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>140</span><span class="i0">To front a lie in arms and not to yield,—</span><br /> +<span class="i4">This shows, methinks, God's plan<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And measure of a stalwart man,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Limbed like the old heroic breeds,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Who stands self-poised on manhood's solid earth,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>145</span><span class="i2">Not forced to frame excuses for his birth,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Fed from within with all the strength he needs.<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span></div></div> + +<p><span style="margin-left:14em; "><b>VI.</b></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Such was he, our Martyr-Chief,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Whom late the Nation he had led,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With ashes on her head,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>150</span><span class="i0">Wept with the passion of an angry grief:</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Forgive me, if from present things I turn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To speak what in my heart will beat and burn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And hang my wreath on his world-honored urn.<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Nature, they say, doth dote,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>155</span><span class="i4">And cannot make a man</span><br /> +<span class="i4">Save on some worn-out plan,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Repeating us by rote:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For him her Old-World mould aside she threw,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And, choosing sweet clay from the breast<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>160</span><span class="i4">Of the unexhausted West,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">With stuff untainted shaped a hero new,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true.<br /></span> +<span class="i4">How beautiful to see<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Once more a shepherd of mankind indeed,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>165</span><span class="i0">Who loved his charge, but never loved to lead;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">One whose meek flock the people joyed to be,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span><span class="i2">Not lured by any cheat of birth,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But by his clear-grained human worth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And brave old wisdom of sincerity!<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>170</span><span class="i2">They knew that outward grace is dust;</span><br /> +<span class="i2">They could not choose but trust<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In that sure-footed mind's unfaltering skill,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And supple-tempered will<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That bent like perfect steel to spring again and thrust.<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>175</span><span class="i4">Nothing of Europe here,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Or, then, of Europe fronting morn-ward still,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Ere any names of Serf and Peer<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Could Nature's equal scheme deface;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Here was a type of the true elder race,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>180</span><span class="i0">And one of Plutarch's men talked with us face to face.</span><br /> +<span class="i2">I praise him not; it were too late;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And some innative weakness there must be<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In him who condescends to victory<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Such as the Present gives, and cannot wait,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>185</span><span class="i2">Safe in himself as in a fate.</span><br /> +<span class="i4">So always firmly he:<br /></span> +<span class="i4">He knew to bide his time,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And can his fame abide,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span><span class="i0">Still patient in his simple faith sublime,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>190</span><span class="i6">Till the wise years decide.</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Great captains, with their guns and drums,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Disturb our judgment for the hour,<br /></span> +<span class="i6">But at last silence comes;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">These all are gone, and, standing like a tower,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>195</span><span class="i2">Our children shall behold his fame,</span><br /> +<span class="i4">The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">New birth of our new soil, the first American.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span style="margin-left:14em; "><b>VII.</b></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">Long as man's hope insatiate can discern<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>200</span><span class="i4">Or only guess some more inspiring goal</span><br /> +<span class="i4">Outside of Self, enduring as the pole,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Along whose course the flying axles burn<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of spirits bravely-pitched, earth's manlier brood;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Long as below we cannot find<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>205</span><span class="i2">The meed that stills the inexorable mind;</span><br /> +<span class="i2">So long this faith to some ideal Good,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Under whatever mortal names it masks,<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span> +<span class="i2">Freedom, Law, Country, this ethereal mood<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That thanks the Fates for their severer tasks,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>210</span><span class="i2">Feeling its challenged pulses leap,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">While others skulk in subterfuges cheap,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, set in Danger's van, has all the boon it asks,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Shall win man's praise and woman's love;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Shall be a wisdom that we set above<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>215</span><span class="i0">All other skills and gifts to culture dear,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">A virtue round whose forehead we enwreathe<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Laurels that with a living passion breathe<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When other crowns are cold and soon grow sere.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">What brings us thronging these high rites to pay,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>220</span><span class="i0">And seal these hours the noblest of our year,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Save that our brothers found this better way?<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span style="margin-left:14em; "><b>VIII.</b></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">We sit here in the Promised Land<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That flows with Freedom's honey and milk;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But 'twas they won it, sword in hand,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span><span class='linenum'>225</span><span class="i0">Making the nettle danger soft for us as silk.</span><br /> +<span class="i2">We welcome back our bravest and our best:—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Ah me! not all! some come not with the rest,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who went forth brave and bright as any here!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I strive to mix some gladness with my strain,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>230</span><span class="i4">But the sad strings complain,</span><br /> +<span class="i4">And will not please the ear:<br /> +</span> +<span class="i0">I sweep them for a paean, but they wane<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Again and yet again<br /> +</span> +<span class="i0">Into a dirge, and die away in pain.<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>235</span><span class="i0">In these brave ranks I only see the gaps,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Thinking of dear ones whom the dumb turf wraps,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dark to the triumph which they died to gain:<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Fitlier may others greet the living,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">For me the past is unforgiving;<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>240</span><span class="i6">I with uncovered head</span><br /> +<span class="i6">Salute the sacred dead,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who went, and who return not,—Say not so!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Tis not the grapes of Canaan that repay,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But the high faith that failed not by the way;<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>245</span><span class="i0">Virtue treads paths that end not in the grave;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">No ban of endless night exiles the brave:<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span><span class="i4">And to the saner mind<br /> +</span> +<span class="i0">We rather seem the dead that stayed behind.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Blow, trumpets, all your exultations blow!<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>250</span><span class="i0">For never shall their aureoled presence lack:</span><br /> +<span class="i0">I see them muster in a gleaming row,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With ever-youthful brows that nobler show;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We find in our dull road their shining track;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">In every nobler mood<br /> +</span> +<span class='linenum'>255</span><span class="i0">We feel the orient of their spirit glow,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Part of our life's unalterable good,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of all our saintlier aspiration;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">They come transfigured back,<br /> +</span> +<span class="i0">Secure from change in their high-hearted ways,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>260</span><span class="i0">Beautiful evermore, and with the rays</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Of morn on their white Shields of Expectation!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span style="margin-left:14em; "><b>IX.</b></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">Who now shall sneer?<br /> +</span> +<span class="i2">Who dare again to say we trace<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Our lines to a plebeian race?<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>265</span><span class="i4">Roundhead and Cavalier!</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Dreams are those names erewhile in battle loud;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Forceless as is the shadow of a cloud,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span><span class="i4">They live but in the ear:<br /> +</span> +<span class="i0">That is best blood that hath most iron, in 't,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>270</span><span class="i0">To edge resolve with, pouring without stint</span><br /> +<span class="i4">For what makes manhood dear.<br /> +</span> +<span class="i4">Tell us not of Plantagenets,<br /> +</span> +<span class="i0">Hapsburgs, and Guelfs, whose thin bloods crawl<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Down from some victor in a border-brawl!<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>275</span><span class="i4">How poor their outworn coronets,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Matched with one leaf of that plain civic wreath<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our brave for honor's blazon shall bequeath,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Through whose desert a rescued Nation sets<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Her heel on treason, and the trumpet hears<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>280</span><span class="i0">Shout victory, tingling Europe's sullen ears</span><br /> +<span class="i2">With vain resentments and more vain regrets!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span style="margin-left:14em; "><b>X.</b></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">Not in anger, not in pride,<br /> +</span> +<span class="i4">Pure from passion's mixture rude,<br /> +</span> +<span class="i4">Ever to base earth allied,<br /> +</span> +<span class='linenum'>285</span><span class="i4">But with far-heard gratitude,</span><br /> +<span class="i4">Still with heart and voice renewed,<br /> +</span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span><span class="i2">To heroes living and dear martyrs dead,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The strain should close that consecrates our brave.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Lift the heart and lift the head!<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>290</span><span class="i4">Lofty be its mood and grave,</span><br /> +<span class="i4">Not without a martial ring,<br /> +</span> +<span class="i4">Not without a prouder tread<br /> +</span> +<span class="i4">And a peal of exultation:<br /> +</span> +<span class="i4">Little right has he to sing<br /> +</span> +<span class='linenum'>295</span><span class="i4">Through whose heart in such an hour</span><br /> +<span class="i4">Beats no march of conscious power,<br /> +</span> +<span class="i4">Sweeps no tumult of elation!<br /> +</span> +<span class="i4">'Tis no Man we celebrate,<br /> +</span> +<span class="i4">By his country's victories great,<br /> +</span> +<span class='linenum'>300</span><span class="i2">A hero half, and half the whim of Fate,</span><br /> +<span class="i4">But the pith and marrow of a Nation<br /> +</span> +<span class="i4">Drawing force from all her men,<br /> +</span> +<span class="i4">Highest, humblest, weakest, all,—<br /> +</span> +<span class="i4">Pulsing it again through them,<br /> +</span> +<span class='linenum'>305</span><span class="i0">Till the basest can no longer cower,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Feeling his soul spring up divinely tall,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Touched but in passing by her mantle-hem.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Come back, then, noble pride, for 'tis her dower!<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span><span class="i4">How could poet ever tower,<br /> +</span> +<span class='linenum'>310</span><span class="i4">If his passions, hopes, and fears,</span><br /> +<span class="i4">If his triumphs and his tears,<br /> +</span> +<span class="i4">Kept not measure with his people?<br /> +</span> +<span class="i0">Boom, cannon, boom to all the winds and waves!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Clash out, glad bells, from every rocking steeple!<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>315</span><span class="i0">Banners, advance with triumph, bend your staves!</span><br /> +<span class="i2">And from every mountain-peak<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Let beacon-fire to answering beacon speak,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Katahdin tell Monadnock, Whiteface he,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And so leap on in light from sea to sea,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>320</span><span class="i4">Till the glad news be sent</span><br /> +<span class="i4">Across a kindling continent,<br /> +</span> +<span class="i0">Making earth feel more firm and air breathe braver:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Be proud! for she is saved, and all have helped to save her!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">She that lifts up the manhood of the poor,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>325</span><span class="i2">She of the open soul and open door,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">With room about her hearth for all mankind!<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span><span class="i2">The helm from her bold front she doth unbind,<br /> +</span> +<span class="i2">Sends all her handmaid armies back to spin,<br /> +</span> +<span class='linenum'>330</span><span class="i2">And bids her navies hold their thunders in.</span><br /> +<span class="i2">No challenge sends she to the elder world,<br /> +</span> +<span class="i2">That looked askance and hated; a light scorn<br /> +</span> +<span class="i2">Plays on her mouth, as round her mighty knees<br /> +</span> +<span class="i2">She calls her children back, and waits the morn<br /> +</span> +<span class='linenum'>335</span><span class="i0">Of nobler day, enthroned between her subject seas."</span><br /> +</div></div> + +<p><span style="margin-left:14em; "><b>XI.</b></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Bow down, dear Land, for thou hast found release!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Thy God, in these distempered days,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Hath taught thee the sure wisdom of His ways,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And through thine enemies hath wrought thy peace!<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>340</span><span class="i2">Bow down in prayer and praise!</span><br /> +<span class="i0">O Beautiful! my Country! ours once more!<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span><span class="i0">Smoothing thy gold of war-dishevelled hair<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O'er such sweet brows as never other wore,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And letting thy set lips,<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>345</span><span class="i4">Freed from wrath's pale eclipse,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The rosy edges of their smile lay bare,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What words divine of lover or of poet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Could tell our love and make thee know it,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Among the Nations bright beyond compare?<br /></span> +<span class='linenum'>350</span><span class="i4">What were our lives without thee?</span><br /> +<span class="i4">What all our lives to save thee?<br /></span> +<span class="i4">We reck not what we gave thee;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">We will not dare to doubt thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But ask whatever else, and we will dare!<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="NOTES" id="NOTES"></a>NOTES</h2> + + +<h2><i><a name="THE_VISION_OF_SIR_LAUNFAL_2" id="THE_VISION_OF_SIR_LAUNFAL_2"></a>THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL</i></h2> + + +<p>1. <b>The Musing organist:</b> There is a peculiar felicity in this musical +introduction. The poem is like an improvisation, and was indeed +composed much as a musician improvises, with swift grasp of the subtle +suggestions of musical tones. It is a dream, an elaborate and somewhat +tangled metaphor, full of hidden meaning for the accordant mind, and +the poet appropriately gives it a setting of music, the most symbolic +of all the arts. It is an allegory, like any one of the adventures in +the <i>Fairie Queen</i>, and from the very beginning the reader must be +alive to the symbolic meaning, upon which Lowell, unlike Spenser, +places chief emphasis, rather than upon the narrative. Compare the +similar musical device in Browning's <i>Abt Vogler</i> and Adelaide +Proctor's <i>Lost Chord</i>.</p> + +<p>6. <b>Theme:</b> The theme, subject, or underlying thought of the poem is +expressed in line 12 below:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"We Sinais climb and know it not;"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>or more comprehensively in the group of four lines of which this is +the conclusion. The organist's fingers wander listlessly over the keys +at first; then come forms and figures from out of dreamland over the +bridge of his careless melody, and gradually the vision takes +consistent and expressive shape. So the poet comes upon his central +subject, or theme, shaped from his wandering thought and imagination.</p> + +<p>7. <b>Auroral flushes:</b> Like the first faint glimmerings of light in the +East that point out the pathway of the rising<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> sun, the uncertain, +wavering outlines of the poet's vision precede the perfected theme +that is drawing near.</p> + +<p>9. <b>Not only around our infancy,</b> etc.: The allusion is to +Wordsworth's <i>Ode on the Intimations of Immortality</i>, especially these +lines:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Heaven lies about us in our infancy!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shades of the prison-house begin to close<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Upon the growing Boy,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">He sees it in his joy;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Youth, who daily farther from the east<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Must travel, still is Nature's Priest,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And by the vision splendid<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Is on his way attended;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At length the Man perceives it die away,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And fade into the light of common day."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>As Lowell's central theme is so intimately associated with that of +Wordsworth's poem, if not directly suggested by it, the two poems +should be read together and compared. Lowell maintains that "heaven +lies about us" not only in our infancy, but at all times, if only we +have the soul to comprehend it.</p> + +<p>12. <b>We Sinais climb, etc.</b>: Mount Sinai was the mountain in Arabia on +which Moses talked with God (<i>Exodus</i> xix, xx). God's miracles are +taking place about us all the time, if only we can emancipate our +souls sufficiently to see them. From out of our materialized daily +lives we may rise at any moment, if we will, to ideal and spiritual +things. In a letter to his nephew Lowell says: "This same name of God +is written all over the world in little phenomena that occur under our +eyes every moment, and I confess that I feel very much inclined to +hang my head with Pizarro when I cannot translate those hieroglyphics +into my own vernacular." (<i>Letters</i>, I, 164).<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span></p> + +<p>Compare the following passage in the poem <i>Bibliolatres</i>:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"If thou hast wanderings in the wilderness<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And find'st not Sinai, 't is thy soul is poor;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There towers the Mountain of the Voice no less,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which whoso seeks shall find, but he who bends,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Intent on manna still and mortal ends,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sees it not, neither hears its thundered lore."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>15. <b>Prophecies</b>: Prophecy is not only prediction, but also any +inspired discourse or teaching. Compare the following lines from the +poem <i>Freedom</i>, written the same year:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Are we, then, wholly fallen? Can it be<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That thou, North wind, that from thy mountains bringest<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their spirit to our plains, and thou, blue sea,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who on our rocks thy wreaths of freedom flingest,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As on an altar,—can it be that ye<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Have wasted inspiration on dead ears,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dulled with the too familiar clank of chains?"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>At the end of this poem Lowell gives his view of "fallen and traitor +lives." He speaks of the "boundless future" of our country—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i11">"Ours if we be strong;<br /> +</span> +<span class="i0">Or if we shrink, better remount our ships<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, fleeing God's express design, trace back<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The hero-freighted Mayflower's prophet-track<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To Europe entering her blood-red eclipse."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>While reading <i>Sir Launfal</i> the fact must be kept in mind that Lowell +was at the time of writing the poem filled with the spirit of freedom +and reform, and was writing fiery articles in prose for the +<i>Anti-Slavery Standard</i>, expressing his bitter indignation at the +indifference and lukewarmness of the Northern people on the subject of +slavery.</p> + +<p>17. <b>Druid wood:</b> The Druids were the aged priests of the Celts, who +performed their religious ceremonies in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span> forests, especially among +oaks, which were peculiarly sacred to them. Hence the venerable woods, +like the aged priests, offer their benediction. Every power of nature, +the winds, the mountain, the wood, the sea, has a symbolic meaning +which we should be able to interpret for our inspiration and +uplifting. Read Bryant's <i>A Forest Hymn</i>.</p> + +<p>18. <b>Benedicite</b>: An invocation of blessing. Imperative form of the +Latin <i>benedicere</i>, to bless. Longfellow speaks of the power of songs +that—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">"Come like the benediction<br /> +</span> +<span class="i0">That follows after prayer."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>19-20. Compare these lines with the ninth strophe of Wordsworth's +<i>Ode</i>. The "inspiring sea" is Wordsworth's "immortal sea." Both poets +rejoice that some of the impulses and ideals of youth are kept alive +in old age.</p> + +<p>21. <b>Earth gets its price, etc.:</b> Notice the special meaning given to +<i>Earth</i> here, in contrast with <i>heaven</i> in line </p> +<p>29. Here again the + thought is suggested by Wordsworth's <i>Ode</i>, sixth strophe:</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Earth fills our lap with pleasures of her own."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>23. <b>Shrives:</b> The priest shrives one when he hears confession and +grants absolution.</p> + +<p>25. <b>Devil's booth:</b> Expand this metaphor and unfold its application +to every-day life.</p> + +<p>27. <b>Cap and bells:</b> The conventional dress of the court fool, or +jester, of the Middle Ages, and, after him, of the stage clown, +consisted of the "fool's cap" and suit of motley, ornamented with +little tinkling bells.</p> + +<p>28. <b>Bubbles we buy, etc.:</b> This line, as first published, had "earn" +for "buy."</p> + +<p>31. This line read originally: "There is no price set," etc. The next +line began with "And."</p> + +<p>32-95. This rapturous passage descriptive of June is unquestionably +the most familiar and most celebrated piece<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> of nature poetry in our +literature. It is not only beautiful and inspiring in its felicitous +phrasings of external nature, but it is especially significant as a +true expression of the heart and soul of the poet himself. It was +always "the high-tide of the year" with Lowell in June, when his +spirits were in fine accord with the universal joy of nature. Wherever +in his poetry he refers to spring and its associations, he always +expresses the same ecstasy of delight. The passage must be compared +with the opening lines of <i>Under the Willows</i> (which he at first named +<i>A June Idyll</i>):</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"June is the pearl of our New England year.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still a surprisal, though expected long,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Her coming startles. Long she lies in wait,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Makes many a feint, peeps forth, draws coyly back,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then, from some southern ambush in the sky,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With one great gush of blossom storms the world," etc.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And in <i>Sunthin' in the Pastoral Line</i> the coming of spring is +delightfully pictured:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">"Our Spring gets everything in tune<br /> +</span> +<span class="i0">An' gives one leap from April into June," etc.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>In a letter written in June, 1867, Lowell says: "There never <i>is</i> such +a season, and that shows what a poet God is. He says the same thing +over to us so often and always new. Here I've been reading the same +poem for near half a century, and never had a notion what the +buttercup in the third stanza meant before."</p> + +<p>It is worth noting that Lowell's happy June corresponds to May in the +English poets, as in Wordsworth's <i>Ode</i>:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">"With the heart of May<br /> +</span> +<span class="i0">Doth every beast keep holiday."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>In New England where "Northern natur" is "slow an' apt to doubt,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"May is a pious fraud of the almanac."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>or as Hosea Biglow says:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i3">"Half our May is so awfully like May n't,<br /> +</span> +<span class="i0">'T would rile a Shaker or an evrige saint."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>41. The original edition has "grasping" instead of "groping."</p> + +<p>42. <b>Climbs to a soul, etc.</b>: In his intimate sympathy with nature, +Lowell endows her forms with conscious life, as Wordsworth did, who +says in <i>Lines Written in Early Spring</i>:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"And 't is my faith that every flower<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Enjoys the air it breathes."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>So Lowell in <i>The Cathedral</i> says:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"And I believe the brown earth takes delight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the new snow-drop looking back at her,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To think that by some vernal alchemy<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It could transmute her darkness into pearl."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>So again he says in <i>Under the Willows</i>:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i3">"I in June am midway to believe<br /> +</span> +<span class="i0">A tree among my far progenitors,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Such sympathy is mine with all the race,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Such mutual recognition vaguely sweet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There is between us."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It must be remembered that this humanizing of nature is an attitude +toward natural objects characteristic only of modern poetry, being +practically unknown in English poetry before the period of Burns and +Wordsworth.</p> + +<p>45. <b>The cowslip startles</b>: Surprises the eye with its bright patches +of green sprinkled with golden blossoms. <i>Cowslip</i> is the common name +in New England for the marsh-marigold, which appears early in spring +in low wet meadows, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span> furnishes not infrequently a savory "mess of +greens" for the farmer's dinner-table.</p> + +<p>46. Compare <i>Al Fresco</i>, lines 34-39:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"The rich, milk-tingeing buttercup<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its tiny polished urn holds up,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Filled with ripe summer to the edge,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sun in his own wine to pledge."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>56. <b>Nice</b>: Delicately discriminating.</p> + +<p>62. This line originally read "because God so wills it."</p> + +<p>71. <b>Maize has sprouted</b>: There is an anxious period for the farmer +after his corn is planted, for if the spring is "backward" and the +weather cold, his seed may decay in the ground before sprouting.</p> + +<p>73. So in <i>Sunthin' in the Pastoral Line</i>, when robin-redbreast sees +the "hossches'nuts' leetle hands unfold" he knows—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Thet arter this ther' 's only blossom-snows;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So, choosin' out a handy crotch an' spouse,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He goes to plast'rin' his adobë house."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>77. Note the happy effect of the internal rhyme in this line.</p> + +<p>93. <b>Healed with snow</b>: Explain the appropriateness of the metaphor.</p> + +<p>94-95. Is the transition here from the prelude to the story abrupt, or +do the preceding lines lead up to it appropriately? Just why does Sir +Launfal now remember his vow? Do these lines introduce the "theme" +that the musing organist has finally found in dreamland, or the +symbolic illustration of his theme?</p> + +<p>97. <b>Richest mail</b>: The knight's coat of mail was usually of polished +steel, often richly decorated with inlaid patterns of gold and jewels. +To serve his high purpose, Sir Launfal brings forth his most precious +treasures.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span></p> + +<p>99. <b>Holy Grail</b>: According to medieval legend, the Sangreal was the +cup or chalice, made of emerald, which was used by Christ, at the last +supper, and in which Joseph of Arimathea caught the last drops of +Christ's blood when he was taken down from the cross. The quest of the +Grail is the central theme of the Arthurian Romances. Tennyson's <i>Holy +Grail</i> should be read, and the student should also be made familiar +with the beautiful versions of the legend in Abbey's series of mural +paintings in the Boston Public Library, and in Wagner's <i>Parsifal</i>.</p> + +<p>103. <b>On the rushes</b>: In ancient halls and castles the floors were +commonly strewn with rushes. In <i>Taming of the Shrew</i>, when preparing +for the home-coming of Petruchio and his bride, Grumio says: "Is +supper ready, the house trimmed, rushes strewed, cobwebs swept?"</p> + +<p>109. <b>The crows flapped, etc.</b>: Suggestive of the quiet, heavy flight +of the crow in a warm day. The beginning and the end of the stanza +suggest drowsy quiet. The vision begins in this stanza. The nature +pictures are continued, but with new symbolical meaning.</p> + +<p>114. <b>Like an outpost of winter</b>: The cold, gloomy castle stands in +strong contrast to the surrounding landscape filled with the joyous +sunshine of summer. So the proud knight's heart is still inaccessible +to true charity and warm human sympathy. So aristocracy in its power +and pride stands aloof from democracy with its humility and aspiration +for human brotherhood. This stanza is especially figurative. The poet +is unfolding the main theme, the underlying moral purpose, of the +whole poem, but it is still kept in vague, dreamy symbolism.</p> + +<p>116. <b>North Countree</b>: The north of England, the home of the border +ballads. This form of the word "countree," with accent on the last +syllable, is common in the old ballads. Here it gives a flavor of +antiquity in keeping with the story.</p> + +<p>122. <b>Pavilions tall</b>: The trees, as in line 125, the broad green tents. +Note how the military figure, beginning with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> "outposts," in line 115, +is continued and developed throughout the stanza, and reverted to in +the word "siege" in the next stanza.</p> + +<p>130. <b>Maiden knight</b>: A young, untried, unpracticed knight. The +expression occurs in Tennyson's <i>Sir Galahad</i>. So "maiden mail" below.</p> + +<p>137. <b>As a locust-leaf</b>: The small delicate leaflets of the compound +locust-leaf seem always in a "lightsome" movement.</p> + +<p>138. The original edition has "unscarred mail."</p> + +<p>138-139. Compare the last lines of Tennyson's <i>Sir Galahad</i>:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"By bridge and ford, by park and pale,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All-armed I ride, whate'er betide,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Until I find the Holy Grail."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>147. <b>Made morn</b>: Let in the morning, or came into the full morning +light as the huge gate opened.</p> + +<p>148. <b>Leper</b>: Why did the poet make the crouching beggar a leper?</p> + +<p>152. For "gan shrink" the original has "did shrink."</p> + +<p>155. <b>Bent of stature</b>: Criticise this phrase.</p> + +<p>158. <b>So he tossed ... in scorn</b>: This is the turning-point of the +moral movement of the story. Sir Launfal at the very beginning makes +his fatal mistake; his noble spirit and lofty purposes break down with +the first test. He refuses to see a brother in the loathsome leper; +the light and warmth of human brotherhood had not yet entered his +soul, just as the summer sunshine had not entered the frowning castle. +The regeneration of his soul must be worked out through wandering and +suffering. Compare the similar plot of the <i>Ancient Mariner</i>.</p> + +<p>163. <b>No true alms</b>: The alms must also be in the heart.</p> + +<p>164. Originally "He gives nothing but worthless gold."</p> + +<p>166. <b>Slender mite</b>: An allusion to the widow's "two mites." (<i>Luke</i> +xxi, 1-4.)</p> + +<p>168. <b>The all-sustaining Beauty</b>: The all-pervading spirit of God that +unites all things in one sympathetic whole. This<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> divinity in humanity +is its highest beauty. In <i>The Oak</i> Lowell says:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Lord! all thy works are lessons; each contains<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some emblem of man's all-containing soul."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>172. <b>A god goes with it</b>: The god-like quality of real charity, of +heart to heart sympathy. In a letter written a little after the +composition of this poem Lowell speaks of love and freedom as being +"the sides which Beauty presented to him then."</p> + +<p>172. <b>Store</b>: Plenty, abundance.</p> + +<p>175. <b>Summers</b>: What is gained by the use of this word instead of +winters?</p> + +<p>176. <b>Wold</b>: A high, open and barren field that catches the full sweep +of the wind. The "wolds" of north England are like the "downs" of the +south.</p> + +<p>181. <b>The little brook</b>: In a letter written in December, 1848, Lowell +says: "Last night I walked to Watertown over the snow with the new +moon before me and a sky exactly like that in Page's evening +landscape. Orion was rising behind me, and, as I stood on the hill +just before you enter the village, the stillness of the fields around +me was delicious, broken only by the tinkle of a little brook which +runs too swiftly for Frost to catch it. My picture of the brook in +<i>Sir Launfal</i> was drawn from it." See the poem <i>Beaver Brook</i> +(originally called <i>The Mill</i>), and the winter picture in <i>An +Indian-Summer Reverie</i>, lines 148-196.</p> + +<p>184. <b>Groined</b>: Groined arches are formed by the intersection of two +arches crossing at any angle, forming a ribbed vault; a characteristic +feature of Gothic architecture.</p> + +<p>190. <b>Forest-crypt</b>: The crypt of a church is the basement, filled +with arched pillars that sustain the building. The cavern of the +brook, as the poet will have us imagine it, is like this subterranean +crypt, where the pillars are like trees and the groined arches like +interlacing branches, decorated with frost leaves. The poet seems to +have had in mind<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span> throughout the description the interior of the +Gothic cathedrals, as shown by the many suggestive terms used, +"groined," "crypt," "aisles," "fretwork," and "carvings."</p> + +<p>193. <b>Fretwork</b>: The ornamental work carved in intricate patterns, in +oak or stone, on the ceilings of old halls and churches.</p> + +<p>195. <b>Sharp relief</b>: When a figure stands out prominently from the +marble or other material from which it is cut, it is said to be in +"high relief," in distinction from "low relief," <i>bas relief</i>.</p> + +<p>196. <b>Arabesques</b>: Complicated patterns of interwoven foliage, flowers +and fruits, derived from Arabian art. Lowell had undoubtedly studied +many times the frost designs on the window panes.</p> + +<p>201. <b>That crystalled the beams, etc.</b>: That caught the beams of moon +and sun as in a crystal. For "that" the original edition has "which."</p> + +<p>204. <b>Winter-palace of ice</b>: An allusion, apparently, to the +ice-palace built by the Empress of Russia, Catherine II, "most +magnificent and mighty freak. The wonder of the North," Cowper called +it. Compare Lowell's description of the frost work with Cowper's +similar description in <i>The Task</i>, in the beginning of Book V.</p> + +<p>205-210. <b>'Twas as if every image, etc.</b>: Note the exquisite fancy in +these lines. The elves have preserved in the ice the pictures of +summer foliage and clouds that were mirrored in the water as models +for another summer.</p> + +<p>211. <b>The hall</b>: In the old castles the hall was always the large +banqueting room, originally the common living room. Here all large +festivities would take place.</p> + +<p>213. <b>Corbel</b>: A bracket-like support projecting from a wall from +which an arch springs or on which a beam rests. The poet has in mind +an ancient hall in which the ceiling is the exposed woodwork of the +roof.</p> + +<p>214. This line at first read: "With the lightsome," etc. Why did +Lowell's refining taste strike out "the"?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> </p> +<p>216. <b>Yule-log</b>: The great + log, sometimes the root of a tree, burned in the huge fireplace on + Christmas eve, with special ceremonies and merrymakings. It was + lighted with a brand preserved from the last year's log, and connected + with its burning were many quaint superstitions and customs. The + celebration is a survival through our Scandinavian ancestors of the + winter festival in honor of the god Thor. Herrick describes it + trippingly in one of his songs:</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i3">"Come, bring with a noise,<br /> +</span> +<span class="i3">My merrie, merrie boys,<br /> +</span> +<span class="i0">The Christmas log to the firing;<br /></span> +<span class="i3">While my good dame, she<br /> +</span> +<span class="i3">Bids ye all be free,<br /> +</span> +<span class="i0">And drink to your heart's desiring."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>219. <b>Like a locust, etc.</b>: Only one who has heard both sounds +frequently can appreciate the close truth of this simile. The +metaphors and similes in this stanza are deserving of special study.</p> + +<p>226. <b>Harp</b>: Prof. William Vaughn Moody questions whether "the use of +Sir Launfal's hair as a 'harp' for the wind to play a Christmas carol +on" is not "a bit grotesque." Does the picture of Sir Launfal in these +two stanzas belong in the Prelude or in the story in Part Second?</p> + +<p>230. <b>Carol of its own</b>: Contrasted with the carols that are being +sung inside the castle.</p> + +<p>231. <b>Burden</b>: The burden or refrain is the part repeated at the end +of each stanza of a ballad or song, expressing the main theme or +sentiment. <i>Still</i> is in the sense of always, ever.</p> + +<p>233. <b>Seneschal</b>: An officer of the castle who had charge of feasts +and ceremonies, like the modern Lord Chamberlain of the King's palace. +Note the effect of the striking figure in this line.</p> + +<p>237. <b>Window-slits</b>: Narrow perpendicular openings in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> the wall, +serving both as windows and as loopholes from which to fire at an +enemy.</p> + +<p>238. <b>Build out its piers:</b> The beams of light are like the piers or +jetties that extend out from shore into the water to protect ships. +Such piers are also built out to protect the shore from the violent +wash of the ocean. The poet may possibly, however, have had in mind +the piers of a bridge that support the arches and stand against the +sweep of the stream.</p> + +<p>243. In this line instead of "the weaver Winter" the original has "the +frost's swift shuttles." Was the change an improvement?</p> + +<p>244. <b>A single crow:</b> Note the effect of introducing this lone crow +into the bleak landscape.</p> + +<p>250. It must not be forgotten that this old Sir Launfal is only in the +dream of the real Sir Launfal, who is still lying on the rushes within +his own castle. As the poor had often been turned away with cold, +heartless selfishness, so he is now turned away from his own "hard +gate."</p> + +<p>251. <b>Sate:</b> The use of this archaic form adds to the antique flavor +of the poem. So with the use of the word "tree" for cross, in line 281 +below. Lowell was passionately fond of the old poets and the quaint +language of the early centuries of English literature, and loved to +introduce into his own poetry words and phrases from these sources. Of +this habit he says:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"If some small savor creep into my rhyme<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the old poets, if some words I use,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Neglected long, which have the lusty thews<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of that gold-haired and earnest-hearted time,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose loving joy and sorrow all sublime<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Have given our tongue its starry eminence,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It is not pride, God knows, but reverence<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which hath grown in me since my childhood's prime."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>254. <b>Recked:</b> Cared for.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span></p> + +<p>255. <b>Surcoat:</b> A long flowing garment worn over the armor, on which +was "emblazoned" the coat of arms. If the knight were a crusader, a +red cross was embroidered thus on the surcoat.</p> + +<p>256. <b>The sign:</b> The sign of the cross, the symbol of humility and +love. This is the first real intimation, the keynote, of the +transformation that has taken place in Sir Launfal's soul.</p> + +<p>259. <b>Idle mail:</b> Useless, ineffectual protection. This figure carries +us back to the "gilded mail," line 131, in which Sir Launfal "flashed +forth" at the beginning of his quest. The poem is full of these minor +antitheses, which should be traced by the student.</p> + +<p>264-272. <b>He sees, etc.:</b> This description is not only beautiful in +itself, but it serves an important purpose in the plan of the poem. It +is a kind of condensation or symbolic expression of Sir Launfal's many +years of wandering in oriental lands. The hint or brief outline is +given, which must be expanded by the imagination of the reader. +Otherwise the story would be inconsistent and incomplete. Notice how +deftly the picture is introduced.</p> + +<p>272. <b>Signal of palms:</b> A group of palm trees seen afar off over the +desert is a welcome signal of an oasis with water for the relief of +the suffering traveler. Some critics have objected that so small a +spring could not have "waved" so large a signal!</p> + +<p>273. Notice the abruptness with which the leper is here introduced, +just as before at the beginning of the story. The vision of "a sunnier +clime" is quickly swept away. The shock of surprise now has a very +different effect upon Sir Launfal.</p> + +<p>275. This line at first read: "But Sir Launfal sees naught save the +grewsome thing."</p> + +<p>278. <b>White:</b> "And, behold, Miriam became leprous, white as snow." +(<i>Numbers</i> xii, 10.)</p> + +<p>279. <b>Desolate horror:</b> The adjective suggests the out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>cast, isolated +condition of lepers. They were permitted no contact with other people. +The ten lepers who met Jesus in Samaria "stood afar off and lifted up +their voices."</p> + +<p>281. <b>On the tree:</b> On the cross. "Whom they slew and hanged on a +tree, Him God raised up the third day." (<i>Acts</i> x, 39.) This use of +the word is common in early literature, especially in the ballads.</p> + +<p>285. See <i>John</i> xx, 25-27.</p> + +<p>287. <b>Through him:</b> The leper. Note that the address is changed in +these two lines. Compare <i>Matthew</i> xxv, 34-40. This gift to the leper +differs how from the gift in Part First?</p> + +<p>291. <b>Leprosie:</b> The antiquated spelling is used for the perfect rhyme +and to secure the antique flavor.</p> + +<p>292. <b>Girt:</b> The original word here was "caged."</p> + +<p>294. <b>Ashes and dust:</b> Explain the metaphor. Compare with "sackcloth +and ashes." See <i>Esther</i> iv, 3; <i>Jonah</i> iii, 6; <i>Job</i> ii, 8.</p> + +<p>300, 301. The figurative character of the lines is emphasized by the +word "soul" at the end. The miracle of Cana seems to have been in the +poet's mind.</p> + +<p>304, 305. The leper is transfigured and Christ himself appears in the +vision of the sleeping Sir Launfal.</p> + +<p>307. <b>The Beautiful Gate:</b> "The gate of the temple which is called +Beautiful," where Peter healed the lame man. (<i>Acts</i> iii, 2.)</p> + +<p>308. <b>Himself the Gate:</b> See <i>John</i> x, 7, 9: "I am the door."</p> + +<p>310. <b>Temple of God:</b> "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and +that the spirit of God dwelleth in you?" (<i>I Corinthians</i> iii, 16, 17; +vi, 19.)</p> + +<p>312. This line at first began with "which."</p> + +<p>313. <b>Shaggy:</b> Is this term applicable to Sir Launfal's present +condition, or is the whole simile carried a little beyond the point of +true likeness?</p> + +<p>314. <b>Softer:</b> Lowell originally wrote "calmer" here. The change +increased the effect of the alliteration. Was it otherwise an +improvement?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span></p> + +<p>315. <b>Lo, it is I:</b> <i>John</i> vi, 20.</p> + +<p>316. <b>Without avail:</b> Was Sir Launfal's long quest entirely without +avail? Compare the last lines of Tennyson's <i>Holy Grail</i>, where Arthur +complains that his knights who went upon the Holy Quest have followed +"wandering fires, lost in the quagmire," and "leaving human wrongs to +right themselves."</p> + +<p>320, 321. <i>Matthew</i> xxvi, 26-28; <i>Mark</i> xiv, 22-24.</p> + +<p>322. <b>Holy Supper:</b> The Last Supper of Christ and his disciples, upon +which is instituted the communion service of the churches. The spirit +of the Holy Supper, the communion of true brotherhood, is realized +when the Christ-like spirit triumphs in the man. "Inasmuch as ye have +done it unto one of the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it +unto me." (<i>Matthew</i> xxv, 40.)</p> + +<p>326. The original has "bestows" for "gives."</p> + +<p>328. <b>Swound:</b> The antiquated form of <i>swoon</i>.</p> + +<p>332, 333. Interpret the lines. Did the poet have in mind the spiritual +armor described in <i>Ephesians</i> vi, 11-17?</p> + +<p>336. <b>Hangbird:</b> The oriole, so called from its hanging nest; one of +Lowell's most beloved "garden acquaintances" at Elmwood. In a letter +he says: "They build a pendulous nest, and so flash in the sun that +our literal rustics call them fire hang-birds." See the description in +<i>Under the Willows</i> beginning:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"My oriole, my glance of summer fire."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>See also the charming prose description in <i>My Garden Acquaintance</i>.</p> + +<p>338. <b>Summer's long siege at last is o'er:</b> The return to this figure +rounds out the story and serves to give unity to the plan of the poem. +The siege is successful, summer has conquered and entered the castle, +warming and lighting its cold, cheerless interior.</p> + +<p>342, 343. Is Lowell expressing here his own convictions about ideal +democracy?</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="THE_SHEPHERD_OF_KING_ADMETUS_1" id="THE_SHEPHERD_OF_KING_ADMETUS_1"></a><i>THE SHEPHERD OF KING ADMETUS</i></h2> + + +<p>Apollo, the god of music, having given offense to Zeus, was condemned +to serve for the space of one year as a shepherd under Admetus, King +of Thessaly. This is one of the most charming of the myths of Apollo, +and has been often used by the poets. Remarking upon this poem, and +others of its period, Scudder says that it shows "how persistently in +Lowell's mind was present this aspect of the poet which makes him a +seer," a recognition of an "all-embracing, all-penetrating power which +through the poet transmutes nature into something finer and more +eternal, and gives him a vantage ground from which to perceive more +truly the realities of life." Compare with this poem <i>An Incident in a +Railroad Car</i>.</p> + +<p>5. <b>Lyre:</b> According to mythology, Apollo's lyre was a tortoise-shell +strung with seven strings.</p> + +<p>8. <b>Fagots for a witch:</b> The introduction of this witch element into a +Greek legend rather mars the consistency of the poem. Lowell finally +substituted for the stanza the following:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Upon an empty tortoise-shell<br /></span> +<span class="i2">He stretched some chords, and drew<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Music that made men's bosoms swell<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Fearless, or brimmed their eyes with dew."<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="HEBE_1" id="HEBE_1"></a><i>HEBE</i></h2> + + +<p>Lowell suggests in this dainty symbolical lyric his conception of the +poet's inspiration. Hebe was cup-bearer to the gods of Olympus, in +Greek mythology, and poured for them their nectar. She was also the +goddess of eternal youth. By an extension of the symbolism she becomes +goddess of the eternal joyousness of the poetic gift. The "influence +fleet" is the divine afflatus that fills the creative mind of the +poet.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span> But Pegasus cannot be made to work in harness at will. True +inspiration comes only in choice moments. Coy Hebe cannot be wooed +violently. Elsewhere he says of the muse:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">"Harass her not; thy heat and stir<br /> +</span> +<span class="i6">But greater coyness breed in her."<br /> +</span> +</div></div> + +<p>"Follow thy life," he says, "be true to thy best self, then Hebe will +bring her choicest ambrosia." That is—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Make thyself rich, and then the Muse<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall court thy precious interviews,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall take thy head upon her knee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And such enchantment lilt to thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That thou shalt hear the life-blood flow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From farthest stars to grass-blades low."<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="TO_THE_DANDELION_1" id="TO_THE_DANDELION_1"></a><i>TO THE DANDELION</i></h2> + + +<p>Four stanzas were added to this poem after its first appearance, the +sixth, seventh, eighth and tenth, but in the finally revised edition +these were cut out, very likely because Lowell regarded them as too +didactic. Indeed the poem is complete and more artistic without them.</p> + +<p>"Of Lowell's earlier pieces," says Stedman, "the one which shows the +finest sense of the poetry of nature is that addressed <i>To the +Dandelion</i>. The opening phrase ranks with the selectest of Wordsworth +and Keats, to whom imaginative diction came intuitively, and both +thought and language are felicitous throughout. This poem contains +many of its author's peculiar beauties and none of his faults; it was +the outcome of the mood that can summon a rare spirit of art to +express the gladdest thought and most elusive feeling."</p> + +<p>6. <b>Eldorado</b>: The land of gold, supposed to be somewhere in South +America, which the European adventurers, especially the Spaniards, +were constantly seeking in the sixteenth century.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span></p> + +<p>27. <b>Sybaris:</b> An ancient Greek colony in southern Italy whose +inhabitants were devoted to luxury and pleasure.</p> + +<p>52-54. Compare <i>Sir Launfal.</i></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="MY_LOVE_1" id="MY_LOVE_1"></a><i>MY LOVE</i></h2> + + +<p>Lowell's love for Maria White is beautifully enshrined in this little +poem. He wrote it at about the time of their engagement. While it is +thus personal in its origin, it is universal in its expression of +ideal womanhood, and so has a permanent interest and appeal. In its +strong simplicity and crystal purity of style, it is a little +masterpiece. Though filled with the passion of his new and beautiful +love, its movement is as calm and artistically restrained as that of +one of Wordsworth's best lyrics.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_CHANGELING_1" id="THE_CHANGELING_1"></a><i>THE CHANGELING</i></h2> + + +<p>This is one of the tender little poems that refer to the death of the +poet's daughter Blanche, which occurred in March, 1847. <i>The First +Snow-fall</i> and <i>She Came and Went</i> embody the same personal grief. +When sending the former to his friend Sydney H. Gay for publication, +he wrote: "May you never have the key which shall unlock the whole +meaning of the poem to you." Underwood, in his <i>Biographical Sketch</i> +says that "friends of the poet, who were admitted to the study in the +upper chamber, remember the pairs of baby shoes that hung over a +picture-frame." The volume in which this poem first appeared contained +this dedication—"To the ever fresh and happy memory of our little +Blanche this volume is reverently dedicated."</p> + +<p>A changeling, according to folk-lore and fairy tale, is a fairy child +that the fairies substitute for a human child that they have stolen. +The changeling was generally sickly, shrivelled and in every way +repulsive. Here the poet reverses the superstition, substituting the +angels for the mis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>chievous fairies, who bring an angel child in place +of the lost one. Whittier has a poem on the same theme, <i>The +Changeling.</i></p> + +<p>29. <b>Zingari:</b> The Gypsies—suggested by "wandering angels" above—who +wander about the earth, and also sometimes steal children, according +to popular belief.</p> + +<p>52. <b>Bliss it:</b> A rather violent use of the word, not recognized by +the dictionaries, but nevertheless felicitous.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="AN_INDIAN-SUMMER_REVERIE_1" id="AN_INDIAN-SUMMER_REVERIE_1"></a><i>AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE</i></h2> + + +<p>Lowell's love of Elmwood and its surroundings finds expression +everywhere in his writings, both prose and verse, but nowhere in a +more direct, personal manner than in this poem. He was not yet thirty +when the poem was written, and Cambridge could still be called a +"village," but the familiar scenes already had their retrospective +charms, which increased with the passing years. Later in life he again +celebrated his affection for this home environment in <i>Under the +Willows.</i></p> + +<p>"There are poetic lines and phrases in the poem," says Scudder, "and +more than all the veil of the season hangs tremulously over the whole, +so that one is gently stirred by the poetic feeling of the rambling +verses; yet, after all, the most enduring impression is of the young +man himself in that still hour of his life, when he was conscious, not +so much of a reform to which he must put his hand, as of the love of +beauty, and of the vague melancholy which mingles with beauty in the +soul of a susceptible poet. The river winding through the marshes, the +distant sound of the ploughman, the near chatter of the chipmunk, the +individual trees, each living its own life, the march of the seasons +flinging lights and shadows over the broad scene, the pictures of +human life associated with his own experience, the hurried, survey of +his village years—all these pictures float before his vision; and +then, with an abruptness which is like the choking of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span> the singer's +voice with tears, there wells up the thought of the little life which +held as in one precious drop the love and faith of his heart."</p> + +<p>1. <b>Visionary tints:</b> The term Indian summer is given to almost any +autumnal period of exceptionally quiet, dry and hazy weather. In +America these characteristic features of late fall were especially +associated with the middle West, at a time when the Indians occupied +that region.</p> + +<p>5. <b>Hebe:</b> Hebe was cup-bearer to the gods at their feasts on Olympus. +Like Hebe, Autumn fills the sloping fields, rimmed round with distant +hills, with her own delicious atmosphere of dreamy and poetic +influence.</p> + +<p>11. <b>My own projected spirit:</b> It seems to the poet that his own +spirit goes out to the world, steeping it in reverie like his own, +rather than receiving the influence from nature's mood.</p> + +<p>25. <b>Gleaning Ruth:</b> For the story of Ruth's gleaning in the fields of +Boaz, see the book of <i>Ruth</i>, ii.</p> + +<p>38. <b>Chipmunk:</b> Lowell at first had "squirrel" here, which would be +inconsistent with the "underground fastness." And yet, are chipmunks +seen up in walnut trees?</p> + +<p>40. This line originally read, "with a chipping bound." <i>Cheeping</i> is +chirping, or giving the peculiar cluck that sounds like "cheep," or +"chip."</p> + +<p>45. <b>Faint as smoke, etc.:</b> The farmer burns the stubble and other +refuse of the season before his "fall plowing."</p> + +<p>46. <b>The single crow, etc.:</b> Note the full significance of this detail +of the picture. Compare Bryant's <i>Death of the Flowers:</i></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy day."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>50. Compare with this stanza the pretty little poem, <i>The Birch Tree.</i></p> + +<p>68. <b>Lavish of their long-hid gold:</b> The chestnut leaves,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span> it will be +remembered, turn to a bright golden yellow in autumn. These +descriptions of autumn foliage are all as true as beautiful.</p> + +<p>73. <b>Maple-swamps:</b> We generally speak of the swamp-maple, which grows +in low ground, and has particularly brilliant foliage in autumn.</p> + +<p>82. <b>Tangled blackberry:</b> This is the creeping blackberry of course, +which every one remembers whose feet have been caught in its prickly +tangles.</p> + +<p>91. <b>Martyr oak:</b> The oak is surrounded with the blazing foliage of +the ivy, like a burning martyr.</p> + +<p>99. <b>Dear marshes:</b> The Charles River near Elmwood winds through broad +salt marshes, the characteristic features of which Lowell describes +with minute and loving fidelity.</p> + +<p>127. <b>Bobolink:</b> If Lowell had a favorite bird, it was the bobolink, +although the oriole was a close competitor for his praises. In one of +his letters he says: "I think the bobolink the best singer in the +world, even undervaluing the lark and the nightingale in the +comparison." And in another he writes: "That liquid tinkle of theirs +is the true fountain of youth if one can only drink it with the right +ears, and I always date the New Year from the day of my first draught. +Messer Roberto di Lincoln, with his summer alb over his shoulders, is +the true chorister for the bridals of earth and sky. There is no bird +that seems to me so thoroughly happy as he, so void of all <i>arrière +pensée</i> about getting a livelihood. The robin sings matins and vespers +somewhat conscientiously, it seems to me—makes a business of it and +pipes as it were by the yard—but Bob squanders song like a poet."</p> + +<p>Compare the description in <i>Sunthin' in the Pastoral Line:</i></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'Nuff said, June's bridesman, poet o' the year,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Gladness on wings, the bobolink, is here;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Half hid in tip-top apple-blooms he swings,<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span> +<span class="i0">Or climbs aginst the breeze with quiverin' wings,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or, givin' way to 't in a mock despair,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Runs down, a brook o' laughter, thru the air."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>See also the opening lines of <i>Under the Willows</i> for another +description full of the ecstasy of both bird and poet. The two +passages woven together appear in the essay <i>Cambridge Thirty Years +Ago</i>, as a quotation. An early poem on <i>The Bobolink</i>, delightful and +widely popular, was omitted from later editions of his poems by +Lowell, perhaps because to his maturer taste the theme was too much +moralized in his early manner. "Shelley and Wordsworth," says Mr. +Brownell, "have not more worthily immortalized the skylark than Lowell +has the bobolink, its New England congener."</p> + +<p>134. <b>Another change</b>: The description now returns to the marshes.</p> + +<p>147. <b>Simond's hill</b>: In the essay <i>Cambridge Thirty Years Ago</i> Lowell +describes the village as seen from the top of this hill.</p> + +<p>159-161. An allusion to the Mexican War, against which Lowell was +directing the satire of the <i>Biglow Papers</i>.</p> + +<p>174-182. Compare the winter pictures in Whittier's <i>Snowbound</i>.</p> + +<p>177. <b>Formal candles</b>: Candles lighted for some form or ceremony, as +in a religious service.</p> + +<p>192. <b>Stonehenge</b>: Stonehenge on Salisbury plain in the south of +England is famous for its huge blocks of stone now lying in confusion, +supposed to be the remains of an ancient Druid temple.</p> + +<p>207. <b>Sanding</b>: The continuance of the metaphor in "higher waves" are +"whelming." With high waves the sand is brought in upon the land, +encroaching upon its limits.</p> + +<p>209. <b>Muses' factories</b>: The buildings of Harvard College.</p> + +<p>218. <b>House-bespotted swell</b>: Lowell notes with some resentment the +change from nature's simple beauties to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span> the pretentiousness of wealth +shown in incongruous buildings.</p> + +<p>220. <b>Cits</b>: Contracted from citizens. During the French Revolution, +when all titles were abolished, the term <i>citizen</i> was applied to +every one, to denote democratic simplicity and equality.</p> + +<p>223. <b>Gentle Allston</b>: Washington Allston, the celebrated painter, +whom Lowell describes as he remembered him in the charming essay +<i>Cambridge Thirty Years Ago</i>.</p> + +<p>225. <b>Virgilium vidi tantum</b>: I barely saw Virgil—caught a glimpse of +him—a phrase applied to any passing glimpse of greatness.</p> + +<p>227. <b>Undine-like</b>: Undine, a graceful water nymph, is the heroine of +the charming little romantic story by De la Motte Fouqué.</p> + +<p>234. <b>The village blacksmith</b>: See Longfellow's famous poem, <i>The +Village Blacksmith</i>. The chestnut was cut down in 1876. An arm-chair +made from its wood still stands in the Longfellow house, a gift to +Longfellow from the Cambridge school children.</p> + +<p>254. <b>Six old willows</b>: These much-loved trees afforded Lowell a +subject for a later poem <i>Under the Willows</i>, in which he describes +particularly one ancient willow that had been spared, he "knows not by +what grace" by the ruthless "New World subduers"—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"One of six, a willow Pleiades,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The seventh fallen, that lean along the brink<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the steep upland dips into the marsh."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>In a letter written twenty years after the <i>Reverie</i> to J.T. Fields, +Lowell says: "My heart was almost broken yesterday by seeing nailed to +<i>my</i> willow a board with these words on it, 'These trees for sale.' +The wretch is going to peddle them for firewood! If I had the money, I +would buy the piece of ground they stand on to save them—the dear +friends of a lifetime."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span></p> + +<p>255. <b>Paul Potter</b>: One of the most famous of the Dutch painters of +the seventeenth century, notable for the strong realism of his work.</p> + +<p>264. <b>Collegisse juvat</b>: The full sentence, in the first ode of +Horace, reads, "Curriculo pulverem Olympicum collegisse juvat." (It is +a pleasure to have collected the dust of Olympus on one's chariot +wheels.) The allusion is to the Olympic games, the most celebrated +festival of Greece. Lowell puns upon the word <i>collegisse</i> with his +own coinage, which may have the double meaning of <i>going to college</i> +and <i>collecting.</i></p> + +<p>272. <b>Blinding anguish</b>: An allusion to the death of his little +daughter Blanche. See <i>The Changeling, The First Snow-fall,</i> and <i>She +Came and Went</i>.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_OAK_1" id="THE_OAK_1"></a><i>THE OAK</i></h2> + + +<p><b>11. Uncinctured front</b>: The forehead no longer encircled with a +crown.</p> + +<p>13-16. There is a little confusion in the figures here, the cathedral +part of the picture being a little far fetched.</p> + +<p>40. <b>Mad Pucks</b>: Puck is the frolicsome, mischief-making spirit of +Shakespeare's <i>Midsummer Night's Dream.</i></p> + +<p>45. <b>Dodona grove</b>: The grove of oaks at Dodona was the seat of a +famous Greek oracle, whose responses were whispered through the +murmuring foliage of the trees.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="BEAVER_BROOK_1" id="BEAVER_BROOK_1"></a><i>BEAVER BROOK</i></h2> + + +<p>Beaver Brook at Waverley was a favorite resort of Lowell's and it is +often mentioned in his writings. In summer and winter it was the +frequent goal of his walks. The poem was at first called <i>The Mill</i>. +It was first published in the <i>Anti-Slavery Standard</i>, and to the +editor, Sidney H. Gay, Lowell wrote:—"Don't you like the poem I sent +you last week? I was inclined to think pretty well of it, but I have +not seen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span> it in print yet. The little mill stands in a valley between +one of the spurs of Wellington Hill and the main summit, just on the +edge of Waltham. It is surely one of the loveliest spots in the world. +It is one of my lions, and if you will make me a visit this spring, I +will take you up to hear it roar, and I will show you 'the oaks'—the +largest, I fancy, left in the country."</p> + +<p>21. <b>Undine</b>: In mythology and romance, Undine is a water-spirit who +is endowed with a soul by her marriage with a mortal. The <i>race</i> is +the watercourse conducted, from the dam in an open trough or +"penstock" to the wheel.</p> + +<p>45. <b>In that new childhood of the Earth</b>: This poem was written a few +weeks after the <i>Vision of Sir Launfal</i> was published, and it +therefore naturally partakes of its idealism.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_PRESENT_CRISIS_1" id="THE_PRESENT_CRISIS_1"></a><i>THE PRESENT CRISIS</i></h2> + + +<p>This poem was written in 1844. The discussion over the annexation of +Texas was absorbing public attention. The anti-slavery party opposed +annexation, believing that it would strengthen the slave-holding +interests, and for the same reason the South was urging the scheme. +Lowell wrote several very strong anti-slavery poems at this time, <i>To +W.L. Garrison</i>, <i>Wendell Phillips</i>, <i>On the Death of C.T. Torrey</i>, and +others, which attracted attention to him as a new and powerful ally of +the reform party. "These poems," says George William Curtis, +"especially that on <i>The Present Crisis,</i> have a Tyrtæan resonance, a +stately rhetorical rhythm, that make their dignity of thought, their +intense feeling, and picturesque imagery, superbly effective in +recitation. They sang themselves on every anti-slavery platform."</p> + +<p>While the poem was inspired by the political struggle of the time, +which Lowell regarded as a crisis in the history of our national honor +and progress, its chief strength is due to the fact that its lofty +sentiment is universal in its appeal, and not applicable merely to +temporal and local conditions.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span> </p> +<p>17. <b>Round the earth's electric + circle, etc.</b>: This prophetic figure was doubtless suggested by the + first telegraph line, which Samuel F.B. Morse had just erected between + Baltimore and Washington.</p> +<p>37. <b>The Word</b>: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with +God, and the Word was God." (<i>John</i> i, 1.)</p> + +<p>44. <b>Delphic cave</b>: The oracle at Delphi was the most famous and +authoritative among the Greeks. The priestess who voiced the answers +of the god was seated in a natural fissure in the rocks.</p> + +<p>46. <b>Cyclops</b>: The Cyclopes were brutish giants with one eye who lived +in caverns and fed on human flesh, if the opportunity offered. Lowell +is recalling in these lines the adventure of Ulysses with the Cyclops, +in the ninth book of Homer's <i>Odyssey</i>.</p> + +<p>64. <b>Credo</b>: Latin, I believe: the first word in the Latin version of +the Apostles' Creed, hence used for <i>creed</i>.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_COURTIN_1" id="THE_COURTIN_1"></a><i>THE COURTIN'</i></h2> + + +<p>This poem first appeared as "a short fragment of a pastoral," in the +introduction to the First Series of the <i>Biglow Papers</i>. It is said to +have been composed merely to fill a blank page, but its popularity was +so great that Lowell expanded it to twice its original length, and +finally printed it as a kind of introduction to the Second Series of +the <i>Biglow Papers</i>. It first appeared, however, in its expanded form +in a charitable publication, <i>Autograph Leaves of Our Country's +Authors</i>, reproduced in facsimile from the original manuscript.</p> + +<p>"This bucolic idyl," says Stedman, "is without a counterpart; no +richer juice can be pressed from the wild grape of the Yankee soil." +Greenslet thinks that this poem is "perhaps the most nearly perfect of +his poems."</p> + +<p>17. <b>Crooknecks</b>: Crookneck squashes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span></p> + +<p>19. <b>Ole queen's-arm</b>: The old musket brought from the Concord fight +in 1775.</p> + +<p>32. To draw a straight furrow when plowing is regarded as evidence of +a skilful farmer.</p> + +<p>36. <b>All is</b>: The truth is, "all there is about it."</p> + +<p>37. <b>Long o' her</b>: Along of her, on account of her.</p> + +<p>40. <b>South slope</b>: The slope of a hill facing south catches the spring +sunshine.</p> + +<p>43. <b>Ole Hunderd</b>: Old Hundred is one of the most familiar of the old +hymn tunes.</p> + +<p>58. Somewhat doubtful as to the sequel.</p> + +<p>94. <b>Bay o' Fundy</b>: The Bay of Fundy is remarkable for its high and +violent tides, owing to the peculiar conformation of its banks.</p> + +<p>96. <b>Was cried</b>: The "bans" were cried, the announcement of the +engagement in the church, according to the custom of that day.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_COMMEMORATION_ODE_1" id="THE_COMMEMORATION_ODE_1"></a><i>THE COMMEMORATION ODE</i></h2> + + +<p>The poem was dedicated "To the ever sweet and shining memory of the +ninety-three sons of Harvard College who have died for their country +in the war of nationality." The text of the poem is here given as +Lowell first published it in 1865. He afterward made a few verbal +changes, and added one new strophe after the eighth. There is a +special interest in studying the ode in the form in which it came +rushing from the poet's brain.</p> + +<p>1-14. The deeds of the poet are weak and trivial compared with the +deeds of heroes. They live their high ideals and die for them. Yet the +gentle words of the poet may sometimes save unusual lives from that +oblivion to which all common lives are destined.</p> + +<p>5. <b>Robin's-leaf</b>: An allusion to the ballad of the <i>Babes in the +Wood.</i></p> + +<p>9. <b>Squadron-strophes</b>: The term <i>strophe</i> originally was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span> applied to +a metrical form that was repeated in a certain established way, like +the <i>strophe</i> and <i>antistrophe</i> of the Greek ode, as sung by a divided +chorus; it is now applied to any stanza form. The poem of heroism is a +"battle-ode," whose successive stanzas are marching squadrons, whose +verses are lines of blazing guns, and whose melody is the strenuous +music of "trump and drum."</p> + +<p>13. <b>Lethe's dreamless ooze</b>: Lethe is the river of oblivion in Hades; +its slimy depths of forgetfulness are not even disturbed by dreams.</p> + +<p>14. <b>Unventurous throng</b>: The vast majority of commonplace beings who +neither achieve nor attempt deeds of "high emprise."</p> + +<p>16. <b>Wisest Scholars</b>: Many students who had returned from the war +were in the audience, welcomed back by their revered mother, their +Alma Mater.</p> + +<p>20. <b>Peddling</b>: Engaging in small, trifling interests. Lowell's +attitude toward science is that of Wordsworth, when he speaks of the +dry-souled scientist as one who is all eyes and no heart, "One that +would peep and botanize Upon his mother's grave."</p> + +<p>21. The pseudo-science of astrology, seeking to tell commonplace +fortunes by the stars.</p> + +<p>25-26. <b>Clear fame</b>: Compare Milton's <i>Lycidas:</i></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To scorn delights and live laborious days."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>32. <b>Half-virtues</b>: Is Lowell disparaging the virtues of peace and +home in comparison with the heroic virtues of war? Or are these +"half-virtues" contrasted with the loftier virtue, the devotion to +Truth?</p> + +<p>34. <b>That stern device</b>: The seal of Harvard College, chosen by its +early founders, bears the device of a shield with the word <i>Ve-ri-tas</i> +(truth) upon three open books.</p> + +<p>46. <b>Sad faith</b>: Deep, serious faith, or there may be a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> slight touch +of irony in the word, with a glance at the gloomy faith of early +puritanism and its "lifeless creed" (l. 62).</p> + +<p>62. <b>Lifeless creed</b>: Compare Tennyson's:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i7">"Ancient form<br /> +</span> +<span class="i0">Thro' which the spirit breathes no more."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>73. The tide of the ocean in its flow and ebb is under the influence +of the moon. To get the sense of the metaphor, "fickle" must be read +with "Fortune"—unless, perchance, we like Juliet regard the moon as +the "inconstant moon."</p> + +<p>81. To protect one's self everyone connives against everyone else. +Compare <i>Sir Launfal</i>, I. 11. Instead of climbing Sinais we "cringe +and plot."</p> + +<p>82. Compare <i>Sir Launfal</i>, I. 26. The whole passage, II. 76-87, is a +distant echo of the second and third stanzas of <i>Sir Launfal</i>.</p> + +<p>83-85. <b>Puppets</b>: The puppets are the pasteboard actors in the Punch +and Judy show, operated by unseen wires.</p> + +<p>84. An echo of <i>Macbeth</i>, V, 5:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And then is heard no more."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>97. <b>Elder than the Day</b>: Elder than the first Day. "And God called +the light Day," etc. (<i>Genesis</i> i, 5.) We may have light from the +divine fountains.</p> + +<p>110-114. In shaping this elaborate battle metaphor, one can easily +believe the poet to have had in mind some fierce mountain struggle +during the war, such as the battle of Lookout Mountain.</p> + +<p>111. <b>Creeds</b>: Here used in the broad sense of convictions, +principles, beliefs.</p> + +<p>115-118. The construction is faulty in these lines. The two last +clauses should be co-ordinated. The substance of the meaning is: Peace +has her wreath, while the cannon are silent and while the sword +slumbers. Lowell's attention<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span> was called to this defective passage by +T.W. Higginson, and he replied: "Your criticism is perfectly just, and +I am much obliged to you for it—though I might defend myself, I +believe, by some constructions even looser in some of the Greek +choruses. But on the whole, when I have my choice, I prefer to make +sense." He then suggested an emendation, which somehow failed to get +into the published poem:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Ere yet the sharp, decisive word<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Redden the cannon's lips, and while the sword."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>120. <b>Baäl's stone obscene</b>: Human sacrifices were offered on the +altars of Baäl. (<i>Jeremiah</i> xix, 5.)</p> + +<p>147-205. This strophe was not in the ode as delivered, but was written +immediately after the occasion, and included in the published poem. +"It is so completely imbedded in the structure of the ode," says +Scudder, "that it is difficult to think of it as an afterthought. It +is easy to perceive that while the glow of composition and of +recitation was still upon him, Lowell suddenly conceived this splendid +illustration, and indeed climax of the utterance, of the Ideal which +is so impressive in the fifth stanza.... Into these threescore lines +Lowell has poured a conception of Lincoln, which may justly be said to +be to-day the accepted idea which Americans hold of their great +President. It was the final expression of the judgment which had +slowly been forming in Lowell's own mind."</p> + +<p>In a letter to Richard Watson Gilder, Lowell says: "The passage about +Lincoln was not in the ode as originally recited, but added +immediately after. More than eighteen months before, however, I had +written about Lincoln in the <i>North American Review</i>—an article that +pleased him. I <i>did</i> divine him earlier than most men of the Brahmin +caste."</p> + +<p>It is a singular fact that the other great New England poets, +Longfellow, Whittier, and Holmes, had almost nothing to say about +Lincoln.</p> + +<p>150. <b>Wept with the passion</b>, etc.: An article in the <i>Atlantic +Monthly</i> for June, 1885, began with this passage: "The funeral +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span> +procession of the late President of the United States has passed +through the land from Washington to his final resting-place in the +heart of the prairies. Along the line of more than fifteen hundred +miles his remains were borne, as it were, through continued lines of +the people; and the number of mourners and the sincerity and unanimity +of grief was such as never before attended the obsequies of a human +being; so that the terrible catastrophe of his end hardly struck more +awe than the majestic sorrow of the people."</p> + +<p>170. <b>Outward grace is dust</b>: An allusion to Lincoln's awkward and +rather unkempt outward appearance.</p> + +<p>173. <b>Supple-tempered will</b>: One of the most pronounced traits of +Lincoln's character was his kindly, almost femininely gentle and +sympathetic spirit. With this, however, was combined a determination +of steel.</p> + +<p>175-178. <b>Nothing of Europe here</b>: There was nothing of Europe in him, +or, if anything, it was of Europe in her early ages of freedom before +there was any distinction of slave and master, groveling Russian Serf +and noble Lord or Peer.</p> + +<p>180. <b>One of Plutarch's men</b>: The distinguished men of Greece and Rome +whom Plutarch immortalized in his <i>Lives</i> are accepted as types of +human greatness.</p> + +<p>182. <b>Innative</b>: Inborn, natural.</p> + +<p>187. <b>He knew to bide his time</b>: He knew how to bide his time, as in +Milton's <i>Lycidas</i>, "He knew himself to sing." Recall illustrations of +Lincoln's wonderful patience and faith.</p> + +<p>198. <b>The first American</b>: In a prose article, Lowell calls him "The +American of Americans." Compare Tennyson's "The last great +Englishman," in the <i>Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington</i>. +Stanza IV of Tennyson's ode should be compared with this Lincoln +stanza.</p> + +<p>202. <b>Along whose course,</b> etc.: Along the course leading to the +"inspiring goal." The conjunction of the words "pole" and "axles" +easily leads to a confusion of metaphor in the passage. The imagery is +from the ancient chariot races.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span></p> + +<p>232. <b>Paean:</b> A paean, originally a hymn to Apollo, usually of +thanksgiving, is a song of triumph, any loud and joyous song.</p> + +<p>236. <b>Dear ones:</b> Underwood says in his biography of Lowell: "In the +privately printed edition of the poem the names of eight of the poet's +kindred are given. The nearest in blood are the nephews, General +Charles Russell Lowell, killed at Winchester, Lieutenant James Jackson +Lowell, at Seven Pines, and Captain William Lowell Putnam, at Ball's +Bluff. Another relative was the heroic Colonel Robert G. Shaw, who +fell in the assault on Fort Wagner."</p> + +<p>As a special memorial of Colonel Shaw, Lowell wrote the poem, +<i>Memoriae Positum.</i> With deep tenderness he refers to his nephews in +<i>"Mr. Hosea Biglow to the Editor of the Atlantic Monthly":</i></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Why, hain't I held 'em on my knee?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Didn't I love to see 'em growin',<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Three likely lads ez wal could be,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Hahnsome an' brave an' not tu knowin'?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I set an' look into the blaze<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Whose natur', jes' like theirn, keeps climbin',<br /> +</span> +<span class="i0">Ez long 'z it lives, in shinin' ways,<br /> +</span> +<span class="i2">An' half despise myself for rhymin'.<br /> +</span> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Wut's words to them whose faith an' truth<br /> +</span> +<span class="i2">On War's red techstone rang true metal,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who ventered life an' love an' youth<br /></span> +<span class="i2">For the gret prize o' death in battle?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To him who, deadly hurt, agen<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Flashed on afore the charge's thunder,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tippin' with fire the bolt of men<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Thet rived the Rebel line asunder?"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>243. When Moses sent men to "spy out" the Promised Land, they reported +a land that "floweth with milk and honey," and they "came unto the +brook of Eshcol, and cut<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span> down from thence a branch with one cluster +of grapes, and they bare it between two upon a staff; and they brought +of the pomegranates and of the figs" (Numbers xiii.)</p> + +<p>245. Compare the familiar line in Gray's <i>Elegy</i>:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"The paths of glory lead but to the grave."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>and Tennyson's line, in the <i>Ode to the Duke of Wellington</i>:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"The path of duty was the way of glory."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>In a letter to T.W. Higginson, who was editing the <i>Harvard Memorial +Biographies</i>, in which he was to print the ode, Lowell asked to have +the following passage inserted at this point:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Virtue treads paths that end not in the grave,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But through those constellations go<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That shed celestial influence on the brave.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If life were but to draw this dusty breath<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That doth our wits enslave,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And with the crowd to hurry to and fro,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Seeking we know not what, and finding death,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">These did unwisely; but if living be,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As some are born to know,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The power to ennoble, and inspire<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In other souls our brave desire<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For fruit, not leaves, of Time's immortal tree,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">These truly live, our thought's essential fire,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And to the saner," etc.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Lowell's remark in <i>The Cathedral</i>, that "second thoughts are prose," +might be fairly applied to this emendation. Fortunately, the passage +was never inserted in the ode.</p> + +<p>255. <b>Orient</b>: The east, morning; hence youth, aspiration, hope. The +figure is continued in l. 271.</p> + +<p>262. <b>Who now shall sneer?</b> In a letter to Mr. J.B. Thayer, who had +criticized this strophe, Lowell admits "that there is a certain +narrowness in it as an expression of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span> the popular feeling as well as +my own. I confess I have never got over the feeling of wrath with +which (just after the death of my nephew Willie) I read in an English +paper that nothing was to be hoped of an army officered by tailors' +apprentices and butcher boys." But Lowell asks his critic to observe +that this strophe "leads naturally" to the next, and "that I there +justify" the sentiment.</p> + +<p>265. <b>Roundhead and Cavalier:</b> In a general way, it is said that New +England was settled by the Roundheads, or Puritans, of England, and +the South by the Cavaliers or Royalists.</p> + +<p>272-273. <b>Plantagenets:</b> A line of English kings, founded by Henry II, +called also the House of Anjou, from their French origin. The <i>House +of Hapsburg</i> is the Imperial family of Austria. The <i>Guelfs</i> were one +of the great political parties in Italy in the Middle Ages, at long +and bitter enmity with the <i>Ghibelines</i>.</p> + +<p>323. With this passage read the last two stanzas of <i>Mr. Hosea Biglow +to the Editor of the Atlantic Monthly</i>, beginning:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Come, Peace! not like a mourner bowed<br /></span> +<span class="i2">For honor lost and dear ones wasted,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But proud, to meet a people proud,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With eyes that tell of triumphs tasted!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>328. <b>Helm:</b> The helmet, the part of ancient armor for protecting the +head, used here as the symbol of war.</p> + +<p>343. Upon receiving the news that the war was ended, Lowell wrote to +his friend, Charles Eliot Norton: "The news, my dear Charles, is from +Heaven. I felt a strange and tender exaltation. I wanted to laugh and +I wanted to cry, and ended by holding my peace and feeling devoutly +thankful. There is something magnificent in having a country to love."</p> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="EXAMINATION_QUESTIONS" id="EXAMINATION_QUESTIONS"></a>EXAMINATION QUESTIONS</h2> + + +<p>The following questions are taken from recent examination papers of +the Examination Board established by the Association of Schools and +Colleges in the Middle States and Maryland, and of the Regents of the +State of New York. Generally only one question on <i>The Vision of Sir +Launfal</i> is included in the examination paper for each year.</p> + + +<p>Under what circumstances did the "vision" come to Sir Launfal? What +was the vision? What was the effect upon him?</p> + +<p>What connection have the preludes in the <i>Vision of Sir Launfal</i> with +the main divisions which they precede? What is their part in the poem +as a whole?</p> + +<p>Contrast Sir Launfal's treatment of the leper at their first meeting +with his treatment at their second.</p> + +<p>1. Describe a scene from the <i>Vision of Sir Launfal</i>.</p> + +<p>2. Describe the hall of the castle as Sir Launfal saw it on Christmas +eve.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"The soul partakes the season's youth ...<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What wonder if Sir Launfal now<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Remembered the keeping of his vow?"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Give the meaning of these lines, and explain what you think is +Lowell's purpose in the preface from which they are taken. Give the +substance of the corresponding preface to the other part of the poem, +and account for the difference between the two.</p> + +<p>Describe the scene as it might have appeared to one standing just +outside the castle gate, as Sir Launfal emerged from his castle in his +search for the Holy Grail.</p> + +<p>Compare the <i>Ancient Mariner</i> and the <i>Vision of Sir Launfal</i> with +regard to the representation of a moral idea in each.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span></p> +<p>Explain the meaning of Sir Launfal's vision, and show how it affected +his conduct.</p> + +<p>Describe an ideal summer day as portrayed in the <i>Vision of Sir +Launfal</i>.</p> + +<p>Quote at least ten lines.</p> + +<p>Discuss, with illustrations, Lowell's descriptions in the <i>Vision of +Sir Launfal</i>, touching on <i>two</i> of the following points:—(a) beauty, +(b) vividness, (c) attention to details.</p> + +<p>Write a description of winter as given in Part Second.</p> + +<p>Outline in tabular form the story of Sir Launfal's search for the Holy +Grail; be careful to include in your outline the time, the place, the +leading characters, and the leading events in their order.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>Merrill's English Texts</h2> +<p> +<b>Addison, Steele, and Budgell. The Sir Roger de Coverley +Papers In The Spectator.</b> Edited by Edna H. L. Turpin. 269 pages, 12mo, cloth. Prices 30 cents.</p><p> +<b>Coleridge. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and other +Poems.</b> Edited by Julian W. Abernethy, Ph.D, 156 +pages, 12 mo, cloth. Price 25 cents.</p><p> +<b>Dickens. A Tale of Two Cities.</b> Edited by Julian W. Abernethy, Ph.D. 634 pages, 12mo, cloth. Price 50 cents.</p><p> +<b>Emerson. Essays.</b> (Selected.) Edited by Edna H. L. +Turpin. 336 pages, 12mo, cloth. Price 40 cents.</p><p> +<b>George Eliot. Silas Marner.</b> Edited by Cornelia Beare. +336 pages, 12mo, cloth. Price 40 cents.</p><p> +<b>Goldsmith. The Deserted Village, and other Poems.</b> Edited +by Edna H. L. Turpin. 153 pages, 12mo, cloth. +Price 25 cents.</p><p> +<b>Hawthorne. The House of the Seven Gables.</b> Edited by +J. H. Castleman, A.M. 464 pages, 12mo, cloth. Price +40 cents.</p><p> +<b>Lamb. Essays of Elia.</b> Edited by J. H. Castleman, A.M. +589 pages, 12mo, cloth. 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