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'.