[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.