[Poems by Lowell in] American Literature :: :: University of Virginia Library

You called my poem beautiful:
A calm upon my soul it shed:
My grateful heart was brimming full
And many things I would have said
But I could only hang my head.

It pained me, for it brought to mind
How silence only is divine,
And how much glory lay behind
The mist of every fruitless line
Which must for aye be only mine.

For when the Soul is full of light
As with full moon the thoughtful blue,
How mean & low is what we write
To the uplifting that we knew
When the thought thrilled us through & through.

The paltry Gilded Cage of words
These inner sights & hearings scorn;
Only Creation's circle girds
Their flight back to the Eternal morn
From whose ripe bosom they were born.

Even as behind the skiey Eyes
Of her who set my Spirit free,
Though she be mute, I see arise
Broadwingèd thoughts that will not be
Mewed up in speech's poverty.

Yet was I also glad: I knew
That heart & pen had done their best,
That every word & line was true,
And that my toil was fully blest,
Giving one soul more selfstayed rest.

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I could go on until my death,
Singing mine inward joy or woe,
Content to let the organ-breath
Of the great Spirit through me flow
Though scorned by every ear below.

Yet to my heart it is most dear
Of all to have a woman say
That in my verses she can hear
Something that clears one doubt away
And fills with heaven her commonday.

III
Rebecca's Valentine

Great was the servant's joy, who met
Rebecca at the well,
With patriarchal, mild regret
He saw the round arms curve to set
The pitcher on the braided jet
That o'er smooth shoulders fell.

Then as he felt the garments sweep
Musk-odored by his side
He sat good Jew & reckoned deep
How many camels, asses, sheep,
The lucky son in law would reap
Who made the fair his bride.

As, better than the desert well
The tea pots fragrant stream,
As Mochas berry breeds a spell
More sweet than o'er the Hebrew fell,
So my Rebecca doth excel
His Hebrew rapture's theme.

Less dear than then, less rosy-sweet
She by thy side were dim;
And, long as by the urn we meet,
Long as thy little fingers feat
Dispense mild Hysons harmless heat,
I, triumph over him.

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IV
[Lines delivered at a dinner for Paul Morphy, May 31, 1859]

As I arise Mr. Autocrat grim with despair
And bow to you smiling complacently there
May I ask while I cant my trained mind for its dregs
Whats the good of a chair which tilts folks on their legs
When they feel from the top of their skulls to the floor
As sure as a gimlet to turn out a bore
Can I hope, fishing out my dried jokes from my pocket
'Cause I rise like a stick, I may come down like a rocket.

Has a man any right who comes after some folks
To dream of success with his verses or jokes.
Will Fancy's sprites aid him, or thoughts ruining gnomes
Who speaks after Emerson, rymes [sic] after Holmes.
Two wizards from whom if it had any nous
An Earthquake might learn how to bring down a house.

When Harvard has men here, savans of such fame
They'd give nature a bishop and then win the game
What can I hope to say, seeing those all around
On whose speech wisdom waits as the echo on sound.
Whose silence is not the dull thought-sleep of churls
But the shells of the secret, thats Mother of Pearls.
Is not Agassiz here with his great dome of thought
The State House where Nature's own statutes seem wrought.

Then what am I here for? I came with the rest,
To take a good stare at our eminent guest,
For mine an owl's notion, that looks make us wise
As if wit, like potatoes, were bred by the eyes.
Besides I had also some right to expect
Met-a-morphysis here which I would not neglect.
I might come as a bore, and believe me a scion
Of the lion's own stock, if I drink with the lion.

A true dinner-speech I conceive is a way
Of gracefully having your nothing to say
And when you have said it, of knowing tis said,
And so without bother just shutting your head.

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I know I've said mine, and will give up the ghost
After one little mouthful of rhyme-buttered Toast.
I give you the men, whereso'er born and bred,
Who win in the tough race of life by a head,
Who prove the times coming, how'er far away,
When the forehead thats broadest will carry the day.
And chiefly our guest, who has shown that the wreath
Need not turn, as so often the head underneath
That a poison of jealousy, meanness or quarrel
Is not always distilled from the leaves of the laurel.
I give you the man who can think out and dare
His bloodless Marengos on twelve inches square
Yet, so modest the conquered all feel that they meet
With a Morphy-and not Morti-fying defeat.
Who, give but a scale, can construct you the shark
That turned up his side-long pig-eye at the Ark,
With a hope that his jaws, as they shut with a slam
Might sandwich a leg or a shoulder of Ham.
And who'd make a green turtle (he talks as persuasively)
Rush off to the pot for the good of his race.
Is not Pierce there beside him, whose soul is all ears
For the rythmical [sic] cadence of balancing spheres
Who traces God's footprints, on Star-sands, that beach
Lone Gulfs of the Infinite baffling thoughts reach,
Who on night's golden rosary, planet-impearled
Tells his aves and credas, each least bead a world.
And who, the first term of the problem but given
Could predict every move on the Chess-board of Heaven.

I'll confess since you said to me James you'll be there
And be ready to answer a Call from the Chair,
I have tried my poor skull with perpetual scratch
To as little avail as an old sulphur match,
The ingredient was wanting, whatever it is
(You know Mr. Chairman) that goes with a fizz,
One should have a percussion cap over his hair
When come down on like this by one Cocks in the Chair
To go off with a pop, at the very first hint,
Nor wait to shake priming, nor pick at the flint.
Whereas my brains planned like an ancient queens arm
That thinks before starting, and then does no harm,

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Except to the lad who contrives to unhitch
The rusty old trigger, and stands at the breech,
As we bards on Compulsion, are floored oftentimes
By the heavy recoil of their lead laden rhymes.
Once I thought for a change in the programe, suppose
You give them a bit of palaver in prose.
For though morphine should chance to surcharge the oration
Twould be all the better and suit the occasion.
But the muse jogged my elbow with Counsel averse
And Weller-like, whispered me, you could werse
So verse I've begun with, though whose I bring up
Is a matter at present between lip and cup.
I am more in the dark as to where I am bound
Than the good prophet Jonah of old, when he found
He was being dead-headed (some comfort at least)
By the Whales alimentary canal, for the East,
First instance on record, and last too, I guess,
Of the great Belly Transit performed with success.

V
Dr. Longfellow's New Prescription Commended to Himself

[_]

The attribution of this poem is uncertain.

Make you a gargle of claret,
Medoc'll do, and don't spare it;
If some should slip through
You needn't look blue
You'll soon be able to bear it.

Doctor Anacreon tried it,
And only milksops deride it;
Just put it to vote
Of palate and throat,
They'll swear the Knaves belied it.

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'Twould make the heart of King Og swell
Pray try it on Doctor Cogswell,
As the gust on't slips
To his heart from's lips,
'Twill oil his pinions and cogs well.

As for your salt and your vinegar,
Such puckery, rasp-you-skinny gargles
are not fit
For people of wit,
Hardly, I vow, for a free-nigger!

No one should laugh but the winner
and I don't, as I'm a sinner,
For my throat's so bad
I'm not to be had,
Though Horace ask me to dinner.

[VI No dewdrop is stiller]

No dewdrop is stiller
In its lapin-leaf setting
Than this water mossbounded;
But a tiny sand-pillar
From the bottom keeps jetting,
And mermaid ne'er sounded
Though the wreaths of a shell,
Down amid crimson dulses
In some dell of the ocean,
A melody sweeter
Than the delicate pulses,
The soft, noiseless metre,
The pause & the swell
Of that musical motion.

[VII What odor from Sabean shores]

“the cheese came safely & is pronounced by the conoscenti to be admirable. I should have acknowledged it long ago, but that you said

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in your note that you hoped it might inspire some verses. Cheese, even when so good as yours, is hardly a subject for the Muse—though one can imagine that famous Roman Docino Mus to have chosen it as a happy theme. But what could be done with it in English & in rhyme? Let me see:

What odor from Sabean shores
Intoxicates the seaward breeze?
My Fancy, resting on her oars,
Murmurs enchanted—“it is Cheese!”

Or:

O, strong the middle-aged to please,
Who find more gust in Swift than Milton,
Be thou my theme, ideal cheese,
Thy race's proudest blossom, Stilton!

You see it won't do! Or shall we disguise it?

What gift is this that crowns my day,
Sent me some kindhearted fairy,
That tells of meadows cropt in May,
Of milkmaids blithe, 'twixt work & play,
Bringing sweet burthens to the dairy?

Or shall we be solemn & epical?

Of cheese I sing: Iö, be thou my Muse,
Transformed by jealous Hera to a cow!

On the whole, I think we must try something between verse & prose, & we will take trochaics as easier than either.

On the 19th Februáry
Just three days before my birthday,
Three whole days ere I was fifty,
Came the cheese, the mity-reeker.
Ere the bell was rung I snuffed him,
Snuffed him ere the door was opened,
And exclaimed in gratulation,
“Yes! I nose it must be Stilton!”
Gratefully we entertained him,
Sniffed at him & found him horrid,
Sweet & nasty like Catullus,—
Tasted him & owned him perfect:

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And our friend, the mediâeval,
Come to celebrate my birthday
Tasted too, & sighed “Delicious!”
Not displeased 'twas caviare
Pueris, virginibusque.

Probably Charles Eliot Norton

After dinner Annie took him
And, within the china-closet,
In his tin & lacquer coffin,
(Casket—vulgar Yankees call it)
Laid him gently till tomorrow.
There he showed his strength prodigious,
For, two burglars having entered,
Raised the lid with zeal incautious,
And were floored upon the instant,
By their noses tumbled backward,
Easy captives of the watchman.
Then we clapt him in the cellar
But he vouched himself so loudly
That the mice, the wainscot-peoplers,
Knew him, & their mouths so watered
That the whole of 'em were drownded;
Had no time to send for parsons,
Nor their little pray'rs to mutter,
To be happy in the néxt life,
In a hollow heaven of Stilton,
Safe from traps & from the Devil—
In their lingo hight Grimalkin.
But the rats, the steady-gnawers,
Indefat'gable as conscience,
Miles & miles away they smelt him,
Smelt him ere he left West Boston,
Vowed it was the Good Time Coming,
Day of peace & specie-payments,
Equal rights & cheese for all rats.
So they left our neighbors' pantries,
Hardly stayed to curl their whiskers,
Or to tie their tails in bowknots,
Nor to make their wills delayed they,
Rushed pellmell like office-seekers,

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Shrieking, “Tell us not of Gruyère,
And delude us not with Roquefort!
Not a word of Gorgonzola!
What are they compared with Stilton,
With our life-dream, our ideal?”
Then they wore out all their grinders,
And their rat-tail-files they polished,
But the guardian tin was honest,
The grim metal unpersuaded,—
General Grant not more impassive.
When they found themselves thus baffled,
First they all exclaimed “Milldam it!
This all comes from Andrew Johnson
And his thwarting Reconstruction!”
Then they chanted all in chorus:
“We are treated worse than niggers,
Worse than males not come to manhood,
Or than females not allowed to!
'Tis because we have no ballot,
That we're robbed of our ideal,
Of our golden dream's fruition,
Nor permitted to develop
All our aptitude for Stilton,
If we had the right of voting
We'd undo the wrongs of Nature,
And the cruel tin should soften,
Hymns be changed to hers instanter,
And the rats, as God intended,
Be supplied with cheese for nothing
In a universe of Stilton!”

There, my dear Dorr, you can continue that ad libitum—'tis as easy as lying.

VIII
Naworth Unvisited

The men that held these ivied walls
Were rough & ready in their day,

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In mail they made their morning calls
And met acquaintance at a fray.

In search of booty or of blows
Their horn was heard beyond the Esk
Where their damp grandsons blow the nose
And teaze the hedgebarred picturesque.

No man had then invented Doubt,
Their duty, plainer than a pin,
Was just to keep their neighbors out
And drive their neighbors' cattle in.

They were not bored with Adam Smith,
There were no Questions of the Day,
Out of their lives they got the pith
Floating with ale the rest away.

We are their opposites; we fence
Our fields against the next man's Kine
And take him in with weak pretence
Of tedious friendship o'er our wine.

Time does his work; the border peel
Is metamorphosed to a house
Whose lord, in tweeds instead of steel,
Makes war upon the Scottish grouse.

Nor do we mount at shut of eve
And ride like ghosts in silent file
Hoping Security may leave
Some unbarred postern in the pile,

But, after invitation due
And answer sent in proper form,
We roll along, discuss the view,
And take the Keep with silken storm.

The Old Time has us on the hip
And yet one gift of theirs we share,—
Bring forth the lunch & we will strip
Like them our neighbor's larder bare.

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IX
Naworth Visited

The Castle stern of ancient time
To household uses condescends;
Like alien words that Kiss in rhyme,
Grim Past with placid Present blends.

So sweet a unison is here
Of warlike front & inward grace,
The stranger even may hold it dear
This home of an historic race.

Commingling thus the old & new
In friendly mixture as she span,
With fingers deft dame Nature drew
The stuff to make a gentleman.

The Castle wins the tourist's praise;
She pleases more the sweet accord
Of lineage proud & simple ways
That mark the manners of its lord.

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XI
The Writing-lesson

I sought a word I could not find,
So sweet 'twould ravish all mankind;
Through many a tongue I sought in vain
Nor won a guerdon for my pain,
Until one day with shy surprise
It glimmered from a woman's eyes.

XII
6th July

A phrase of music at the door
And she glides by the softened sentry,
Then, whispering sweetly with the floor,
I hear her feet along the entry.

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At her approach my heart lights up
With flushes of serene forewarning,
And all my being seems a cup
To hold the fresher air of morning.

That light firm step, that floating grace,
That motion of the head so airy,
That pledge of comfort in her face—
Were it my godmother the fairy!

Titania might be well as tall
But not so winsome nor so human;
There's not a fairy of them all
Worth one cast hair of such a woman!

XIII
“No Se Tome El Trabajo de Contestar.”

How answer the breath of a rose?
For the lily's charm find phrases?
Round their shy reserves they close,
And are safer than alpine snows
From the stain of our futile praises.

If your youth call the ghost of mine
Back out of the twilight glooming,
I thrill as the prisoned wine
Once more feels the ferment divine,
In May when the vines are blooming.

XIV
Scene, Elmwood A.D. 1890

“As the curtain rises Don Jaime el Borricon is seen writing a letter. To a friend who enters he looks up & says:

‘Of all the letters twentysix,—
Though most of them are perfect bricks,

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Helping us when we're at a distance
To bore our friends with our existence,
As, bless them, now they're helping me,—
The most expressive far is E;
For more nice things with that begin
Than all the rest can pride them in:
E begins Beauty, Goodness, Grace;
E begins Changeful Charm of Face
E begins Talent, Tact, Goodsense,
Selfsacrifice without pretence;
E begins Wit halfsheathed in sweetness;
E begins Womanly Completeness;
Nay, E begins, as I could prove,
All that we most admire & love!

‘E begins this & that & tother,
Prithee, before you add another,
Permit me in your ear to say,
Sans gêne, that Ass begins with A.
Will you be good enough to tell
In what queer school you learned to spell?’

‘At a Dame's School I learned the art
Where all the tasks were got by heart;
She was herself my favourite book,
And taught whole folios in a look,
The text illuminated, too,
With art the Cloister never knew,
Pictures of Spain when Spain was queen,
With Moorish arabesques between.
I am an old man now, you know,
And this seems centuries ago,
Yet I would lay my life for wager
The years have not contrived to age her,
And that she stands as then she stood
In perfect poise of womanhood.
The dates may tell what fibs they will,
Look in her eyes, she's twenty still,—
Twenty! my memory fails; I mean
Just on the threshold of Eighteen!’

‘Granted: & yet I do not see’—
Why, Dance, her name was Emily

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Beginning that, E must include
All that is charming, all that's good.”

XV
To Don J. F. de R.

The leaves this little box contains
Have cured much grief, soothed many pains;
The lover parted from his dame
With these his frantic pulse can tame
Watching their languorous smoke-scarves drape
The dreamed perfections of her shape;
The Minoría in retreat
With these allay their passion's heat,
Content that plans of doughtiest stroke,
Begun in fire, should end in smoke,
And see from Earth the shadow pass
Of the cocked-hat of Cánovas;
With these Orovio can forget
The task of paying debt with debt,
While creditors no longer scold
At getting smoke instead of gold;
The musing poet finds in these
Verses that all the critics please,
And feels the shadow o'er his eyes
Of laurels that the world denies.

But of all mortals 'neath the moon
I owe them the most precious boon,
For prescient sniffs of these, be sure,
Alone Columbus could allure
To push his prow in desperate quest
Of shores conjectured in the West,
A voyage that, slow year by year,
(As coral-insects islands rear)
Built up the possibility
Of two such peerless friends for me.

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XVI
At the Photographer's—

“Oh make me so lovely, Apollo,” she cried,
“All women shall hate me & all men adore!”
“I can't.” “And a god?” “Twere time lost if I tried,
For the Graces united have done it before.”

2.

“The focus (that's the term, I think,) not yet
Adjusted? Doubtful still the point of view?”
“Pardon, signora, 'tis that I forget,
With you in focus, I've aught else to do.”

3.

“Odious! a failure! Why he's made me old!
I'll none of it!” “Then might I be so bold
To take a rear-view? Could my lens ensnare
That careless haycock of unrivalled hair,
The head's disdain, the lithe waist—I'll be bound
Whoever saw would pray till it turned round.”

XVII
The Turkey's Threnody

PROLOG IM HIMMEL:

Emilia slept: she dreamed of cloud-soft laces
Woven out of cobwebs by imprisoned queens;
Of musical clocks with smiles upon their faces
That skipped those hours in silence that are Spleen's;
Of china, triumph of all times & races,
Fortuny [?] fans, crane-silvered Gesso [?] screens,
And pearls to play at hideseek in her hair
Lustrous as moons & happy to be there;

Of Cabinets with secret drawers so hidden
The very dealers could not find them out,

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But which a spring concealed shoots forth unbidden
Touched as her aimless finger roved about,
Revealing gems collectors would have ridden
A thousand leagues to see or steal,—no doubt
Shut there when Christians of decided views
Avenged their Lord by murdering wealthy Jews.

She dreamed of many a kindness yet to do
And a smile flitted o'er her features mobile,
That faded as along the passage grew
A sound between a shuffle & hobble
Mixed with a voice that thrilled her through & through,
And sobs suppressed that ended in a gobble;
The door flew wide & in there stalked a turkey
Looming Gargantuan through the midnight murky.

A turkey's ghost I mean, for such there are
Though Huxley swear there can be no such thing;
And she perceived the ghost of a guitar
(Would they were all ghosts!) 'neath one shadowy wing;
On this It strummed a short prelusive bar,
And choking down a sob began to sing
In words like these: I give the sense alone,—
Emilia's dreams have music all her own.

Between the Darro & Xenil
Her garden held my happy coop,
A life, if modest, yet genteel,
Forbid to soar, it need not stoop.

A tranquil life, without a dream
That could beneath the surface sink
More than the flush upon a stream
From poppies flaming on its brink.

Two duties had I, both so plain
They never cheated me of rest;
To eat my fill of golden grain
And then to slumber & digest.

'Twas such a life as men would choose
Did Jove but listen to their prayer,
Fortunio's purse, the widow's curse,
The winter of the dormant bear.

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But I had more: a vision came,
Gracious beyond the reach of trope,
That kindled life to purer flame
And gave ambition nobler scope.

I saw her on a Morn of May,
While heaven still lingers in the hours,
As sweet & innocent as they,
Bringing their sunshine to her flowers.

Then I resolved of Southern Spain
The rarest essences to hoard,
And after death to rise again
The glory of her Xmas board.

So from maize, chestnuts, barley, corn,
The ethereal parts did I secrete,
Until one bright December morn
The ideal turkey stood complete.

Nothing in me that was not pure
As she to whom my fancies ran,
And for whose sake I could endure,
(I sometimes thought) to be a man.

Sweet Ceres built my atoms up
With all the triumphs of her care;
The mountain lymph supplied my cup,
My breath was Andalusian air.

My end I pass; enough to say
That, cased in cedar, as was fit,
And strewn with flowers, I rolled away
To beauty, goodness, grace & wit.

'Twas sad to die: yet comfort much
To know that, after brief eclipse
The immortal part of me should touch
A moment those enchanting lips.

But wicked men & void of soul
Whom mortals aduaneros call,
The jewel from its setting stole,—
Worst crime conceived since Adam's fall.

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Alas, must gallinaceous schemes
Of postobituary bliss
End, like poor mortals' futile dreams,
In disillusion such as this?

No, there are Fates & Furies too
That in the guilty stomach dwell,
With vengeful skill their torments brew,
And turn that Eden to a hell.

I joined with theirs my cunning hate
To give my ravishers their meed,
In nightmare on their bosoms sate,
And with their entrails disagreed.

Ah, little thought the guilty four,
Stamped with the signet of the Beast,
What tortures Midnight had in store,
Ripe fruit of that Thyestian feast.

One, searching North & searching South,
To find a pool three inches deep,
Submerged his desperate nose & mouth
And doth on Manzanares sleep.

One with the cord that bound my tomb
Did to the nearest tree proceed
(Ten leagues) & copied in his doom
Poor Judas's one virtuous deed.

One, who would fain his sin atone
By fasting till his latest breath,
Spent all upon the Spanish loan
And, waiting interest, starves to death.

And fourth, most desperate of all,
At once for grim Sangredo sent,
Who came obedient to his call
And had avenged me ere he went.

Farewell bright dreams & soft repose
To the clear soul that spends its power

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In gracious deeds & never knows
How goodness doubles Beauty's dower!

Custom-house officers.

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XIX

When through the night I sleepless lie,
By Fancy's light Caduceus led
A visionary troop steals by,
Shapes of the distant or the dead.

But one fair form, one peerless face,
Though called with tears, is called in vain;
That radiance of elusive grace
Mocks the dull pencils of the brain.

In a notebook of Lowell's recently loaned to Houghton Library by Dr. Francis Lowell Burnett, Lowell's grandson. The poem is dated Aug. 10, 1882, and is signed “J. R. L.,” but the manuscript is not in Lowell's hand. There is no way of being certain, but the poem may refer to Lowell's first wife, Maria, who died of tuberculosis in 1853.

XX
Elmwood Visited

One soft December day,
Spring came unpromised hither,
And, like a morn of May,
Brought all earth's wonders with her.

About her feet of fire
The breath of life was playing;
Some unfulfilled desire
Sent all the world amaying.

And all men's hearts like bees
O'er freshblown fancies hovered,—
Were ever hours like these,
Newmistressed & newlovered?

And every living thing
That had a lutestring in it
Gan whistle, chirp or sing
As lifesome as a linnet.

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The bareboned trees, thrilled through,
New leaves upon them fancied,
“‘Tis Arcady's, this blue,
No other like it,’” Pan said.

But there was one to whom
This joyance of Creation,
This burst of sun & bloom,
Brought merest tribulation.

This was an ancient owl
Who mused “What means this clatter
Of insect beast & fowl
And man too? What's the matter?

“This ringing in my ears,
And in my brain this humming,—
May fieldmice fail for years
If 'tisn't She that's coming!

“‘Maia!’ they sing (vile sound,
How in my ears they ding it!)
Is sweetness to be found?
Or light? She's sure to bring it.

“Who gave her right or power
Sunshine to waste so madly?
What she spends on an hour
Would serve a month not badly.

“These beautiful short days,
Of which Jove put too few in
When he defined Earth's ways,
Why should come & ruin?

“This kind of thing can't last,
My mother Night, a while hence,
Will lock all Nature fast
In darkness & in silence.

“Silence suits my tuwhoo,
And darkness helps my sight too,—
Things harmless as these two
I surely have a right to.”

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Deep in a hollow tree
The owl securely hid him
His dreary weird to dree,
For so his instincts bid him.

When he at length came out
By gathering dusk admonished
And tried his wonted shout,
Ne'er owl was so astonished.

His voice, I tell you true,
Jove had for penance altered,
Instead of loud tuwhoo
Boohoo, boohoo, he faltered.

Round Elmwood now all night
Like a lost soul he wanders,
And one, so luckless quite,
Listens & sighs & ponders.

“Boohoo, boohoo! take this
And to your proverbs add it,—
If you forego Luck's Kiss,
More pain in Might have had it.” [?]

To Mrs. Whitman, Dec. 23, 1889 (Houghton Library). Lowell began the letter: “I send you my nonsense. 'Tis a long-drawing-out of the fancy that likened a certain charming person to Madonna Primavera.” At the close of the letter, referring to the poem, he wrote: “It has drawn itself out—well, as such things do. Once in this easy canter, why pull up?”

[XXI. I've tasted the fishes]

I've tasted the fishes
And found 'em delishes:
Best thanks & best wishes!

Dated respectively, April 4, 1890, April 17, 1890, and April 8, 1891, this and the following two items were enclosed in letters to John Bartlett. The letters are part of a collection generously sent to me by Mr. Albert Frothingham of Lexington, Mass.; they are now in the Yale University Library. A fourth letter, dated May 11, 1890, contains this comment: “I had already got as far as the comparative of ‘delicious’ in thanking you for your kind remembrance of me. I should like to go as far as the superlative in thanking you again, but can think of no rhyme to deliciousest but viciousest which wouldn't please the ear as the fish did my palate.” John Bartlett was, of course, the compiler of the Familiar Quotations; he was a friend of many years standing and a faithful member of the “Whist Club.”

[XXII The newly sent fishes are]

The newly sent fishes are
Than tothers delishisar,

347

And warmer the wishes are
That hallow & sweeten 'em,
The while I am eatin' 'em.
For you whom I greet in 'em:
All health & felicity
Be yours in triplicity,
Amen, benedicite!

[XXIII Excellent Bartlett]

Excellent Bartlett,
I must a part let
Fly of my satisfaction:
After tasting your trout
I feel as stout
As who has done a good action.
Though my stomach's capricious,
It found them delicious
And certain to stow well:
With all decent haste
They largened the waist
Of yours J. R. Lowell.

This passage becomes more intelligible—and more poignant—when one realizes that it was written but a few months before Lowell's death from cancer.

XXIV
No Rewards or Punishments

Thou Christian Monad, with thy Torch & jar
That would'st burn Heaven up to its loneliest star,
And quench all Hell, that thus,—beneath-above—
God might be God alone, & Love but Love,
Too proud for gifts! Dash down that Jar & Torch
And learn a lowlier wisdom from the Church.
Know this—that God is Heaven! With Him who dwell
Find Love's reward perforce: & theirs is Hell
(Hate's dread self-prison) who pine in endless night
From Him remote, or blinded by His light!
Monad, thy Thyrsees is no Prophet Rod.
Who cancels Heaven & Hell must cancel God.

Undated (Barrett Library, University of Virginia).

348

XXV
In the Studio

Ah, fool! are you playing Orpheus?
The shadow that darkens your soul
Of a hand just closing to grasp you
And drag you back from the goal.

The chatter of mocking voices,
The venomous hiss & the sneer,
Unless they find answer within you,
Are nothing to hate or fear.

If you turn, she is lost forever
The lodestar of patient years,
The Beauty whose unkept promise
Fed your hope with inspiring tears.

Look forward, she still shall beckon
Beyond the noise & the cloud;
Look back, she is vanished forever,
You another lost in the crowd.

XXVI
At the Exhibition

Oh, were I only a farmer
And brought my produce to sell
With the rest in open market,
Methinks I should like it well!

For the eye & the thumb are critics
In such things, nor need to doubt;
If there's rot in potato or cabbage,
A cookmaid can find it out.

But here not a dolt surmises
The science behind the eye
But fancies the art of seeing
Thrown-in with the money to buy.

He who paid for the Venus of Melos,
Did he buy all the artist saw?

349

The temptation, the selfdenial,
That revealed at last the Law?

XXVII
The New Persephone

What power in Nature dwells that so
Herself & us can restore.
And senses drooping long ago
Make fresh from Eden's primal store.

New were the heavens; the stars were new
And in an amplitude of night,
Deep over deep of fleckless blue,
The moon was silent with delight.

Beneath the leaves the breezes slept,
The leaves were sound asleep as they,
And o'er the lawn the shadows crept
Denser & drowsier than by day.

It seemed not night, it was not day;
But lustre mixed for us alone
As in the Land of Faraway
That makes a weather of its own.

Fair Talbot spoke: the voice was sweet
And steeped in moonlight like the scene,

350

Yet summoned, from the past's retreat,
Of England's war the armoured sheen.

And in its ring I seemed to hear
Softer vibrating of that lance
Which cost the Sainted Maid so dear
And dimmed the oriflamme of France.

“Come!” said the voice & on we went
Through grasses gray with moonlit dew
To where in midnight's hushed content
Wide-eyed the countless marguerites grew.

How purely beautiful they were,
Those discs of unimpassioned snow,
Moored fast to earth, afloat on air!
How should their calm teaze fancy so?

Like tiny moons they swim at ease
While every one its moonthirst slakes,
And Dian joyed as when she sees
Her image in a thousand lakes.

Still on our leader strode to where
They thickened to a Milky Way
And there we plucked what seems more fair
More large & whiter than by day.

The moon beams wandering from the blue,
Her ancient self she seems to see
When with her nymphs, a lithelimbed crew,
She tracked the glades of Arcady.

“That step secure, that highpoised brow,
Almost to cheat me had sufficed;
But no Actaeon fears me now,
Ungoddessed & astronomized.

‘A basket at her elbow swings,
Some new Persephone is this?
And, of those two black-vistured things
That follow her, can one be Dis?

‘The gloomy gods perhaps are left,
Since Science spares the unbenign;
But me, of moral passions reft,
It wearies, banished here to shine.’

351

Thus Dian to herself, or so
My fancy caught it word for word,
And 'gan to feel myself de trop,
A tête-à-tête's obtrusive third.

Our pannier heaped we homeward turn
Across the moon-enchanted field,
Then through the close where roses burn
Like those that reddened for Crianhield.

Some, basking in the moonlight, mused
Of murmurs from Damascus blown,
And some, exiled in shade diffused
A fainter moonlight of their own.

And all the air with rose breath flushed
As they with passion red or pale
Leaned forth & listened as if hushed
With descent of the nightingale.

Ah, though the days be brief & few,
Droutty with prose & void of ease,
It would not matter if we knew
Some charm to lengthen nights like these.

But the chimes ‘you must go,’
And chiller grows the midnight's breath,
We are Time's puppets, high & low
Part when he bids in life & death.

The sorcery fades from earth & air,
And from our feet the sense of wings,
The moon is but a lantern's flare
Lighting us back to common things.

O'er Ashridge's embattled walls,
Ablaze with hospitable light,
Gray as of sudden aging falls
When we return to men & night.

Long may its Lord & Dame control
Their happy realm of field & hill
And to the body & the soul
Of countless friends bid welcome still.

But, ah, to me return no more
Such lunacies with such a guide
For Dis was there & shortly bore
Away with him a happy bride.