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diff --git a/17948.txt b/17948.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3a9a599 --- /dev/null +++ b/17948.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5168 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Vision of Sir Launfal, by James Russell Lowell + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. 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: ASCII + +*** 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 + + + + + + + + + + Merrill's English Texts + + + + THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL + + AND OTHER POEMS + + + + BY + + JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL + + + + EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY + JULIAN W. ABERNETHY, PH.D., PRINCIPAL OF + THE BERKELEY INSTITUTE, BROOKLYN, N.Y. + + + + + NEW YORK + + CHARLES E. MERRILL CO. + + 44-60 EAST TWENTY-THIRD STREET + + + COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY CHARLES E. MERRILL CO. + + + + +PREFACE + + +The aim of this edition of the _Vision of Sir Launfal_ 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. + +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. + +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: _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_, and the prose essays _My Garden Acquaintance_ and _A Good +Word for Winter_. The opportunity should not be lost for making the +students forever and interestedly acquainted with Lowell, with the +poet and the man. + +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. + +J.W.A. + +_October_ 1, 1908. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +INTRODUCTION: + +Life of Lowell + +Critical Appreciations + +The Vision of Sir Launfal + +The Commemoration Ode + +Bibliography + +Poets' Tributes to Lowell + + +POEMS: + +The Vision of Sir Launfal + +The Shepherd of King Admetus + +An Incident in a Railroad Car + +Hebe + +To the Dandelion + +My Love + +The Changeling + +An Indian-Summer Reverie + +The Oak + +Beaver Brook + +The Present Crisis + +The Courtin' + +The Commemoration Ode + + +NOTES: + +The Vision of Sir Launfal + +The Shepherd of King Admetus + +Hebe + +To the Dandelion + +My Love + +The Changeling + +An Indian-Summer Reverie + +The Oak + +Beaver Brook + +The Present Crisis + +The Courtin' + +The Commemoration Ode + + +EXAMINATION QUESTIONS + + + + +INTRODUCTION + +LIFE OF LOWELL + + +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. + +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 _Sir Patrick Spens_, taught her children +the good old ballads and the romantic stories in the _Fairie Queen_, +and it was one of the poet's earliest delights to recount the +adventures of Spenser's heroes and heroines to his playmates. + +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 _Cathedral_ is an autobiographic passage +describing in a series of charming pictures some of those choice hours +of childhood: + + "One summer hour abides, what time I perched, + Dappled with noonday, under simmering leaves, + And pulled the pulpy oxhearts, while aloof + An oriole clattered and the robins shrilled, + Denouncing me an alien and a thief." + +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 _Fairie Queen_. At fifteen he entered Harvard College, then +an 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 +_Evidences of Christianity_ or Butler's _Analogy_. 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 _Harvardiana_, 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. + +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 _My First Client_. +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, _The Old English Dramatists_, +published in the _Boston Miscellany_. 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 _well_ fitted, to say the least." + +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. + +In 1841 Lowell published his first collection of poems, entitled _A +Year's Life_. The volume was dedicated to "Una," a veiled admission of +indebtedness for its inspiration to Miss White. Two poems +particularly, _Irene_ and _My Love_, 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 preserved in subsequent +collections. In 1843, with a young friend, Robert Carter, Lowell +launched a new magazine, _The Pioneer_, 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 _Pioneer_ 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 _Poems_, issued in +1844, in which the permanent lines of his poetic development appear +more clearly than in _A Year's Life_. 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 +_Conversations on Some of the Old Poets_, a volume of literary +criticism interesting now mainly as pointing to maturer work in this +field. + +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 _Liberty Bell_, 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 for the _Pennsylvania +Freeman_, an anti-slavery journal once edited by Whittier. During the +next six years he was a regular contributor to the _Anti-Slavery +Standard_, 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. + +But Lowell's greatest contribution to the anti-slavery cause was the +_Biglow Papers_, 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 _Biglow Papers_ 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." + +The year 1848 was one of remarkably productive results for Lowell. +Besides the _Biglow Papers_ and some forty magazine articles and +poems, he published a third collection of _Poems_, the _Vision of Sir +Launfal_, and the _Fable for Critics_. The various phases of his +composite genius were nearly all represented in these volumes. The +_Fable_ 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: + + "There comes Poe, with his raven, like Barnaby Rudge, + Three-fifths of him genius and two-fifths sheer fudge." + +And so the sketch of Hawthorne: + + "There is Hawthorne, with genius so shrinking and rare + That you hardly at first see the strength that is there; + A frame so robust, with a nature so sweet, + So earnest, so graceful, so lithe and so fleet, + Is worth a descent from Olympus to meet." + +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 _She Came and Went_ and the _First Snow-Fall_. +The volume of poems published in 1848 was "reverently dedicated" to +the memory of "our little Blanche," and in the introductory poem +addressed "To M.W.L." he poured forth his sorrow like a libation of +tears: + + "I thought our love at fall, but I did err; + Joy's wreath drooped o'er mine eyes: I could not see + That sorrow in our happy world must be + Love's deepest spokesman and interpreter." + +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 _The Dead House_, as he +wrote of it: + + "For it died that autumn morning + When she, its soul, was borne + To lie all dark on the hillside + That looks over woodland and corn." + +Before 1854 Lowell's literary success had been won mainly in verse. +With the appearance in the magazines of _A Moosehead Journal_, +_Fireside Travels_, and _Leaves from My Italian Journal_ 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 +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. + +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 _Atlantic Monthly_ 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 _North American Review_, 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, _Among My +Books_, first and second series, and _My Study Windows_. Variety was +given to this critical writing by such charming essays as _A Good Word +for Winter_ and the deliciously caustic paper _On a Certain +Condescension in Foreigners_. + +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 _Biglow Papers_, in which, says Mr. Greenslet, "we +feel the vital stirring of the mind of Lowell as it was moved by the +great war; 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 +_Commemoration Ode_, 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. + +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 +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 _Democracy_ is yet +our clearest and noblest exposition of American political principles +and ideals. + +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. + +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. + +During the period of his diplomatic service he added almost nothing to +his permanent literary product. In 1869 he had published _Under the +Willows_, a collection that contains some of his finest poems. In the +same year _The Cathedral_ 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 +_Heartsease and Rue_, which opened with the memorial poem, _Agassiz_, +an elegy that would not be too highly honored by being bound in a +golden volume with _Lycidas_, _Adonais_ and _Thyrsis_. 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 _Last Poems_ was made in 1895 by +Professor Norton. During these years were written many of the charming +_Letters_ 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. + +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: + + "Peace to thy slumber in the forest shade, + Poet and patriot, every gift was thine; + Thy name shall live while summers bloom and fade + And grateful memory guard thy leafy shrine." + +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-- + + "With such large range as from the ale-house bench + Can reach the stars and be with both at home." + +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 _The Cathedral_ he says significantly: + + "I thank benignant nature most for this,-- + A force of sympathy, or call it lack + Of character firm-planted, loosing me + From the pent chamber of habitual self + To dwell enlarged in alien modes of thought, + Haply distasteful, wholesomer for that, + And through imagination to possess, + As they were mine, the lives of other men." + +In the delightful little poem, _The Nightingale in the Study_, 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-- + + "Give its best sweetness to all song. + To nature's self her better glory." + +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 _belles-lettres_ was his native province; its atmosphere was +most congenial to his tastes. In book-land it was always June for +him-- + + "Springtime ne'er denied + Indoors by vernal Chaucer, whose fresh woods + Throb thick with merle and mavis all the year." + +But books could never divert his soul from its early endearments with +out-of-door nature. "The older I 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 _My Study +Windows_ 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, _My Garden +Acquaintance_. "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. + +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 _Biglow Papers_ 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 _Letters_ are delicious reading because he +put into them "good wholesome nonsense," as he says, "keeping my +seriousness to bore myself with." + +But this sparkling and overflowing humor never obscures 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-- + + "That make thought physical and thrust far off + The Heaven, so neighborly with man of old," + +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. + + + + +CRITICAL APPRECIATIONS + + +"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 +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."--_W. C. Brownell_, in _Scribner's Magazine_, _February,_ +1907. + + * * * * * + +"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 +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."--_Edmund Clarence Stedman_. + + * * * * * + +"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 _jeux d'esprit_. 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."--_Prof. William P. Trent_. + + * * * * * + +"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 +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 _The Fountain_; in another, _The First +Snow-Fall_ and _After the Burial_; in another, again, the noble +_Harvard Commemoration Ode_.... 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 _not_ 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 _Commemoration Ode_, 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."--_John Churton Collins_. + + * * * * * + +"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 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 cooerdination 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."--_John White Chadwick_. + + + + +THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL + + +Early in 1848 in a letter to his friend Briggs, Lowell speaks of _The +Vision of Sir Launfal_ 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 _Sir Galahad_, 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 +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 _Fairie Queen_ 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. + +_The Vision of Sir Launfal_ and the _Fable for Critics_, 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. + +The allegory of the _Vision_ 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 _The +Present Crisis_, a noble appeal to his countrymen to improve and +elevate their principles. During the next four years he was writing +editorially for the _Standard_, the official organ of the Anti-Slavery +Society, at the same time he was bringing out the _Biglow Papers_. 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 _Vision_. 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. + +The following explanation appeared in the early editions of the poem +as an introductory note: + + "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 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. + + "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." + +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 _Morte Darthur_ 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. _Sir Launfal_ is the title of a poem written by Sir Thomas +Chestre in the reign of Henry VI, which may be found in Ritson's +_Ancient English Metrical Romances_. There is nothing suggestive of +Lowell's poem except the quality of generosity in the hero, who-- + + "gaf gyftys largelyche, + Gold and sylver; and clodes ryche, + To squyer and to knight." + +One of Lowell's earlier poems, _The Search_, contains the germ of _The +Vision of Sir Launfal_. 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-- + + "The King I sought for meekly stood: + A naked, hungry child + Clung round his gracious knee, + And a poor hunted slave looked up and smiled + To bless the smile that set him free." + +And Christ, the seeker learns, is not to be found by wandering through +the world. + + "His throne is with the outcast and the weak." + +A similar fancy also is embodied in a little poem entitled _A +Parable_. 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. + + "Have ye founded your throne and altars, then, + On the bodies and souls of living men? + And think ye that building shall endure, + Which shelters the noble and crushes the poor?" + +These early poems and passages in others written at about the same +time, taken in connection with the _Vision_, show how strongly the +theme had seized upon Lowell's mind. + +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 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. + +Critical judgment upon _The Vision of Sir Launfal_ 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 +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 _The Vision +of Sir Launfal_ 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 "_Sir Launfal_, except +for the beautiful nature pictures, scarcely rises above the level of +an Ingoldsby Legend." + +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 _Sir Launfal_ ... 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." + +While studying _The Vision of Sir Launfal_ the student should be made +familiar with Tennyson's _Sir Galahad_ and _The Holy Grail_, and the +libretto of Wagner's _Parsifal_. 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 _Copley Prints_. +If possible the story of Sir Galahad's search for the Grail in the +seventeenth book of Sir Thomas Malory's _Morte Darthur_ should be +read. It would be well also to read Longfellow's _King Robert of +Sicily_, which to some extent presents a likeness of motive and +treatment. + + + + +THE COMMEMORATION ODE + + +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: + +"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." + +Of the delivery and immediate effect of the poem Mr. 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." + +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 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." + +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." + +With the praise of a discriminating criticism Stedman discusses the +ode in his _Poets of America_: "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 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,-- + + Such was he, our Martyr-Chief, + +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 +preeminence, 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,-- + + 'Bow down, dear Land, for thou hast found release!' + +a strain which shows that when Lowell determinedly sets his mouth to +the trumpet, the blast is that of Roncesvalles." + +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 verse has the elevation of ecstasy and +the splendor of the sublime." + +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 _Samson Agonistes_, 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 _Commemoration Ode_ 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." + + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHY + + +Horace E. Scudder: _James Russell Lowell: A Biography_. 2 vols. The +standard biography. + +Ferris Greenslet: _James Russell Lowell: His Life and Work_. The +latest biography (1905) and very satisfactory. + +Francis H. Underwood: _James Russell Lowell: A Biographical Sketch and +Lowell the Poet and the Man_. Interesting recollections of a personal +friend and editorial associate. + +Edward Everett Hale: _Lowell and His Friends_. + +Edward Everett Hale, Jr.: _James Russell Lowell_. (Beacon +Biographies.) + +Charles Eliot Norton: _Letters of James Russell Lowell_. 2 vols. +Invaluable and delightful. + +Edmund Clarence Stedman: _Poets of America_. + +W.C. Brownell: _James Russell Lowell_. (Scribner's Magazine, February, +1907.) The most recent critical estimate. + +George William Curtis: _James Russell Lowell: An Address_. + +John Churton Collins. _Studies in Poetry and Criticism_, "Poetry and +Poets of America." Excellent as an English estimate. + +Barrett Wendell: _Literary History of America_ and _Stelligeri_, "Mr. +Lowell as a Teacher." + +Henry James: _Essays in London and Library of the World's Best +Literature_. + +George E. Woodberry: _Makers of Literature_. + +William Watson: _Excursions in Criticism_. + +W.D. Howells: _Literary Friends and Acquaintance_. + +Charles E. Richardson: _American Literature_. + +M.A. DeWolfe Howe: _American Bookmen_. + +Thomas Wentworth Higginson: _Old Cambridge_. + +Frank Preston Stearns: _Cambridge Sketches_. 1905. + +Richard Burton: _Literary Leaders of America_. 1904. + +John White Chadwick: Chambers's _Cyclopedia of English Literature_. + +Hamilton Wright Mabie: _My Study Fire_. Second Series, "Lowell's +Letters." + +Margaret Fuller: _Art, Literature and the Drama_. 1859. + +Richard Henry Stoddard: _Recollections, Personal and Literary_, "At +Lowell's Fireside." + +Edwin P. Whipple: _Outlooks on Society, Literature and Politics_, +"Lowell as a Prose Writer." + +H.R. Haweis: _American Humorists_. + +Bayard Taylor: _Essays and Notes_. + +G.W. Smalley: _London Letters_, Vol. 1., "Mr. Lowell, why the English +liked him." + + + + +THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO LOWELL + + +Longfellow's _Herons of Elmwood_; Whittier's _A Welcome to Lowell_; +Holmes's _Farewell to Lowell, At a Birthday Festival_, and _To James +Russell Lowell_; Aldrich's _Elmwood_; Margaret J. Preston's +_Home-Welcome to Lowell_; Richard Watson Gilder's _Lowell_; +Christopher P. Cranch's _To J.R.L. on His Fiftieth Birthday_, and _To +J.R.L. on His Homeward Voyage_; James Kenneth Stephen's _In Memoriam; +James Russell Lowell_, "Lapsus Calami and Other Verses"; William W. +Story's _To James Russell Lowell_, Blackwood's Magazine, Vol. 150; +Eugene Field's _James Russell Lowell_; Edith Thomas's _On Reading +Lowell's "Heartsease and Rue."_ + + + + +THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL + +AND OTHER POEMS + + +THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL + +PRELUDE TO PART FIRST + + + Over his keys the musing organist, + Beginning doubtfully and far away, + First lets his fingers wander as they list, + And builds a bridge from Dreamland for his lay: + Then, as the touch of his loved instrument 5 + Gives hope and fervor, nearer draws his theme, + First guessed by faint auroral flushes sent + Along the wavering vista of his dream. + + Not only around our infancy 10 + Doth heaven with all its splendors lie; + Daily, with souls that cringe and plot, + We Sinais, climb and know it not. + Over our manhood bend the skies; + Against our fallen and traitor lives + The great winds utter prophecies; 15 + With our faint hearts the mountain strives; + Its arms outstretched, the druid wood + Waits with its benedicite; + And to our age's drowsy blood + Still shouts the inspiring sea. 20 + + Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us; + The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in, + The priest hath his fee who comes and shrives us, + We bargain for the graves we lie in: + At the Devil's booth are all things sold, 25 + Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold; + For a cap and bells our lives we pay, + Bubbles we buy with a whole soul's tasking + 'T is heaven alone that is given away, + 'T is only God may be had for the asking; 30 + No price is set on the lavish summer; + June may be had by the poorest comer. + + And what is so rare as a day in June? + Then, if ever, come perfect days; + Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune, 35 + And over it softly her warm ear lays: + Whether we look, or whether we listen, + We hear life murmur, or see it glisten; + Every clod feels a stir of might, + An instinct within it that reaches and towers, 40 + And, groping blindly above it for light, + Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers; + The flush of life may well be seen + Thrilling back over hills and valleys; + The cowslip startles in meadows green, 45 + The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice, + And there's never a leaf nor a blade too mean + To be some happy creature's palace; + The little bird sits at his door in the sun, + Atilt like a blossom among the leaves, 50 + And lets his illumined being o'errun + With the deluge of summer it receives; + His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings, + And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings; + He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest,-- 55 + In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best? + + Now is the high-tide of the year + And whatever of life hath ebbed away + Comes flooding back, with a ripply cheer, + Into every bare inlet and creek and bay; 60 + Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it, + We are happy now, because God wills it; + No matter how barren the past may have been, + 'T is enough for us now that the leaves are green; + We sit in the warm shade and feel right well 65 + How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell; + We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing + That skies are clear and grass is growing: + The breeze comes whispering in our ear + That dandelions are blossoming near, 70 + That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing, + That the river is bluer than the sky, + That the robin is plastering his house hard by; + And if the breeze kept the good news back, + For other couriers we should not lack; 75 + We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing,-- + And hark! how clear bold chanticleer, + Warmed with the new wine of the year, + Tells all in his lusty crowing! + + Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how; 80 + Everything is happy now, + Everything is upward striving; + 'T is as easy now for the heart to be true + As for grass to be green or skies to be blue,-- + 'T is the natural way of living: 85 + Who knows whither the clouds have fled? + In the unscarred heaven they leave no wake; + And the eyes forget the tears they have shed, + The heart forgets its sorrow and ache; + The soul partakes the season's youth, 90 + And the sulphurous rifts of passion and woe + Lie deep 'neath a silence pure and smooth, + Like burnt-out craters healed with snow. + What wonder if Sir Launfal now + Remembered the keeping of his vow? 95 + + +PART FIRST + +I + + + "My golden spurs now bring to me. + And bring to me my richest mail, + For to-morrow I go over land and sea + In search of the Holy Grail: + Shall never a bed for me be spread, 100 + Nor shall a pillow be under my head, + Till I begin my vow to keep; + Here on the rushes will I sleep. + And perchance there may come a vision true + Ere day create the world anew," 105 + Slowly Sir Launfal's eyes grew dim, + Slumber fell like a cloud on him, + And into his soul the vision flew. + + +II + + + The crows flapped over by twos and threes, + In the pool drowsed the cattle up to their knees, 110 + The little birds sang as if it were + The one day of summer in all the year, + And the very leaves seemed to sing on the trees: + The castle alone in the landscape lay + Like an outpost of winter, dull and gray; 115 + 'T was the proudest hall in the North Countree, + And never its gates might opened be, + Save to lord or lady of high degree; + Summer besieged it on every side, + But the churlish stone her assaults defied; 120 + She could not scale the chilly wall, + Though around it for leagues her pavilions tall + Stretched left and right, + Over the hills and out of sight; + Green and broad was every tent, 125 + And out of each a murmur went + Till the breeze fell off at night. + + +III + + + The drawbridge dropped with a surly clang, + And through the dark arch a charger sprang, + Bearing Sir Launfal, the maiden knight, 130 + In his gilded mail, that flamed so bright + It seemed the dark castle had gathered all + Those shafts the fierce sun had shot over its wall + In his siege of three hundred summers long, + And, binding them all in one blazing sheaf, 135 + Had cast them forth: so, young and strong, + And lightsome as a locust leaf, + Sir Launfal flashed forth in his maiden mail, + To seek in all climes for the Holy Grail. + + +IV. + + + It was morning on hill and stream and tree, 140 + And morning in the young knight's heart; + Only the castle moodily + Rebuffed the gifts of the sunshine free, + And gloomed by itself apart; + The season brimmed all other things up 145 + Full as the rain fills the pitcher-plant's cup. + + +V. + + + As Sir Launfal made morn through the darksome gate, + He was 'ware of a leper, crouched by the same, + Who begged with his hand and moaned as he sate; + And a loathing over Sir Launfal came; 150 + The sunshine went out of his soul with a thrill, + The flesh 'neath his armor 'gan shrink and crawl, + And midway its leap his heart stood still + Like a frozen waterfall; + For this man, so foul and bent of stature, 155 + Rasped harshly against his dainty nature, + And seemed the one blot on the summer morn,-- + So he tossed him a piece of gold in scorn. + + +VI + + + The leper raised not the gold from the dust: + "Better to me the poor man's crust, + Better the blessing of the poor, 160 + Though I turn me empty from his door; + That is no true alms which the hand can hold; + He gives only the worthless gold + Who gives from a sense of duty; 165 + But he who gives a slender mite, + And gives to that which is out of sight. + That thread of the all-sustaining Beauty + Which runs through, ail and doth all unite,-- + The hand cannot clasp the whole of his alms, 170 + The heart outstretches its eager palms, + For a god goes with it and makes it store + To the soul that was starving in darkness before." + + +PRELUDE TO PART SECOND + + + Down swept the chill wind from the mountain peak, + From the snow five thousand summers old; 175 + On open, wold and hill-top bleak + It had gathered all the cold, + And whirled it like sleet on the wanderer's cheek: + It carried a shiver everywhere + From the unleafed boughs and pastures bare; 180 + The little brook heard it and built a roof + 'Neath which he could house him, winter-proof; + All night by the white stars' frosty gleams + He groined his arches and matched his beams: + Slender and clear were his crystal spars 185 + As the lashes of light that trim the stars; + He sculptured every summer delight + In his halls and chambers out of sight; + Sometimes his tinkling waters slipt + Down through a frost-leaved forest-crypt, 190 + Long, sparkling aisles of steel-stemmed trees + Bending to counterfeit a breeze; + Sometimes the roof no fretwork knew + But silvery mosses that downward grew; + Sometimes it was carved in sharp relief 195 + With quaint arabesques of ice-fern leaf; + Sometimes it was simply smooth and clear + For the gladness of heaven to shine through, and here + He had caught the nodding bulrush-tops + And hung them thickly with diamond-drops, 200 + That crystalled the beams of moon and sun, + And made a star of every one: + No mortal builder's most rare device + Could match this winter-palace of ice; + 'Twas as if every image that mirrored lay 205 + In his depths serene through the summer day, + Each fleeting shadow of earth and sky, + Lest the happy model should be lost, + Had been mimicked in fairy masonry + By the elfin builders of the frost. 210 + + Within the hall are song and laughter. + The cheeks of Christmas glow red and jolly, + And sprouting is every corbel and rafter + With lightsome green of ivy and holly: + Through the deep gulf of the chimney wide 215 + Wallows the Yule-log's roaring tide; + The broad flame-pennons droop and flap + And belly and tug as a flag in the wind; + Like a locust shrills the imprisoned sap, + Hunted to death in its galleries blind; 220 + And swift little troops of silent sparks, + Now pausing, now scattering away as in fear, + Go threading the soot-forest's tangled darks + Like herds of startled deer. + + But the wind without was eager and sharp, 225 + Of Sir Launfal's gray hair it makes a harp, + And rattles and wrings + The icy strings, + Singing, in dreary monotone, + A Christmas carol of its own, 230 + Whose burden still, as he might guess, + Was--"Shelterless, shelterless, shelterless!" + + The voice of the seneschal flared like a torch + As he shouted the wanderer away from the porch, + And he sat in the gateway and saw all night 235 + The great hall-fire, so cheery and bold, + Through the window-slits of the castle old, + Build out its piers of ruddy light + Against the drift of the cold. + + +PART SECOND + +I + + + There was never a leaf on bush or tree, 240 + The bare boughs rattled shudderingly; + The river was dumb and could not speak, + For the weaver Winter its shroud had spun; + A single crow on the tree-top bleak + From his shining feathers shed off the cold sun; 245 + Again it was morning, but shrunk and cold, + As if her veins were sapless and old, + And she rose up decrepitly + For a last dim look at earth and sea. + + +II + + + Sir Launfal turned from his own hard gate, 250 + For another heir in his earldom sate; + An old, bent man, worn out and frail, + He came back from seeking the Holy Grail: + Little he recked of his earldom's loss, + No more on his surcoat was blazoned the cross. 255 + But deep in his soul the sign he wore, + The badge of the suffering and the poor. + + +III + + + Sir Launfal's raiment thin and spare + Was idle mail 'gainst the barbed air, + For it was just at the Christmas time; 260 + So he mused, as he sat, of a sunnier clime, + And sought for a shelter from cold and snow + In the light and warmth of long ago; + He sees the snake-like caravan crawl + O'er the edge of the desert, black and small, 265 + Then nearer and nearer, till, one by one, + He can count the camels in the sun, + As over the red-hot sands they pass + To where, in its slender necklace of grass, + The little spring laughed and leapt in the shade, 270 + And with its own self like an infant played, + And waved its signal of palms. + + +IV + + + "For Christ's sweet sake, I beg an alms;" + The happy camels may reach the spring, + But Sir Launfal sees only the grewsome thing, 275 + The leper, lank as the rain-blanched bone, + That cowers beside him, a thing as lone + And white as the ice-isles of Northern seas + In the desolate horror of his disease. + + +V + + + And Sir Launfal said,--"I behold in thee 280 + An image of Him who died on the tree; + Thou also hast had thy crown of thorns, + Thou also hast had the world's buffets and scorns,-- + And to thy life were not denied + The wounds in the hands and feet and side; 285 + Mild Mary's Son, acknowledge me; + Behold, through him, I give to thee!" + + +VI + + + Then the soul of the leper stood, up in his eyes + And looked at Sir Launfal, and straightway he + Remembered in what a haughtier guise 290 + He had flung an alms to leprosie, + When he girt his young life up in gilded mail + And set forth in search of the Holy Grail. + The heart within him was ashes and dust; + He parted in twain his single crust. 295 + He broke the ice on the streamlet's brink. + And gave the leper to eat and drink; + 'T was a moldy crust of coarse brown bread, + 'T was water out of a wooden bowl,-- + Yet with fine wheaten bread was the leper fed, 300 + And 't was red wine he drank with his thirsty soul. + + +VII + + + As Sir Launfal mused with a downcast face, + A light shone round about the place; + The leper no longer crouched at his side, + But stood before him glorified, 305 + Shining and tall and fair and straight + As the pillar that stood by the Beautiful Gate,-- + Himself the Gate whereby men can + Enter the temple of God in Man. + + +VIII + + + His words were shed softer than leaves from the pine, 310 + And they fell on Sir Launfal as snows on the brine, + That mingle their softness and quiet in one + With the shaggy unrest they float down upon; + And the voice that was softer than silence said, + "Lo, it is I, be not afraid! 315 + In many climes, without avail, + Thou hast spent thy life for the Holy Grail; + Behold, it is here,--this cup which thou + Didst fill at the streamlet for me but now; + This crust is my body broken for thee, 320 + This water his blood that died on the tree; + The Holy Supper is kept, indeed, + In whatso we share with another's need,-- + Not what we give, but what we share,-- + For the gift without the giver is bare; 325 + Who gives himself with his alms feeds three,-- + Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me." + + +IX + + + Sir Launfal awoke as from a swound:-- + "The Grail in my castle here is found! + Hang my idle armor up on the wall, 330 + Let it be the spider's banquet-hall; + He must be fenced with stronger mail + Who would seek and find the Holy Grail." + + +X + + + The castle gate stands open now, + And the wanderer is welcome to the hall 335 + As the hangbird is to the elm-tree bough; + No longer scowl the turrets tall, + The Summer's long siege at last is o'er; + When the first poor outcast went in at the door, + She entered with him in disguise, 340 + And mastered the fortress by surprise; + There is no spot she loves so well on ground, + She lingers and smiles there the whole year round; + The meanest serf on Sir Launfal's land + Has hall and bower at his command; 345 + And there's no poor man in the North Countree + But is lord of the earldom as much as he. + + + + +THE SHEPHERD OF KING ADMETUS + + + There came a youth upon the earth, + Some thousand years ago, + Whose slender hands were nothing worth, + Whether to plow, or reap, or sow. + + He made a lyre, and drew therefrom 5 + Music so strange and rich, + That all men loved to hear,--and some + Muttered of fagots for a witch. + + But King Admetus, one who had + Pure taste by right divine, 10 + Decreed his singing not too bad + To hear between the cups of wine. + + And so, well pleased with being soothed + Into a sweet half-sleep, + Three times his kingly beard he smoothed. 15 + And made him viceroy o'er his sheep. + + His words were simple words enough, + And yet he used them so, + That what in other mouths were rough + In his seemed musical and low. 20 + + Men called him but a shiftless youth, + In whom no good they saw; + And yet, unwittingly, in truth, + They made his careless words their law. + + They knew not how he learned at all, 25 + For, long hour after hour, + He sat and watched the dead leaves fall, + Or mused upon a common flower. + + It seemed the loveliness of things + Did teach him all their use, 30 + For, in mere weeds, and stones, and springs, + He found a healing power profuse. + + Men granted that his speech was wise, + But, when a glance they caught + Of his slim grace and woman's eyes, 35 + They laughed, and called him good-for-naught. + + Yet after he was dead and gone, + And e'en his memory dim, + Earth seemed more sweet to live upon, + More full of love, because of him. 40 + + And day by day more holy grew + Each spot where he had trod, + Till after-poets only knew + Their first-born brother as a god. + + + + +AN INCIDENT IN A RAILROAD CAR + + + He spoke of Burns: men rude and rough + Pressed round to hear the praise of one + Whose heart was made of manly, simple, stuff, + As homespun as their own. + + And, when he read, they forward leaned, 5 + Drinking, with eager hearts and ears, + His brook-like songs whom glory never weaned + From humble smiles and tears. + + Slowly there grew a tender awe, + Sunlike, o'er faces brown and hard. 10 + As if in him who read they felt and saw + Some presence of the bard. + + It was a sight for sin and wrong + And slavish tyranny to see, + A sight to make our faith more pure and strong 15 + In high humanity. + + I thought, these men will carry hence + Promptings their former life above. + And something of a finer reverence + For beauty, truth, and love, 20 + + God scatters love on every side, + Freely among his children all, + And always hearts are lying open wide, + Wherein some grains may fall. + + There is no wind but soweth seeds 25 + Of a more true and open life, + Which burst unlocked for, into high-souled deeds, + With wayside beauty rife. + + We find within these souls of ours + Some wild germs of a higher birth, 30 + Which in the poet's tropic heart bear flowers + Whose fragrance fills the earth. + + Within the hearts of all men lie + These promises of wider bliss, + Which blossom into hopes that cannot die, 35 + In sunny hours like this. + + All that hath been majestical + In life or death, since time began, + Is native in the simple heart of all, + The angel heart of man. 40 + + And thus, among the untaught poor, + Great deeds and feelings find a home, + That cast in shadow all the golden lore + Of classic Greece and Rome. + + O, mighty brother-soul of man. 45 + Where'er thou art, in low or high, + Thy skyey arches with, exulting span + O'er-roof infinity! + + All thoughts that mould the age begin + Deep down within the primitive soul, 50 + And from the many slowly upward win + To one who grasps the whole. + + In his wide brain the feeling deep + That struggled on the many's tongue + Swells to a tide of thought, whose surges leap 55 + O'er the weak thrones of wrong. + + All thought begins in feeling,--wide + In the great mass its base is hid, + And, narrowing up to thought, stands glorified, + A moveless pyramid. 60 + + Nor is he far astray, who deems + That every hope, which rises and grows broad + In the world's heart, by ordered impulse streams + From the great heart of God. + + God wills, man hopes; in common souls 65 + Hope is but vague and undefined, + Till from the poet's tongue the message rolls + A blessing to his kind. + + Never did Poesy appear + So full of heaven to me, as when 70 + I saw how it would pierce through pride and fear, + To the lives of coarsest men. + + It may be glorious to write + Thoughts that shall glad the two or three + High souls, like those far stars that come in sight 75 + Once in a century;-- + + But better far it is to speak + One simple word, which now and then + Shall waken their free nature in the weak 80 + And friendless sons of men; + + To write some earnest verse or line + Which, seeking not the praise of art. + Shall make a clearer faith and manhood shine + In the untutored heart. + + He who doth this, in verse or prose, 85 + May be forgotten in his day, + But surely shall be crowned at last with those + Who live and speak for aye. + + + + +HEBE + + + I saw the twinkle of white feet. + I saw the flash of robes descending; + Before her ran an influence fleet, + That bowed my heart like barley bending. + + As, in bare fields, the searching bees 5 + Pilot to blooms beyond our finding, + It led me on, by sweet degrees + Joy's simple honey-cells unbinding. + + Those Graces were that seemed grim Fates; + With nearer love the sky leaned o'er me; 10 + The long-sought Secret's golden gates + On musical hinges swung before me. + + I saw the brimmed bowl in her grasp + Thrilling with godhood; like a lover + I sprang the proffered life to clasp;-- 15 + The beaker fell; the luck was over. + + The Earth has drunk the vintage up; + What boots it patch the goblet's splinters? + Can Summer fill the icy cup, + Whose treacherous crystal is but Winter's? 20 + + O spendthrift Haste! await the gods; + Their nectar crowns the lips of Patience; + Haste scatters on unthankful sods + The immortal gift in vain libations. + + Coy Hebe flies from those that woo, 25 + And shuns the hands would seize upon her; + Follow thy life, and she will sue + To pour for thee the cup of honor. + + + + +TO THE DANDELION + + + Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way, + Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold, + First pledge of blithesome May, + Which children pluck, and, full of pride, uphold, + High-hearted buccaneers, o'er joyed that they 5 + An Eldorado in the grass have found, + Which not the rich earth's ample round. + May match in wealth--thou art more dear to me + Than all the prouder summer-blooms may be. + + Gold such as thine ne'er drew the Spanish prow 10 + Through the primeval hush of Indian seas, + Nor wrinkled the lean brow + Of age, to rob the lover's heart of ease; + 'T is the Spring's largess, which she scatters now + To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand, 15 + Though most hearts never understand + To take it at God's value, but pass by + The offered wealth with unrewarded eye. + + Thou art my tropics and mine Italy; + To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime; 20 + The eyes thou givest me + Are in the heart, and heed not space or time: + Not in mid June the golden-cuirassed bee + Feels a more summer-like, warm ravishment + In the white lily's breezy tent, 25 + His fragrant Sybaris, than I, when first + From the dark green thy yellow circles burst. + + Then think I of deep shadows on the grass,-- + Of meadows where in sun the cattle graze, + Where, as the breezes pass, 30 + The gleaming rushes lean a thousand ways,-- + Of leaves that slumber in a cloudy mass, + Or whiten in the wind, of waters blue + That from the distance sparkle through + Some woodland gap, and of a sky above, 35 + Where one white cloud like a stray lamb doth move. + + My childhood's earliest thoughts are linked with thee; + The sight of thee calls back the robin's song, + Who, from the dark old tree + Beside the door, sang clearly all day long, 40 + And I, secure in childish piety, + Listened as if I heard an angel sing + With news from Heaven, which he could bring + Fresh every day to my untainted ears, + When birds and flowers and I were happy peers. 45 + + Thou art the type of those meek charities + Which make up half the nobleness of life, + Those cheap delights the wise + Pluck from the dusty wayside of earth's strife: + Words of frank cheer, glances of friendly eyes, 50 + Love's smallest coin, which yet to some may give + The morsel that may keep alive + A starving heart, and teach it to behold + Some glimpse of God where all before was cold. + + Thy winged seeds, whereof the winds take care, 55 + Are like the words of poet and of sage + Which through the free heaven fare, + And, now unheeded, in another age + Take root, and to the gladdened future bear + That witness which the present would not heed, 60 + Bringing forth many a thought and deed, + And, planted safely in the eternal sky, + Bloom into stars which earth is guided by. + + Full of deep love thou art, yet not more full + Than all thy common brethren of the ground, 65 + Wherein, were we not dull, + Some words of highest wisdom might be found; + Yet earnest faith from day to day may cull + Some syllables, which, rightly joined, can make + A spell to soothe life's bitterest ache, 70 + And ope Heaven's portals, which are near us still, + Yea, nearer ever than the gates of Ill. + + How like a prodigal doth nature seem, + When thou, for all thy gold, so common art! + Thou teachest me to deem 75 + More sacredly of every human heart, + Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam + Of Heaven, and could some wondrous secret show, + Did we but pay the love we owe, + And with a child's undoubting wisdom look 80 + On all these living pages of God's book. + + But let me read thy lesson right or no, + Of one good gift from thee my heart is sure: + Old I shall never grow + While thou each, year dost come to keep me pure 85 + With legends of my childhood; ah, we owe + Well more than half life's holiness to these + Nature's first lowly influences, + At thought of which the heart's glad doors burst ope, + In dreariest days, to welcome peace and hope. 90 + + + + +MY LOVE + + + Not as all other women are + Is she that to my soul is dear; + Her glorious fancies come from far, + Beneath the silver evening-star, + And yet her heart is ever near. 5 + + Great feelings hath she of her own, + Which lesser souls may never know; + God giveth them to her alone, + And sweet they are as any tone + Wherewith the wind may choose to blow. 10 + + Yet in herself she dwelleth not, + Although no home were half so fair; + No simplest duty is forgot, + Life hath no dim and lowly spot + That doth not in her sunshine share. 15 + + She doeth little kindnesses, + Which most leave undone, or despise; + For naught that sets one heart at ease, + And giveth happiness or peace, + Is low-esteemed in her eyes. 20 + + She hath no scorn of common things, + And, though she seem of other birth, + Round us her heart entwines and clings, + And patiently she folds her wings + To tread the humble paths of earth. 25 + + Blessing she is: God made her so, + And deeds of week-day holiness + Fall from her noiseless as the snow, + Nor hath she ever chanced to know + That aught were easier than to bless. 30 + + She is most fair, and thereunto + Her life doth rightly harmonize; + Feeling or thought that was not true + Ne'er made less beautiful the blue + Unclouded heaven of her eyes. 35 + + She is a woman: one in whom + The spring-time of her childish years + Hath never lost its fresh perfume, + Though knowing well that life hath room + For many blights and many tears. 40 + + I love her with a love as still + As a broad river's peaceful might, + Which, by high tower and lowly mill, + Goes wandering at its own will, + And yet doth ever flow aright. 45 + + And, on its full, deep breast serene, + Like quiet isles my duties lie; + It flows around them and between, + And makes them fresh and fair and green, + Sweet homes wherein to live and die. 50 + + + + +THE CHANGELING + + + I had a little daughter, + And she was given to me + To lead me gently backward + To the Heavenly Father's knee, + That I, by the force of nature, 5 + Might in some dim wise divine + The depth of his infinite patience + To this wayward soul of mine. + + I know not how others saw her, + But to me she was wholly fair, 10 + And the light of the heaven she came from + Still lingered and gleamed in her hair; + For it was as wavy and golden, + And as many changes took, + As the shadows of sun-gilt ripples 15 + On the yellow bed of a brook. + + To what can I liken her smiling + Upon me, her kneeling lover? + How it leaped from her lips to her eyelids, + And dimpled her wholly over, 20 + Till her outstretched hands smiled also, + And I almost seemed to see + The very heart of her mother + Sending sun through her veins to me! + + She had been with us scarce a twelve-month, 25 + And it hardly seemed a day, + When a troop of wandering angels + Stole my little daughter away; + Or perhaps those heavenly Zingari + But loosed the hampering strings, 30 + And when they had opened her cage-door, + My little bird used her wings. + + But they left in her stead a changeling, + A little angel child, + That seems like her bud in full blossom, 35 + And smiles as she never smiled: + When I wake in the morning, I see it + Where she always used to lie, + And I feel as weak as a violet + Alone 'neath the awful sky. 40 + + As weak, yet as trustful also; + For the whole year long I see + All the wonders of faithful Nature + Still worked for the love of me; + Winds wander, and dews drip earthward, 45 + Rain falls, suns rise and set, + Earth whirls, and all but to prosper + A poor little violet. + + This child is not mine as the first was, + I cannot sing it to rest, 50 + I cannot lift it up fatherly + And bliss it upon my breast; + Yet it lies in my little one's cradle + And sits in my little one's chair, + And the light of the heaven she's gone to 55 + Transfigures its golden hair. + + + + +AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE + + + What visionary tints the year puts on, + When falling leaves falter through motionless air + Or numbly cling and shiver to be gone! + How shimmer the low flats and pastures bare, + As with her nectar Hebe Autumn fills 5 + The bowl between me and those distant-hills, + And smiles and shakes abroad her misty, tremulous hair! + + No more the landscape holds its wealth apart, + Making me poorer in my poverty, + But mingles with my senses and my heart; 10 + My own projected spirit seems to me + In her own reverie the world to steep; + 'T is she that waves to sympathetic sleep, + Moving, as she is moved, each field and hill and tree. + + How fuse and mix, with what unfelt degrees, 15 + Clasped by the faint horizon's languid arms, + Each into each, the hazy distances! + The softened season all the landscape charms; + Those hills, my native village that embay, + In waves of dreamier purple roll away, 20 + And floating in mirage seem all the glimmering farms. + + Far distant sounds the hidden chickadee + Close at my side; far distant sound the leaves; + The fields seem fields of dream, where Memory + Wanders like gleaning Ruth; and as the sheaves 25 + Of wheat and barley wavered in the eye + Of Boaz as the maiden's glow went by, + So tremble and seem remote all things the sense receives. + + The cock's shrill trump that tells of scattered corn, + Passed breezily on by all his flapping mates, 30 + Faint and more faint, from barn to barn is borne, + Southward, perhaps to far Magellan's Straits; + Dimly I catch the throb of distant flails; + Silently overhead the hen-hawk sails, + With watchful, measuring eye, and for his quarry waits. 35 + + The sobered robin, hunger-silent now, + Seeks cedar-berries blue, his autumn cheer; + The chipmunk, on the shingly shagbark's bough, + Now saws, now lists with downward eye and ear, + Then drops his nut, and, cheeping, with a bound 40 + Whisks to his winding fastness underground; + The clouds like swans drift down the streaming atmosphere. + + O'er yon bare knoll the pointed cedar shadows + Drowse on the crisp, gray moss; the ploughman's call + Creeps faint as smoke from black, fresh-furrowed meadows; 45 + The single crow a single caw lets fall; + And all around me every bush and tree + Says Autumn's here, and Winter soon will be, + Who snows his soft, white sleep and silence over all. + + The birch, most shy and ladylike of trees, 50 + Her poverty, as best she may, retrieves, + And hints at her foregone gentilities + With some saved relics of her wealth of leaves; + The swamp-oak, with his royal purple on, + Glares red as blood across the sinking sun, 55 + As one who proudlier to a falling fortune cleaves. + + He looks a sachem, in red blanket wrapt, + Who, 'mid some council of the sad-garbed whites, + Erect and stern, in his own memories lapt, + With distant eye broods over other sights, 60 + Sees the hushed wood the city's flare replace, + The wounded turf heal o'er the railway's trace, + And roams the savage Past of his undwindled rights. + + The red-oak, softer-grained, yields all for lost, + And, with his crumpled foliage stiff and dry, 65 + After the first betrayal of the frost, + Rebuffs the kiss of the relenting sky: + The chestnuts, lavish of their long-hid gold, + To the faint Summer, beggared now and old, + Pour back the sunshine hoarded 'neath her favoring eye. 70 + + The ash her purple drops forgivingly + And sadly, breaking not the general hush: + The maple-swamps glow like a sunset sea, + Each leaf a ripple with its separate flush; + All round the wood's edge creeps the skirting blaze 75 + Of bushes low, as when, on cloudy days, + Ere the rain falls, the cautious farmer burns his brush. + + O'er yon low wall, which guards one unkempt zone, + Where vines and weeds and scrub-oaks intertwine + Safe from the plough, whose rough, discordant stone 80 + Is massed to one soft gray by lichens fine, + The tangled blackberry, crossed and re-crossed, weaves + A prickly network of ensanguined leaves; + Hard by, with coral beads, the prim black-alders shine. + + Pillaring with flame this crumbling boundary, 85 + Whose loose blocks topple 'neath the plough-boy's foot, + Who, with each sense shut fast except the eye, + Creeps close and scares the jay he hoped to shoot, + The woodbine up the elm's straight stem aspires, + Coiling it, harmless, with autumnal fires; 90 + In the ivy's paler blaze the martyr oak stands mute. + + Below, the Charles, a stripe of nether sky, + Now hid by rounded apple-trees between, + Whose gaps the misplaced sail sweeps bellying by, + Now flickering golden through a woodland screen, 95 + Then spreading out, at his next turn beyond, + A silver circle like an inland pond-- + Slips seaward silently through marshes purple and green. + + Dear marshes! vain to him the gift of sight + Who cannot in their various incomes share, 100 + From every season drawn, of shade and light, + Who sees in them but levels brown and bare; + Each change of storm or sunshine scatters free + On them its largess of variety, + For Nature with cheap means still works her wonders rare. 105 + + In spring they lie one broad expanse of green, + O'er which the light winds run with glimmering feet: + Here, yellower stripes track out the creek unseen, + There, darker growths o'er hidden ditches meet; + And purpler stains show where the blossoms crowd, 110 + As if the silent shadow of a cloud + Hung there becalmed, with the next breath to fleet. + + All round, upon the river's slippery edge, + Witching to deeper calm the drowsy tide, + Whispers and leans the breeze-entangling sedge; 115 + Through emerald glooms the lingering waters slide, + Or, sometimes wavering, throw back the sun, + And the stiff banks in eddies melt and run + Of dimpling light, and with the current seem to glide. + + In summer 't is a blithesome sight to see, 120 + As, step by step, with measured swing, they pass, + The wide-ranked mowers wading to the knee, + Their sharp scythes panting through the wiry grass; + Then, stretched beneath a rick's shade in a ring, + Their nooning take, while one begins to sing 125 + A stave that droops and dies 'neath the close sky of brass. + + Meanwhile that devil-may-care, the bobolink. + Remembering duty, in mid-quaver stops + Just ere he sweeps o'er rapture's tremulous brink, + And 'twixt the winrows most demurely drops, 130 + A decorous bird of business, who provides + For his brown mate and fledglings six besides, + And looks from right to left, a farmer 'mid his crops. + + Another change subdues them in the fall, + But saddens not; they still show merrier tints, 135 + Though sober russet seems to cover all; + When the first sunshine through their dew-drops glints, + Look how the yellow clearness, streamed across, + Redeems with rarer hues the season's loss, + As Dawn's feet there had touched and left their rosy prints. 140 + + Or come when sunset gives its freshened zest, + Lean o 'er the bridge and let the ruddy thrill, + While the shorn sun swells down the hazy west, + Glow opposite;--the marshes drink their fill + And swoon with purple veins, then, slowly fade 145 + Through pink to brown, as eastward moves the shade, + Lengthening with stealthy creep, of Simond's darkening hill. + + Later, and yet ere winter wholly shuts, + Ere through the first dry snow the runner grates, + And the loath cart-wheel screams in slippery ruts, 150 + While firmer ice the eager boy awaits, + Trying each buckle and strap beside the fire, + And until bedtime plays with his desire, + Twenty times putting on and off his new-bought skates;-- + + Then, every morn, the river's banks shine bright 155 + With smooth plate-armor, treacherous and frail, + By the frost's clinking hammers forged at night, + 'Gainst which the lances of the sun prevail, + Giving a pretty emblem of the day + When guiltier arms in light shall melt away, 160 + And states shall move free-limbed, loosed from war's cramping mail. + + And now those waterfalls the ebbing river + Twice every day creates on either side + Tinkle, as through their fresh-sparred grots they shiver + In grass-arched channels to the sun denied; 165 + High flaps in sparkling blue the far-heard crow, + The silvered flats gleam frostily below, + Suddenly drops the gull and breaks the glassy tide. + + But crowned in turn by vying seasons three, + Their winter halo hath a fuller ring; 170 + This glory seems to rest immovably,-- + The others were too fleet and vanishing; + When the hid tide is at its highest flow, + O'er marsh and stream one breathless trance of snow + With brooding fulness awes and hushes everything. 175 + + The sunshine seems blown off by the bleak wind, + As pale as formal candles lit by day; + Gropes to the sea the river dumb and blind; + The brown ricks, snow-thatched by the storm in play, + Show pearly breakers combing o'er their lee, 180 + White crests as of some just enchanted sea, + Checked in their maddest leap and hanging poised midway. + + But when the eastern blow, with rain aslant. + From mid-sea's prairies green and rolling plains + Drives in his wallowing herds of billows gaunt, 185 + And the roused Charles remembers in his veins + Old Ocean's blood and snaps his gyves of frost, + That tyrannous silence on the shores is tost + In dreary wreck, and crumbling desolation reigns. + + Edgewise or flat, in Druid-like device, 190 + With leaden pools between or gullies bare, + The blocks lie strewn, a bleak Stonehenge of ice; + No life, no sound, to break the grim despair, + Save sullen plunge, as through the sedges stiff + Down crackles riverward some thaw-sapped cliff, 195 + Or when the close-wedged fields of ice crunch here and there. + + But let me turn from fancy-pictured scenes + To that whose pastoral calm before me lies: + Here nothing harsh or rugged intervenes; + The early evening with her misty dyes 200 + Smooths off the ravelled edges of the nigh, + Relieves the distant with her cooler sky, + And tones the landscape down, and soothes the wearied eyes. + + There gleams my native village, dear to me, + Though higher change's waves each day are seen, 205 + Whelming fields famed in boyhood's history, + Sanding with houses the diminished green; + There, in red brick, which softening time defies, + Stand square and stiff the Muses' factories;-- + How with my life knit up is every well-known scene! 210 + + Flow on, dear river! not alone you flow + To outward sight, and through your marshes wind; + Fed from the mystic springs of long-ago, + Your twin flows silent through my world of mind: + Grow dim, dear marshes, in the evening's gray! 215 + Before my inner sight ye stretch away, + And will forever, though these fleshly eyes grow blind. + + Beyond the hillock's house-bespotted swell, + Where Gothic chapels house the horse and chaise, + Where quiet cits in Grecian temples dwell, 220 + Where Coptic tombs resound with prayer and praise, + Where dust and mud the equal year divide, + There gentle Allston lived, and wrought, and died, + Transfiguring street and shop with his illumined gaze. + + _Virgilium vidi tantum_,--I have seen 225 + But as a boy, who looks alike on all, + That misty hair, that fine Undine-like mien. + Tremulous as down to feeling's faintest call;-- + Ah, dear old homestead! count it to thy fame + That thither many times the Painter came;-- 230 + One elm yet bears his name, a feathery tree and tall. + + Swiftly the present fades in memory's glow,-- + Our only sure possession is the past; + The village blacksmith died a month ago, + And dim to me the forge's roaring blast; 235 + Soon fire-new medievals we shall see + Oust the black smithy from its chestnut-tree, + And that hewn down, perhaps, the bee-hive green and vast. + + How many times, prouder than king on throne, + Loosed from the village school-dame's A's and B's, 240 + Panting have I the creaky bellows blown, + And watched the pent volcano's red increase, + Then paused to see the ponderous sledge, brought down + By that hard arm voluminous and brown, + From the white iron swarm its golden vanishing bees. 245 + + Dear native town! whose choking elms each year + With eddying dust before their time turn gray, + Pining for rain,--to me thy dust is dear; + It glorifies the eve of summer day, + And when the westering sun half sunken burns, 250 + The mote-thick air to deepest orange turns, + The westward horseman rides through clouds of gold away. + + So palpable, I've seen those unshorn few, + The six old willows at the causey's end + (Such trees Paul Potter never dreamed nor drew), 255 + Through this dry mist their checkering shadows send, + Striped, here and there, with many a long-drawn thread, + Where streamed through leafy chinks the trembling red, + Past which, in one bright trail, the hang-bird's flashes blend. + + Yes, dearer far thy dust than all that e'er, 260 + Beneath the awarded crown of victory, + Gilded the blown Olympic charioteer; + Though lightly prized the ribboned parchments three, + Yet _collegisse juvat_, I am glad + That here what colleging was mine I had,-- 265 + It linked another tie, dear native town, with thee! + + Nearer art thou than simply native earth, + My dust with thine concedes a deeper tie; + A closer claim thy soil may well put forth, + Something of kindred more than sympathy; 270 + For in thy bounds I reverently laid away + That blinding anguish of forsaken clay, + That title I seemed to have in earth and sea and sky. + + That portion of my life more choice to me + (Though brief, yet in itself so round and whole) 275 + Than all the imperfect residue can be;-- + The Artist saw his statue of the soul + Was perfect; so, with one regretful stroke, + The earthen model into fragments broke, + And without her the impoverished seasons roll. 280 + + + + +THE OAK + + + What gnarled stretch, what depth of shade, is his! + There needs no crown to mark the forest's king; + How in his leaves outshines full summer's bliss! + Sun, storm, rain, dew, to him their tribute bring, + Which he with such benignant royalty 5 + Accepts, as overpayeth what is lent; + All nature seems his vassal proud to be, + And cunning only for his ornament. + + How towers he, too, amid the billowed snows, + An unquelled exile from the summer's throne, 10 + Whose plain, uncinctured front more kingly shows, + Now that the obscuring courtier leaves are flown. + His boughs make music of the winter air, + Jewelled with sleet, like some cathedral front + Where clinging snow-flakes with quaint art repair 15 + The dents and furrows of time's envious brunt. + + How doth his patient strength the rude March wind + Persuade to seem glad breaths of summer breeze, + And win the soil, that fain would be unkind, + To swell his revenues with proud increase! 20 + He is the gem; and all the landscape wide + (So doth his grandeur isolate the sense) + Seems but the setting, worthless all beside, + An empty socket, were he fallen thence. + + So, from oft converse with life's wintry gales, 25 + Should man learn how to clasp with tougher roots + The inspiring earth; how otherwise avails + The leaf-creating sap that sunward shoots? + So every year that falls with noiseless flake + Should fill old scars up on the stormward side, 30 + And make hoar age revered for age's sake, + Not for traditions of youth's leafy pride. + + So, from the pinched soil of a churlish fate, + True hearts compel the sap of sturdier growth, + So between earth and heaven stand simply great, 35 + That these shall seem but their attendants both; + For nature's forces with obedient zeal + Wait on the rooted faith and oaken will; + As quickly the pretender's cheat they feel, + And turn mad Pucks to flout and mock him still. 40 + + Lord! all 'Thy works are lessons; each contains + Some emblem of man's all-containing soul; + Shall he make fruitless all thy glorious pains, + Delving within thy grace an eyeless mole? + Make me the least of thy Dodona-grove, 45 + Cause me some message of thy truth to bring, + Speak but a word through me, nor let thy love + Among my boughs disdain to perch and sing. + + + + +BEAVER BROOK + + + Hushed with broad sunlight lies the hill, + And, minuting the long day's loss, + The cedar's shadow, slow and still, + Creeps o'er its dial of gray moss. + + Warm noon brims full the valley's cup, 5 + The aspen's leaves are scarce astir; + Only the little mill sends up + Its busy, never-ceasing burr. + + Climbing the loose-piled wall that hems + The road along the mill-pond's brink, 10 + From 'neath the arching barberry-stems + My footstep scares the shy chewink. + + Beneath a bony buttonwood + The mill's red door lets forth the din; + The whitened miller, dust-imbued, 15 + Flits past the square of dark within. + + No mountain torrent's strength is here; + Sweet Beaver, child of forest still, + Heaps its small pitcher to the ear, 20 + And gently waits the miller's will. + + Swift slips Undine along the race + Unheard, and then, with flashing bound, + Floods the dull wheel with light and grace, + And, laughing, hunts the loath drudge round. + + The miller dreams not at what cost, 25 + The quivering millstones hum and whirl, + Nor how for every turn are tost + Armfuls of diamond and of pearl. + + But Summer cleared my happier eyes + With drops of some celestial juice, 30 + To see how Beauty underlies, + Forevermore each form of use. + + And more; methought I saw that flood, + Which now so dull and darkling steals, + Thick, here and there, with human blood, 35 + To turn the world's laborious wheels. + + No more than doth the miller there, + Shut in our several cells, do we + Know with what waste of beauty rare + Moves every day's machinery. 40 + + Surely the wiser time shall come + When this fine overplus of might, + No longer sullen, slow, and dumb, + Shall leap to music and to light. + + In that new childhood of the Earth 45 + Life of itself shall dance and play, + Fresh blood in Time's shrunk veins make mirth, + And labor meet delight half-way.-- + + + + +THE PRESENT CRISIS + + + When a deed is done for Freedom, through the broad earth's aching breast + Runs a thrill of joy prophetic, trembling on from east to west, + And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels the soul within him climb + To the awful verge of manhood, as the energy sublime + Of a century bursts full-blossomed on the thorny stem of Time. 5 + + Through the walls of hut and palace shoots the instantaneous throe, + When the travail of the Ages wrings earth's systems to and fro; + At the birth of each new Era, with a recognizing start, + Nation wildly looks at nation, standing with mute lips apart, + And glad Truth's yet mightier man-child leaps beneath the Future's heart. 10 + + So the Evil's triumph sendeth, with a terror and a chill, + Under continent to continent, the sense of coming ill, + And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels his sympathies with God + In hot tear-drops ebbing earthward, to be drunk up by the sod, + Till a corpse crawls round unburied, delving in the nobler clod. 15 + + For mankind are one in spirit, and an instinct bears along, + Round the earth's electric circle, the swift flash of right or wrong; + Whether conscious or unconscious, yet Humanity's vast frame + Through its ocean-sundered fibres feels the gush of joy or shame;-- + In the gain or loss of one race all the rest have equal claim. 20 + + Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, + In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side; + Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight, + Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right, + And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light. 25 + + Hast thou chosen, O my people, on whose party thou shalt stand, + Ere the Doom from its worn sandals shakes the dust against our land? + Though the cause of Evil prosper, yet 't is Truth alone is strong, + And, albeit she wander outcast now, I see around her throng + Troops of beautiful, tall angels, to enshield her from all wrong. 30 + + Backward look across the ages and the beacon-moments see, + That, like peaks of some sunk continent, jut through Oblivion's sea; + Not an ear in court or market for the low foreboding cry + Of those Crises, God's stern winnowers, from whose feet earth's chaff + must fly; + Never shows the choice momentous till the judgment hath passed by. 35 + + Careless seems the great Avenger; history's pages but record + One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt old systems and the Word; + Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the Throne,-- + Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown, + Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own. 40 + + We see dimly in the Present what is small and what is great, + Slow of faith how weak an arm may turn the iron helm of fate, + But the soul is still oracular; amid the market's din, + List the ominous stern whisper from the Delphic cave within,-- + "They enslave their children's children who make compromise with sin." 45 + + Slavery, the earth-born Cyclops, fellest of the giant brood, + Sons of brutish Force and Darkness, who have drenched the earth with blood, + Famished in his self-made desert, blinded by our purer day, + Gropes in yet unblasted regions for his miserable prey;-- + Shall we guide his gory fingers where our helpless children play? 50 + + Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched crust, + Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 'tis prosperous to be just; + Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside. + Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified, + And the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied. 55 + + Count me o'er earth's chosen heroes,--they were souls that stood alone, + While the men they agonized for hurled the contumelious stone, + Stood serene, and down the future saw the golden beam incline + To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith divine, + By one man's plain truth to manhood and to God's supreme design. 60 + + By the light of burning heretics Christ's bleeding feet I track, + Toiling up new Calvaries ever with the cross that turns not back, + And these mounts of anguish number how each generation learned + One new word of that grand _Credo_ which in prophet-hearts hath burned + Since the first man stood God-conquered with his face to heaven upturned. 65 + + For Humanity sweeps onward: where to-day the martyr stands, + On the morrow crouches Judas with the silver in his hands; + Far in front the cross stands ready and the crackling fagots burn, + While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe return + To glean up the scattered ashes into History's golden urn. 70 + + 'Tis as easy to be heroes as to sit the idle slaves + Of a legendary virtue carved upon our fathers' graves; + Worshippers of light ancestral make the present light a crime;-- + Was the Mayflower launched by cowards, steered by men behind their time? + Turn those tracks toward Past or Future, that make Plymouth Rock sublime? 75 + + They were men of present valor, stalwart old iconoclasts, + Unconvinced by axe or gibbet that all virtue was the Past's; + But we make their truth our falsehood, thinking that hath made us free, + Hoarding it in mouldy parchments, while our tender spirits flee + The rude grasp of that great Impulse which drove them across the sea. 80 + + They have rights who dare maintain them; we are traitors to our sires, + Smothering in their holy ashes Freedom's new-lit altar-fires; + Shall we make their creed our jailer? Shall we, in our haste to slay, + From the tombs of the old prophets steal the funeral lamps away + To light up the martyr-fagots round the prophets of to-day? 85 + + New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth; + They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth; + Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires! we ourselves must Pilgrims be, + Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the desperate winter sea, + Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's blood-rusted key. 90 + + + + +THE COURTIN' + + + God makes sech nights, all white an' still + Fur 'z you can look or listen, + Moonshine an' snow on field an' hill, + All silence an' all glisten. + + Zekle crep' up quite unbeknown 5 + An' peeked in thru' the winder, + An' there sot Huldy all alone, + With no one nigh to hender. + + A fireplace filled the room's one side + With half a cord o' wood in,-- 10 + There warn't no stoves till comfort died, + To bake ye to a puddin'. + + The wa'nut logs shot sparkles out + Toward the pootiest, bless her! + An' leetle flames danced all about 15 + The chiny on the dresser. + + Agin the chimbley crook-necks hung, + An' in amongst 'em rusted + The ole queen's-arm thet gran'ther Young + Fetched back from Concord busted. 20 + + The very room, coz she was in, + Seemed warm from floor to ceilin', + An' she looked full ez rosy agin + Ez the apples she was peelin'. + + 'Twas kin' o' kingdom-come to look 25 + On sech a blessed cretur, + A dogrose blushin' to a brook + Ain't modester nor sweeter. + + He was six foot o' man, A 1, + Clearn grit an' human natur'; 30 + None couldn't quicker pitch a ton + Nor dror a furrer straighter. + + He'd sparked it with full twenty gals, + Hed squired 'em, danced 'em, druv 'em, + Fust this one, an' then thet, by spells,-- 35 + All is, he couldn't love 'em. + + But long o' her his veins 'ould run + All crinkly like curled maple, + The side she breshed felt full o' sun + Ez a south slope in Ap'il. 40 + + She thought no v'ice hed sech a swing + Ez hisn in the choir; + My! when he made Ole Hunderd ring, + She _knowed_ the Lord was nigher. + + An' she'd blush scarlit, right in prayer, 45 + When her new meetin'-bunnet + Felt somehow thru' its crown a pair + O' blue eyes sot upon it. + + Thet night, I tell ye, she looked _some_! + She seemed to 've gut a new soul, 50 + For she felt sartin-sure he'd come. + Down to her very shoe-sole. + + She heered a foot, an' knowed it tu, + A-raspin' on the scraper,-- + All ways to once her feelins flew 55 + Like sparks in burnt-up paper. + + He kin'o' l'itered on the mat, + Some doubtfle o' the sekle, + His heart kep' goin' pity-pat, + But hern went pity Zekle. 60 + + An' yit she gin her cheer a jerk + Ez though she wished him furder, + An' on her apples kep' to work, + Parin' away like murder. + + "You want to see my Pa, I s'pose?" 65 + "Wal ... no ... I come designin'" + "To see my Ma? She's sprinklin' clo'es + Agin to-morrer's i'nin'." + + To say why gals acts so or so, + Or don't, would be presumin'; 70 + Mebby to mean _yes_ an' say _no_ + Comes nateral to women. + + He stood a spell on one foot fust, + Then stood a spell on t'other, + An' on which one he felt the wust 75 + He could n't ha' told ye nuther. + + Says he, "I'd better call agin;" + Says she, "Think likely, Mister:" + That last word pricked him like a pin, + An' ... Wal, he up an' kist her. 80 + + When Ma bimeby upon 'em slips, + Huldy sot pale ez ashes, + All kin' o' smily roun' the lips + An' teary roun' the lashes. + + For she was jist the quiet kind 85 + Whose naturs never vary, + Like streams that keep a summer mind + Snowhid in Jenooary. + + The blood clost roun' her heart felt glued + Too tight for all expressin', 90 + Tell mother see how metters stood. + An' gin 'em both her blessin'. + + Then her red come back like the tide + Down to the Bay o' Fundy, + An' all I know is they was cried 95 + In meetin' come nex' Sunday. + + + + +ODE RECITED AT THE HARVARD COMMEMORATION + +JULY 21, 1865 + +I + + + Weak-winged is song, + Nor aims at that clear-ethered height + Whither the brave deed climbs for light: + We seem to do them wrong, + Bringing our robin's-leaf to deck their hearse 5 + Who in warm life-blood wrote their nobler verse, + Our trivial song to honor those who come + With ears attuned to strenuous trump and drum, + And shaped in squadron-strophes their desire, + Live battle-odes whose lines were steel and fire: 10 + Yet sometimes feathered words are strong, + A gracious memory to buoy up and save + From Lethe's dreamless ooze, the common grave + Of the unventurous throng. + + +II + + + To-day our Reverend Mother welcomes back 15 + Her wisest Scholars, those who understood + The deeper teaching of her mystic tome, + And offered their fresh lives to make it good: + No lore of Greece or Rome, + No science peddling with the names of things, 20 + Or reading stars to find inglorious fates, + Can lift our life with wings + Far from Death's idle gulf that for the many waits, + And lengthen out our dates + With that clear fame whose memory sings 25 + In manly hearts to come, and nerves them and dilates: + Nor such thy teaching, Mother of us all! + Not such the trumpet-call + Of thy diviner mood, + That could thy sons entice 30 + From happy homes and toils, the fruitful nest + Of those half-virtues which the world calls best, + Into War's tumult rude: + But rather far that stern device + The sponsors chose that round thy cradle stood 35 + In the dim; unventured wood, + The VERITAS that lurks beneath + The letter's unprolific sheath, + Life of whate'er makes life worth living, + Seed-grain of high emprise, immortal food, 40 + One heavenly thing whereof earth hath the giving. + + +III + + + Many loved Truth, and lavished life's best oil + Amid the dust of books to find her, + Content at last, for guerdon of their toil, + With the cast mantle she hath left behind her. 45 + Many in sad faith sought for her, + Many with crossed hands sighed for her; + But these, our brothers, fought for her, + At life's dear peril wrought for her, + So loved her that they died for her, 50 + Tasting the raptured fleetness + Of her divine completeness: + Their higher instinct knew + Those love her best who to themselves are true, + And what they dare to dream of, dare to do; 55 + They followed her and found her + Where all may hope to find, + Not in the ashes of the burnt-out mind, + But beautiful, with danger's sweetness round her. + Where faith made whole with deed 60 + Breathes its awakening breath + Into the lifeless creed, + They saw her plumed and mailed, + With sweet, stern face unveiled, + And all-repaying eyes, look proud on them in death. 65 + + +IV + + + Our slender life runs rippling by, and glides + Into the silent hollow of the past; + What Is there that abides + To make the next age better for the last? + Is earth too poor to give us 70 + Something to live for here that shall outlive us,-- + Some more substantial boon + Than such as flows and ebbs with Fortune's fickle moon? + The little that we see + From doubt is never free; 75 + The little that we do + Is but half-nobly true; + With our laborious hiving + What men call treasure, and the gods call dross, + Life seems a jest of Fate's contriving, 80 + Only secure in every one's conniving, + A long account of nothings paid with loss, + Where we poor puppets, jerked by unseen wires, + After our little hour of strut and rave, + With all our pasteboard passions and desires, 85 + Loves, hates, ambitions, and immortal fires, + Are tossed pell-mell together in the grave. + Ah, there is something here + Unfathomed by the cynic's sneer, + Something that gives our feeble light 90 + A high immunity from Night, + Something that leaps life's narrow bars + To claim its birthright with the hosts of heaven; + A seed of sunshine that doth leaven + Our earthly dulness with the beams of stars, 95 + And glorify our clay + With light from fountains elder than the Day; + A conscience more divine than we, + A gladness fed with secret tears, + A vexing, forward-reaching sense 100 + Of some more noble permanence; + A light across the sea, + Which haunts the soul and will not let it be, + Still glimmering from the heights of undegenerate years. + + +V + + + Whither leads the path 105 + To ampler fates that leads? + Not down through flowery meads, + To reap an aftermath + Of youth's vainglorious weeds, + But up the steep, amid the wrath 110 + And shock of deadly hostile creeds, + Where the world's best hope and stay + By battle's flashes gropes a desperate way, + And every turf the fierce foot clings to bleeds. + Peace hath her not ignoble wreath, 115 + Ere yet the sharp, decisive word + Lights the black lips of cannon, and the sword + Dreams in its easeful sheath: + But some day the live coal behind the thought. + Whether from Baael's stone obscene, 120 + Or from the shrine serene + Of God's pure altar brought, + Bursts up in flame; the war of tongue and pen + Learns with what deadly purpose it was fraught, + And, helpless in the fiery passion caught, 125 + Shakes all the pillared state with shock of men: + Some day the soft Ideal that we wooed + Confronts us fiercely, foe-beset, pursued, + And cries reproachful: "Was it, then, my praise, + And not myself was loved? Prove now thy truth; 130 + I claim of thee the promise of thy youth; + Give me thy life, or cower in empty phrase, + The victim of thy genius, not its mate!" + Life may be given in many ways, + And loyalty to Truth be sealed 135 + As bravely in the closet as the field, + So generous is Fate; + But then to stand beside her, + When craven churls deride her, + To front a lie in arms and not to yield,-- 140 + This shows, methinks, God's plan + And measure of a stalwart man, + Limbed like the old heroic breeds, + Who stands self-poised on manhood's solid earth, + Not forced to frame excuses for his birth, 145 + Fed from within with all the strength he needs. + + +VI + + + Such was he, our Martyr-Chief, + Whom late the Nation he had led, + With ashes on her head, + Wept with the passion of an angry grief: 150 + Forgive me, if from present things I turn + To speak what in my heart will beat and burn, + And hang my wreath on his world-honored urn. + Nature, they say, doth dote, + And cannot make a man 155 + Save on some worn-out plan, + Repeating us by rote: + For him her Old-World mould aside she threw, + And, choosing sweet clay from the breast + Of the unexhausted West, 160 + With stuff untainted shaped a hero new, + Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true. + How beautiful to see + Once more a shepherd of mankind indeed, + Who loved his charge, but never loved to lead; 165 + One whose meek flock the people joyed to be, + Not lured by any cheat of birth, + But by his clear-grained human worth, + And brave old wisdom of sincerity! + They knew that outward grace is dust; 170 + They could not choose but trust + In that sure-footed mind's unfaltering skill, + And supple-tempered will + That bent like perfect steel to spring again and thrust. + Nothing of Europe here, 175 + Or, then, of Europe fronting morn-ward still, + Ere any names of Serf and Peer + Could Nature's equal scheme deface; + Here was a type of the true elder race, + And one of Plutarch's men talked with us face to face. 180 + I praise him not; it were too late; + And some innative weakness there must be + In him who condescends to victory + Such as the Present gives, and cannot wait, + Safe in himself as in a fate. 185 + So always firmly he: + He knew to bide his time, + And can his fame abide, + Still patient in his simple faith sublime, + Till the wise years decide. 190 + Great captains, with their guns and drums, + Disturb our judgment for the hour, + But at last silence comes; + These all are gone, and, standing like a tower, + Our children shall behold his fame, 195 + The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man, + Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame, + New birth of our new soil, the first American. + + +VII + + + Long as man's hope insatiate can discern + Or only guess some more inspiring goal 200 + Outside of Self, enduring as the pole, + Along whose course the flying axles burn + Of spirits bravely-pitched, earth's manlier brood; + Long as below we cannot find + The meed that stills the inexorable mind; 205 + So long this faith to some ideal Good, + Under whatever mortal names it masks, + Freedom, Law, Country, this ethereal mood + That thanks the Fates for their severer tasks, + Feeling its challenged pulses leap, 210 + While others skulk in subterfuges cheap, + And, set in Danger's van, has all the boon it asks, + Shall win man's praise and woman's love; + Shall be a wisdom that we set above + All other skills and gifts to culture dear, 215 + A virtue round whose forehead we enwreathe + Laurels that with a living passion breathe + When other crowns are cold and soon grow sere. + What brings us thronging these high rites to pay, + And seal these hours the noblest of our year, 220 + Save that our brothers found this better way? + + +VIII + + + We sit here in the Promised Land + That flows with Freedom's honey and milk; + But 'twas they won it, sword in hand, + Making the nettle danger soft for us as silk. 225 + We welcome back our bravest and our best:-- + Ah me! not all! some come not with the rest, + Who went forth brave and bright as any here! + I strive to mix some gladness with my strain, + But the sad strings complain, 230 + And will not please the ear: + I sweep them for a paean, but they wane + Again and yet again + Into a dirge, and die away in pain. + In these brave ranks I only see the gaps, 235 + Thinking of dear ones whom the dumb turf wraps, + Dark to the triumph which they died to gain: + Fitlier may others greet the living, + For me the past is unforgiving; + I with uncovered head 240 + Salute the sacred dead, + Who went, and who return not,--Say not so! + 'Tis not the grapes of Canaan that repay, + But the high faith that failed not by the way; + Virtue treads paths that end not in the grave; 245 + No ban of endless night exiles the brave: + And to the saner mind + We rather seem the dead that stayed behind. + Blow, trumpets, all your exultations blow! + For never shall their aureoled presence lack: 250 + I see them muster in a gleaming row, + With ever-youthful brows that nobler show; + We find in our dull road their shining track; + In every nobler mood + We feel the orient of their spirit glow, 255 + Part of our life's unalterable good, + Of all our saintlier aspiration; + They come transfigured back, + Secure from change in their high-hearted ways, + Beautiful evermore, and with the rays 260 + Of morn on their white Shields of Expectation! + + +IX + + + Who now shall sneer? + Who dare again to say we trace + Our lines to a plebeian race? + Roundhead and Cavalier! 265 + Dreams are those names erewhile in battle loud; + Forceless as is the shadow of a cloud, + They live but in the ear: + That is best blood that hath most iron, in 't, + To edge resolve with, pouring without stint 270 + For what makes manhood dear. + Tell us not of Plantagenets, + Hapsburgs, and Guelfs, whose thin bloods crawl + Down from some victor in a border-brawl! + How poor their outworn coronets, 275 + Matched with one leaf of that plain civic wreath + Our brave for honor's blazon shall bequeath, + Through whose desert a rescued Nation sets + Her heel on treason, and the trumpet hears + Shout victory, tingling Europe's sullen ears 280 + With vain resentments and more vain regrets! + + +X + + + Not in anger, not in pride, + Pure from passion's mixture rude, + Ever to base earth allied, + But with far-heard gratitude, 285 + Still with heart and voice renewed, + To heroes living and dear martyrs dead, + The strain should close that consecrates our brave. + Lift the heart and lift the head! + Lofty be its mood and grave, 290 + Not without a martial ring, + Not without a prouder tread + And a peal of exultation: + Little right has he to sing + Through whose heart in such an hour 295 + Beats no march of conscious power, + Sweeps no tumult of elation! + 'Tis no Man we celebrate, + By his country's victories great, + A hero half, and half the whim of Fate, 300 + But the pith and marrow of a Nation + Drawing force from all her men, + Highest, humblest, weakest, all,-- + Pulsing it again through them, + Till the basest can no longer cower, 305 + Feeling his soul spring up divinely tall, + Touched but in passing by her mantle-hem. + Come back, then, noble pride, for 'tis her dower! + How could poet ever tower, + If his passions, hopes, and fears, 310 + If his triumphs and his tears, + Kept not measure with his people? + Boom, cannon, boom to all the winds and waves! + Clash out, glad bells, from every rocking steeple! + Banners, advance with triumph, bend your staves! 315 + And from every mountain-peak + Let beacon-fire to answering beacon speak, + Katahdin tell Monadnock, Whiteface he, + And so leap on in light from sea to sea, + Till the glad news be sent 320 + Across a kindling continent, + Making earth feel more firm and air breathe braver: + "Be proud! for she is saved, and all have helped to save her! + She that lifts up the manhood of the poor, + She of the open soul and open door, 325 + With room about her hearth for all mankind! + The helm from her bold front she doth unbind, + Sends all her handmaid armies back to spin, + And bids her navies hold their thunders in. 330 + No challenge sends she to the elder world, + That looked askance and hated; a light scorn + Plays on her mouth, as round her mighty knees + She calls her children back, and waits the morn + Of nobler day, enthroned between her subject seas." 335 + + +XI + + + Bow down, dear Land, for thou hast found release! + Thy God, in these distempered days, + Hath taught thee the sure wisdom of His ways, + And through thine enemies hath wrought thy peace! + Bow down in prayer and praise! 340 + O Beautiful! my Country! ours once more! + Smoothing thy gold of war-dishevelled hair + O'er such sweet brows as never other wore, + And letting thy set lips, + Freed from wrath's pale eclipse, 345 + The rosy edges of their smile lay bare, + What words divine of lover or of poet + Could tell our love and make thee know it, + Among the Nations bright beyond compare? + What were our lives without thee? 350 + What all our lives to save thee? + We reck not what we gave thee; + We will not dare to doubt thee, + But ask whatever else, and we will dare! + + + + +NOTES + +_THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL_ + + +1. The Musing organist: 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 _Fairie Queen_, 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 _Abt Vogler_ and Adelaide +Proctor's _Lost Chord_. + +6. Theme: The theme, subject, or underlying thought of the poem is +expressed in line 12 below: + + "We Sinais climb and know it not;" + +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. + +7. Auroral flushes: Like the first faint glimmerings of light in the +East that point out the pathway of the rising sun, the uncertain, +wavering outlines of the poet's vision precede the perfected theme +that is drawing near. + +9. Not only around our infancy, etc.: The allusion is to +Wordsworth's _Ode on the Intimations of Immortality_, especially these +lines: + + "Heaven lies about us in our infancy! + Shades of the prison-house begin to close + Upon the growing Boy, + But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, + He sees it in his joy; + The Youth, who daily farther from the east + Must travel, still is Nature's Priest, + And by the vision splendid + Is on his way attended; + At length the Man perceives it die away, + And fade into the light of common day." + +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. + +12. We Sinais climb, etc.: Mount Sinai was the mountain in Arabia on +which Moses talked with God (_Exodus_ 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." (_Letters_, I, 164). + +Compare the following passage in the poem _Bibliolatres_: + + "If thou hast wanderings in the wilderness + And find'st not Sinai, 't is thy soul is poor; + There towers the Mountain of the Voice no less, + Which whoso seeks shall find, but he who bends, + Intent on manna still and mortal ends, + Sees it not, neither hears its thundered lore." + +15. Prophecies: Prophecy is not only prediction, but also any +inspired discourse or teaching. Compare the following lines from the +poem _Freedom_, written the same year: + + "Are we, then, wholly fallen? Can it be + That thou, North wind, that from thy mountains bringest + Their spirit to our plains, and thou, blue sea, + Who on our rocks thy wreaths of freedom flingest, + As on an altar,--can it be that ye + Have wasted inspiration on dead ears, + Dulled with the too familiar clank of chains?" + +At the end of this poem Lowell gives his view of "fallen and traitor +lives." He speaks of the "boundless future" of our country-- + + "Ours if we be strong; + Or if we shrink, better remount our ships + And, fleeing God's express design, trace back + The hero-freighted Mayflower's prophet-track + To Europe entering her blood-red eclipse." + +While reading _Sir Launfal_ 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 +_Anti-Slavery Standard_, expressing his bitter indignation at the +indifference and lukewarmness of the Northern people on the subject of +slavery. + +17. Druid wood: The Druids were the aged priests of the Celts, who +performed their religious ceremonies in the 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 _A Forest Hymn_. + +18. Benedicite: An invocation of blessing. Imperative form of the +Latin _benedicere_, to bless. Longfellow speaks of the power of songs +that-- + + "Come like the benediction + That follows after prayer." + +19-20. Compare these lines with the ninth strophe of Wordsworth's +_Ode_. 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. + +21. Earth gets its price, etc.: Notice the special meaning given to +_Earth_ here, in contrast with _heaven_ in line 29. Here again the +thought is suggested by Wordsworth's _Ode_, sixth strophe: + + "Earth fills our lap with pleasures of her own." + +23. Shrives: The priest shrives one when he hears confession and +grants absolution. + +25. Devil's booth: Expand this metaphor and unfold its application +to every-day life. + +27. Cap and bells: 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. + +28. Bubbles we buy, etc.: This line, as first published, had "earn" +for "buy." + +31. This line read originally: "There is no price set," etc. The next +line began with "And." + +32-95. This rapturous passage descriptive of June is unquestionably +the most familiar and most celebrated piece 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 _Under the Willows_ (which he at first named +_A June Idyll_): + + "June is the pearl of our New England year. + Still a surprisal, though expected long, + Her coming startles. Long she lies in wait, + Makes many a feint, peeps forth, draws coyly back, + Then, from some southern ambush in the sky, + With one great gush of blossom storms the world," etc. + +And in _Sunthin' in the Pastoral Line_ the coming of spring is +delightfully pictured: + + "Our Spring gets everything in tune + An' gives one leap from April into June," etc. + +In a letter written in June, 1867, Lowell says: "There never _is_ 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." + +It is worth noting that Lowell's happy June corresponds to May in the +English poets, as in Wordsworth's _Ode_: + + "With the heart of May + Doth every beast keep holiday." + +In New England where "Northern natur" is "slow an' apt to doubt," + + "May is a pious fraud of the almanac." + +or as Hosea Biglow says: + + "Half our May is so awfully like May n't, + 'T would rile a Shaker or an evrige saint." + +41. The original edition has "grasping" instead of "groping." + +42. Climbs to a soul, etc.: In his intimate sympathy with nature, +Lowell endows her forms with conscious life, as Wordsworth did, who +says in _Lines Written in Early Spring_: + + "And 't is my faith that every flower + Enjoys the air it breathes." + +So Lowell in _The Cathedral_ says: + + "And I believe the brown earth takes delight, + In the new snow-drop looking back at her, + To think that by some vernal alchemy + It could transmute her darkness into pearl." + +So again he says in _Under the Willows_: + + "I in June am midway to believe + A tree among my far progenitors, + Such sympathy is mine with all the race, + Such mutual recognition vaguely sweet + There is between us." + +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. + +45. The cowslip startles: Surprises the eye with its bright patches +of green sprinkled with golden blossoms. _Cowslip_ is the common name +in New England for the marsh-marigold, which appears early in spring +in low wet meadows, and furnishes not infrequently a savory "mess of +greens" for the farmer's dinner-table. + +46. Compare _Al Fresco_, lines 34-39: + + "The rich, milk-tingeing buttercup + Its tiny polished urn holds up, + Filled with ripe summer to the edge, + The sun in his own wine to pledge." + +56. Nice: Delicately discriminating. + +62. This line originally read "because God so wills it." + +71. Maize has sprouted: 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. + +73. So in _Sunthin' in the Pastoral Line_, when robin-redbreast sees +the "hossches'nuts' leetle hands unfold" he knows-- + + "Thet arter this ther' 's only blossom-snows; + So, choosin' out a handy crotch an' spouse, + He goes to plast'rin' his adobe house." + +77. Note the happy effect of the internal rhyme in this line. + +93. Healed with snow: Explain the appropriateness of the metaphor. + +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? + +97. Richest mail: 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. + +99. Holy Grail: 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 _Holy +Grail_ 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 _Parsifal_. + +103. On the rushes: In ancient halls and castles the floors were +commonly strewn with rushes. In _Taming of the Shrew_, when preparing +for the home-coming of Petruchio and his bride, Grumio says: "Is +supper ready, the house trimmed, rushes strewed, cobwebs swept?" + +109. The crows flapped, etc.: 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. + +114. Like an outpost of winter: 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. + +116. North Countree: 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. + +122. Pavilions tall: The trees, as in line 125, the broad green tents. +Note how the military figure, beginning with "outposts," in line 115, +is continued and developed throughout the stanza, and reverted to in +the word "siege" in the next stanza. + +130. Maiden knight: A young, untried, unpracticed knight. The +expression occurs in Tennyson's _Sir Galahad_. So "maiden mail" below. + +137. As a locust-leaf: The small delicate leaflets of the compound +locust-leaf seem always in a "lightsome" movement. + +138. The original edition has "unscarred mail." + +138-139. Compare the last lines of Tennyson's _Sir Galahad_: + + "By bridge and ford, by park and pale, + All-armed I ride, whate'er betide, + Until I find the Holy Grail." + +147. Made morn: Let in the morning, or came into the full morning +light as the huge gate opened. + +148. Leper: Why did the poet make the crouching beggar a leper? + +152. For "gan shrink" the original has "did shrink." + +155. Bent of stature: Criticise this phrase. + +158. So he tossed ... in scorn: 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 _Ancient Mariner_. + +163. No true alms: The alms must also be in the heart. + +164. Originally "He gives nothing but worthless gold." + +166. Slender mite: An allusion to the widow's "two mites." (_Luke_ +xxi, 1-4.) + +168. The all-sustaining Beauty: The all-pervading spirit of God that +unites all things in one sympathetic whole. This divinity in humanity +is its highest beauty. In _The Oak_ Lowell says: + + "Lord! all thy works are lessons; each contains + Some emblem of man's all-containing soul." + +172. A god goes with it: 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." + +172. Store: Plenty, abundance. + +175. Summers: What is gained by the use of this word instead of +winters? + +176. Wold: 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. + +181. The little brook: 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 +_Sir Launfal_ was drawn from it." See the poem _Beaver Brook_ +(originally called _The Mill_), and the winter picture in _An +Indian-Summer Reverie_, lines 148-196. + +184. Groined: Groined arches are formed by the intersection of two +arches crossing at any angle, forming a ribbed vault; a characteristic +feature of Gothic architecture. + +190. Forest-crypt: 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 throughout the description the interior of the +Gothic cathedrals, as shown by the many suggestive terms used, +"groined," "crypt," "aisles," "fretwork," and "carvings." + +193. Fretwork: The ornamental work carved in intricate patterns, in +oak or stone, on the ceilings of old halls and churches. + +195. Sharp relief: 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," _bas relief_. + +196. Arabesques: 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. + +201. That crystalled the beams, etc.: That caught the beams of moon +and sun as in a crystal. For "that" the original edition has "which." + +204. Winter-palace of ice: 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 _The Task_, in the beginning of Book V. + +205-210. 'Twas as if every image, etc.: 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. + +211. The hall: In the old castles the hall was always the large +banqueting room, originally the common living room. Here all large +festivities would take place. + +213. Corbel: 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. + +214. This line at first read: "With the lightsome," etc. Why did +Lowell's refining taste strike out "the"? + +216. Yule-log: 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: + + "Come, bring with a noise, + My merrie, merrie boys, + The Christmas log to the firing; + While my good dame, she + Bids ye all be free, + And drink to your heart's desiring." + +219. Like a locust, etc.: 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. + +226. Harp: 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? + +230. Carol of its own: Contrasted with the carols that are being +sung inside the castle. + +231. Burden: 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. _Still_ is in the sense of always, ever. + +233. Seneschal: 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. + +237. Window-slits: Narrow perpendicular openings in the wall, +serving both as windows and as loopholes from which to fire at an +enemy. + +238. Build out its piers: 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. + +243. In this line instead of "the weaver Winter" the original has "the +frost's swift shuttles." Was the change an improvement? + +244. A single crow: Note the effect of introducing this lone crow +into the bleak landscape. + +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." + +251. Sate: 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: + + "If some small savor creep into my rhyme + Of the old poets, if some words I use, + Neglected long, which have the lusty thews + Of that gold-haired and earnest-hearted time, + Whose loving joy and sorrow all sublime + Have given our tongue its starry eminence,-- + It is not pride, God knows, but reverence + Which hath grown in me since my childhood's prime." + +254. Recked: Cared for. + +255. Surcoat: 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. + +256. The sign: 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. + +259. Idle mail: 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. + +264-272. He sees, etc.: 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. + +272. Signal of palms: 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! + +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. + +275. This line at first read: "But Sir Launfal sees naught save the +grewsome thing." + +278. White: "And, behold, Miriam became leprous, white as snow." +(_Numbers_ xii, 10.) + +279. Desolate horror: The adjective suggests the outcast, 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." + +281. On the tree: On the cross. "Whom they slew and hanged on a +tree, Him God raised up the third day." (_Acts_ x, 39.) This use of +the word is common in early literature, especially in the ballads. + +285. See _John_ xx, 25-27. + +287. Through him: The leper. Note that the address is changed in +these two lines. Compare _Matthew_ xxv, 34-40. This gift to the leper +differs how from the gift in Part First? + +291. Leprosie: The antiquated spelling is used for the perfect rhyme +and to secure the antique flavor. + +292. Girt: The original word here was "caged." + +294. Ashes and dust: Explain the metaphor. Compare with "sackcloth +and ashes." See _Esther_ iv, 3; _Jonah_ iii, 6; _Job_ ii, 8. + +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. + +304, 305. The leper is transfigured and Christ himself appears in the +vision of the sleeping Sir Launfal. + +307. The Beautiful Gate: "The gate of the temple which is called +Beautiful," where Peter healed the lame man. (_Acts_ iii, 2.) + +308. Himself the Gate: See _John_ x, 7, 9: "I am the door." + +310. Temple of God: "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and +that the spirit of God dwelleth in you?" (_I Corinthians_ iii, 16, 17; +vi, 19.) + +312. This line at first began with "which." + +313. Shaggy: Is this term applicable to Sir Launfal's present +condition, or is the whole simile carried a little beyond the point of +true likeness? + +314. Softer: Lowell originally wrote "calmer" here. The change +increased the effect of the alliteration. Was it otherwise an +improvement? + +315. Lo, it is I: _John_ vi, 20. + +316. Without avail: Was Sir Launfal's long quest entirely without +avail? Compare the last lines of Tennyson's _Holy Grail_, 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." + +320, 321. _Matthew_ xxvi, 26-28; _Mark_ xiv, 22-24. + +322. Holy Supper: 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." (_Matthew_ xxv, 40.) + +326. The original has "bestows" for "gives." + +328. Swound: The antiquated form of _swoon_. + +332, 333. Interpret the lines. Did the poet have in mind the spiritual +armor described in _Ephesians_ vi, 11-17? + +336. Hangbird: 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 +_Under the Willows_ beginning: + + "My oriole, my glance of summer fire." + +See also the charming prose description in _My Garden Acquaintance_. + +338. Summer's long siege at last is o'er: 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. + +342, 343. Is Lowell expressing here his own convictions about ideal +democracy? + + + + +_THE SHEPHERD OF KING ADMETUS_ + + +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 _An Incident in a +Railroad Car_. + +5. Lyre: According to mythology, Apollo's lyre was a tortoise-shell +strung with seven strings. + +8. Fagots for a witch: 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: + + "Upon an empty tortoise-shell + He stretched some chords, and drew + Music that made men's bosoms swell + Fearless, or brimmed their eyes with dew." + + + + +_HEBE_ + + +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. 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: + + "Harass her not; thy heat and stir + But greater coyness breed in her." + +"Follow thy life," he says, "be true to thy best self, then Hebe will +bring her choicest ambrosia." That is-- + + "Make thyself rich, and then the Muse + Shall court thy precious interviews, + Shall take thy head upon her knee, + And such enchantment lilt to thee, + That thou shalt hear the life-blood flow + From farthest stars to grass-blades low." + + + + +_TO THE DANDELION_ + + +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. + +"Of Lowell's earlier pieces," says Stedman, "the one which shows the +finest sense of the poetry of nature is that addressed _To the +Dandelion_. 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." + +6. Eldorado: 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. + +27. Sybaris: An ancient Greek colony in southern Italy whose +inhabitants were devoted to luxury and pleasure. + +52-54. Compare _Sir Launfal._ + + + + +_MY LOVE_ + + +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. + + + + +_THE CHANGELING_ + + +This is one of the tender little poems that refer to the death of the +poet's daughter Blanche, which occurred in March, 1847. _The First +Snow-fall_ and _She Came and Went_ 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 _Biographical Sketch_ +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." + +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 mischievous fairies, who bring an angel child in place +of the lost one. Whittier has a poem on the same theme, _The +Changeling._ + +29. Zingari: The Gypsies--suggested by "wandering angels" above--who +wander about the earth, and also sometimes steal children, according +to popular belief. + +52. Bliss it: A rather violent use of the word, not recognized by +the dictionaries, but nevertheless felicitous. + + + + +_AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE_ + + +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 _Under the +Willows._ + +"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 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." + +1. Visionary tints: 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. + +5. Hebe: 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. + +11. My own projected spirit: 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. + +25. Gleaning Ruth: For the story of Ruth's gleaning in the fields of +Boaz, see the book of _Ruth_, ii. + +38. Chipmunk: Lowell at first had "squirrel" here, which would be +inconsistent with the "underground fastness." And yet, are chipmunks +seen up in walnut trees? + +40. This line originally read, "with a chipping bound." _Cheeping_ is +chirping, or giving the peculiar cluck that sounds like "cheep," or +"chip." + +45. Faint as smoke, etc.: The farmer burns the stubble and other +refuse of the season before his "fall plowing." + +46. The single crow, etc.: Note the full significance of this detail +of the picture. Compare Bryant's _Death of the Flowers:_ + + "And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy day." + +50. Compare with this stanza the pretty little poem, _The Birch Tree._ + +68. Lavish of their long-hid gold: The chestnut leaves, it will be +remembered, turn to a bright golden yellow in autumn. These +descriptions of autumn foliage are all as true as beautiful. + +73. Maple-swamps: We generally speak of the swamp-maple, which grows +in low ground, and has particularly brilliant foliage in autumn. + +82. Tangled blackberry: This is the creeping blackberry of course, +which every one remembers whose feet have been caught in its prickly +tangles. + +91. Martyr oak: The oak is surrounded with the blazing foliage of +the ivy, like a burning martyr. + +99. Dear marshes: The Charles River near Elmwood winds through broad +salt marshes, the characteristic features of which Lowell describes +with minute and loving fidelity. + +127. Bobolink: 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 _arriere +pensee_ 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." + +Compare the description in _Sunthin' in the Pastoral Line:_ + + "'Nuff said, June's bridesman, poet o' the year, + Gladness on wings, the bobolink, is here; + Half hid in tip-top apple-blooms he swings, + Or climbs aginst the breeze with quiverin' wings, + Or, givin' way to 't in a mock despair, + Runs down, a brook o' laughter, thru the air." + +See also the opening lines of _Under the Willows_ for another +description full of the ecstasy of both bird and poet. The two +passages woven together appear in the essay _Cambridge Thirty Years +Ago_, as a quotation. An early poem on _The Bobolink_, 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." + +134. Another change: The description now returns to the marshes. + +147. Simond's hill: In the essay _Cambridge Thirty Years Ago_ Lowell +describes the village as seen from the top of this hill. + +159-161. An allusion to the Mexican War, against which Lowell was +directing the satire of the _Biglow Papers_. + +174-182. Compare the winter pictures in Whittier's _Snowbound_. + +177. Formal candles: Candles lighted for some form or ceremony, as +in a religious service. + +192. Stonehenge: 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. + +207. Sanding: 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. + +209. Muses' factories: The buildings of Harvard College. + +218. House-bespotted swell: Lowell notes with some resentment the +change from nature's simple beauties to the pretentiousness of wealth +shown in incongruous buildings. + +220. Cits: Contracted from citizens. During the French Revolution, +when all titles were abolished, the term _citizen_ was applied to +every one, to denote democratic simplicity and equality. + +223. Gentle Allston: Washington Allston, the celebrated painter, +whom Lowell describes as he remembered him in the charming essay +_Cambridge Thirty Years Ago_. + +225. Virgilium vidi tantum: I barely saw Virgil--caught a glimpse of +him--a phrase applied to any passing glimpse of greatness. + +227. Undine-like: Undine, a graceful water nymph, is the heroine of +the charming little romantic story by De la Motte Fouque. + +234. The village blacksmith: See Longfellow's famous poem, _The +Village Blacksmith_. 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. + +254. Six old willows: These much-loved trees afforded Lowell a +subject for a later poem _Under the Willows_, in which he describes +particularly one ancient willow that had been spared, he "knows not by +what grace" by the ruthless "New World subduers"-- + + "One of six, a willow Pleiades, + The seventh fallen, that lean along the brink + Where the steep upland dips into the marsh." + +In a letter written twenty years after the _Reverie_ to J.T. Fields, +Lowell says: "My heart was almost broken yesterday by seeing nailed to +_my_ 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." + +255. Paul Potter: One of the most famous of the Dutch painters of +the seventeenth century, notable for the strong realism of his work. + +264. Collegisse juvat: 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 _collegisse_ with his +own coinage, which may have the double meaning of _going to college_ +and _collecting._ + +272. Blinding anguish: An allusion to the death of his little +daughter Blanche. See _The Changeling, The First Snow-fall,_ and _She +Came and Went_. + + + + +_THE OAK_ + + +11. Uncinctured front: The forehead no longer encircled with a +crown. + +13-16. There is a little confusion in the figures here, the cathedral +part of the picture being a little far fetched. + +40. Mad Pucks: Puck is the frolicsome, mischief-making spirit of +Shakespeare's _Midsummer Night's Dream._ + +45. Dodona grove: 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. + + + + +_BEAVER BROOK_ + + +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 _The Mill_. +It was first published in the _Anti-Slavery Standard_, 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 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." + +21. Undine: In mythology and romance, Undine is a water-spirit who +is endowed with a soul by her marriage with a mortal. The _race_ is +the watercourse conducted, from the dam in an open trough or +"penstock" to the wheel. + +45. In that new childhood of the Earth: This poem was written a few +weeks after the _Vision of Sir Launfal_ was published, and it +therefore naturally partakes of its idealism. + + + + +_THE PRESENT CRISIS_ + + +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, _To +W.L. Garrison_, _Wendell Phillips_, _On the Death of C.T. Torrey_, 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 _The Present Crisis,_ have a Tyrtaean 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." + +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. + +17. Round the earth's electric circle, etc.: This prophetic figure was +doubtless suggested by the first telegraph line, which Samuel F.B. +Morse had just erected between Baltimore and Washington. + +37. The Word: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with +God, and the Word was God." (_John_ i, 1.) + +44. Delphic cave: 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. + +46. Cyclops: 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 _Odyssey_. + +64. Credo: Latin, I believe: the first word in the Latin version of +the Apostles' Creed, hence used for _creed_. + + + + +_THE COURTIN'_ + + +This poem first appeared as "a short fragment of a pastoral," in the +introduction to the First Series of the _Biglow Papers_. 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 _Biglow Papers_. It first appeared, however, in its expanded form +in a charitable publication, _Autograph Leaves of Our Country's +Authors_, reproduced in facsimile from the original manuscript. + +"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." + +17. Crooknecks: Crookneck squashes. + +19. Ole queen's-arm: The old musket brought from the Concord fight +in 1775. + +32. To draw a straight furrow when plowing is regarded as evidence of +a skilful farmer. + +36. All is: The truth is, "all there is about it." + +37. Long o' her: Along of her, on account of her. + +40. South slope: The slope of a hill facing south catches the spring +sunshine. + +43. Ole Hunderd: Old Hundred is one of the most familiar of the old +hymn tunes. + +58. Somewhat doubtful as to the sequel. + +94. Bay o' Fundy: The Bay of Fundy is remarkable for its high and +violent tides, owing to the peculiar conformation of its banks. + +96. Was cried: The "bans" were cried, the announcement of the +engagement in the church, according to the custom of that day. + + + + +_THE COMMEMORATION ODE_ + + +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. + +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. + +5. Robin's-leaf: An allusion to the ballad of the _Babes in the +Wood._ + +9. Squadron-strophes: The term _strophe_ originally was applied to +a metrical form that was repeated in a certain established way, like +the _strophe_ and _antistrophe_ 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." + +13. Lethe's dreamless ooze: Lethe is the river of oblivion in Hades; +its slimy depths of forgetfulness are not even disturbed by dreams. + +14. Unventurous throng: The vast majority of commonplace beings who +neither achieve nor attempt deeds of "high emprise." + +16. Wisest Scholars: Many students who had returned from the war +were in the audience, welcomed back by their revered mother, their +Alma Mater. + +20. Peddling: 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." + +21. The pseudo-science of astrology, seeking to tell commonplace +fortunes by the stars. + +25-26. Clear fame: Compare Milton's _Lycidas:_ + + "Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise + To scorn delights and live laborious days." + +32. Half-virtues: 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? + +34. That stern device: The seal of Harvard College, chosen by its +early founders, bears the device of a shield with the word _Ve-ri-tas_ +(truth) upon three open books. + +46. Sad faith: Deep, serious faith, or there may be a slight touch +of irony in the word, with a glance at the gloomy faith of early +puritanism and its "lifeless creed" (l. 62). + +62. Lifeless creed: Compare Tennyson's: + + "Ancient form + Thro' which the spirit breathes no more." + +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." + +81. To protect one's self everyone connives against everyone else. +Compare _Sir Launfal_, I. 11. Instead of climbing Sinais we "cringe +and plot." + +82. Compare _Sir Launfal_, I. 26. The whole passage, II. 76-87, is a +distant echo of the second and third stanzas of _Sir Launfal_. + +83-85. Puppets: The puppets are the pasteboard actors in the Punch +and Judy show, operated by unseen wires. + +84. An echo of _Macbeth_, V, 5: + + "Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player + That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, + And then is heard no more." + +97. Elder than the Day: Elder than the first Day. "And God called +the light Day," etc. (_Genesis_ i, 5.) We may have light from the +divine fountains. + +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. + +111. Creeds: Here used in the broad sense of convictions, +principles, beliefs. + +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 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: + + "Ere yet the sharp, decisive word + Redden the cannon's lips, and while the sword." + +120. Baael's stone obscene: Human sacrifices were offered on the +altars of Baael. (_Jeremiah_ xix, 5.) + +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." + +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 _North American Review_--an article that +pleased him. I _did_ divine him earlier than most men of the Brahmin +caste." + +It is a singular fact that the other great New England poets, +Longfellow, Whittier, and Holmes, had almost nothing to say about +Lincoln. + +150. Wept with the passion, etc.: An article in the _Atlantic +Monthly_ for June, 1885, began with this passage: "The funeral +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." + +170. Outward grace is dust: An allusion to Lincoln's awkward and +rather unkempt outward appearance. + +173. Supple-tempered will: 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. + +175-178. Nothing of Europe here: 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. + +180. One of Plutarch's men: The distinguished men of Greece and Rome +whom Plutarch immortalized in his _Lives_ are accepted as types of +human greatness. + +182. Innative: Inborn, natural. + +187. He knew to bide his time: He knew how to bide his time, as in +Milton's _Lycidas_, "He knew himself to sing." Recall illustrations of +Lincoln's wonderful patience and faith. + +198. The first American: In a prose article, Lowell calls him "The +American of Americans." Compare Tennyson's "The last great +Englishman," in the _Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington_. +Stanza IV of Tennyson's ode should be compared with this Lincoln +stanza. + +202. Along whose course, 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. + +232. Paean: A paean, originally a hymn to Apollo, usually of +thanksgiving, is a song of triumph, any loud and joyous song. + +236. Dear ones: 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." + +As a special memorial of Colonel Shaw, Lowell wrote the poem, +_Memoriae Positum._ With deep tenderness he refers to his nephews in +_"Mr. Hosea Biglow to the Editor of the Atlantic Monthly":_ + + "Why, hain't I held 'em on my knee? + Didn't I love to see 'em growin', + Three likely lads ez wal could be, + Hahnsome an' brave an' not tu knowin'? + I set an' look into the blaze + Whose natur', jes' like theirn, keeps climbin', + Ez long 'z it lives, in shinin' ways, + An' half despise myself for rhymin'. + + "Wut's words to them whose faith an' truth + On War's red techstone rang true metal, + Who ventered life an' love an' youth + For the gret prize o' death in battle? + To him who, deadly hurt, agen + Flashed on afore the charge's thunder, + Tippin' with fire the bolt of men + Thet rived the Rebel line asunder?" + +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 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.) + +245. Compare the familiar line in Gray's _Elegy_: + + "The paths of glory lead but to the grave." + +and Tennyson's line, in the _Ode to the Duke of Wellington_: + + "The path of duty was the way of glory." + +In a letter to T.W. Higginson, who was editing the _Harvard Memorial +Biographies_, in which he was to print the ode, Lowell asked to have +the following passage inserted at this point: + + "Virtue treads paths that end not in the grave, + But through those constellations go + That shed celestial influence on the brave. + If life were but to draw this dusty breath + That doth our wits enslave, + And with the crowd to hurry to and fro, + Seeking we know not what, and finding death, + These did unwisely; but if living be, + As some are born to know, + The power to ennoble, and inspire + In other souls our brave desire + For fruit, not leaves, of Time's immortal tree, + These truly live, our thought's essential fire, + And to the saner," etc. + +Lowell's remark in _The Cathedral_, that "second thoughts are prose," +might be fairly applied to this emendation. Fortunately, the passage +was never inserted in the ode. + +255. Orient: The east, morning; hence youth, aspiration, hope. The +figure is continued in l. 271. + +262. Who now shall sneer? 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 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. + +265. Roundhead and Cavalier: 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. + +272-273. Plantagenets: A line of English kings, founded by Henry II, +called also the House of Anjou, from their French origin. The _House +of Hapsburg_ is the Imperial family of Austria. The _Guelfs_ were one +of the great political parties in Italy in the Middle Ages, at long +and bitter enmity with the _Ghibelines_. + +323. With this passage read the last two stanzas of _Mr. Hosea Biglow +to the Editor of the Atlantic Monthly_, beginning: + + "Come, Peace! not like a mourner bowed + For honor lost and dear ones wasted, + But proud, to meet a people proud, + With eyes that tell of triumphs tasted!" + +328. Helm: The helmet, the part of ancient armor for protecting the +head, used here as the symbol of war. + +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." + + + + +EXAMINATION QUESTIONS + + +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 _The Vision of Sir +Launfal_ is included in the examination paper for each year. + + +Under what circumstances did the "vision" come to Sir Launfal? What +was the vision? What was the effect upon him? + +What connection have the preludes in the _Vision of Sir Launfal_ with +the main divisions which they precede? What is their part in the poem +as a whole? + +Contrast Sir Launfal's treatment of the leper at their first meeting +with his treatment at their second. + +1. Describe a scene from the _Vision of Sir Launfal_. + +2. Describe the hall of the castle as Sir Launfal saw it on Christmas +eve. + + "The soul partakes the season's youth ... + What wonder if Sir Launfal now + Remembered the keeping of his vow?" + +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. + +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. + +Compare the _Ancient Mariner_ and the _Vision of Sir Launfal_ with +regard to the representation of a moral idea in each. + +Explain the meaning of Sir Launfal's vision, and show how it affected +his conduct. + +Describe an ideal summer day as portrayed in the _Vision of Sir +Launfal_. + +Quote at least ten lines. + +Discuss, with illustrations, Lowell's descriptions in the _Vision of +Sir Launfal_, touching on _two_ of the following points:--(a) beauty, +(b) vividness, (c) attention to details. + +Write a description of winter as given in Part Second. + +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. + + + + +Merrill's English Texts + +Addison, Steele, and Budgell. The Sir Roger de Coverley Papers In The +Spectator. Edited by Edna H. L. Turpin. 269 pages, 12mo, cloth. Prices +30 cents. + +Coleridge. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and other Poems. Edited by +Julian W. Abernethy, Ph.D, 156 pages, 12 mo, cloth. Price 25 cents. + +Dickens. A Tale of Two Cities. Edited by Julian W. Abernethy, Ph.D. +634 pages, 12mo, cloth. Price 50 cents. + +Emerson. Essays. (Selected.) Edited by Edna H. L. Turpin. 336 pages, +12mo, cloth. Price 40 cents. + +George Eliot. Silas Marner. Edited by Cornelia Beare. 336 pages, 12mo, +cloth. Price 40 cents. + +Goldsmith. The Deserted Village, and other Poems. Edited by Edna H. L. +Turpin. 153 pages, 12mo, cloth. Price 25 cents. + +Hawthorne. The House of the Seven Gables. Edited by J. H. Castleman, +A.M. 464 pages, 12mo, cloth. Price 40 cents. + +Lamb. Essays of Elia. Edited by J. H. Castleman, A.M. 589 pages, 12mo, +cloth. Price 50 cents. + +Lowell. The Vision of Sir Launfal, and other Poems. Edited by Julian +W. Abernethy, Ph.D. 172 pages, 12mo, cloth. Price 25 cents. + +Milton. Lycidas, Comus, L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, and other Poems. +Edited by Julian W. Abernethy, Ph.D. 198 pages, 12mo, cloth. 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