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THE CRANE CLASSICS 
 
 LOWELL'S 
 
 VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL, 
 
 AND OTHEE POEMS. 
 
 WITH BIOGRAPHY AND NOTES 
 
 BY 
 
 MAEGAEET HILL McOAETEE, 
 
 Formerly Teacher of English and American Litera- 
 ture, Topeka High School. 
 
 CRANE & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS 
 
 TOPEKA, KANSAS 
 
 1904 
 
I OCT 24 1904 • 
 
 CopyHght 1904, 
 
 By Crane & Company, 
 
 Topeka, Kansas. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE . 
 
 BlOGTRAPHY OF JaMES KuSSELL LoWELL 5 
 
 The Vision of Sir Launfal 18 
 
 Harvard Commemoration Ode 27 
 
 The First Snow-Fall 44 
 
 Villa Franca 46 
 
 The Nightingale in the Study 50 
 
 The Present Crisis 53 
 
 The Biglow Papers 60 
 
 Prometheus 67 
 
BIOGRAPHY OF JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 I. 
 
 "Happy he whom neither wealth nor fashion, 
 Nor the march of the encroaching city, 
 
 Drives an exile 
 From the hearth of his ancestral homestead." 
 
 Elmwood, the lifelong home of James Russell Lowell, 
 is a square, old-fashioned house in the city, once the vil- 
 lage, of Cambridge, where historic homes grow every year 
 more sacred to the American people. The house, as the 
 name suggests, is surrounded by fine old elm trees, and 
 set about by lilacs and syringa bushes. In the ante- 
 Eevolutionary days it was owned by Tory adherents, but 
 after the war for independence it became the property 
 of the Lowell family. Here, on February 22, 1819, 
 James Russell Lowell w^as born. And here, on August 
 12, 1891, he died, having never in all his life called any 
 other house his home. The Lowell family came originally 
 from Bristol, England, and settled in Newbury, Massa- 
 chusetts, in 1639. The poet's ancestors were mostly 
 professional men, noted for rendering much public service. 
 His great-grandfather was a minister at N^ewburyport. 
 His grandfather, John Lowell, was a member of the Mas- 
 sachusetts Constitutional Convention in 1780. It was 
 from his uncle, Francis Cabot Lowell, that the city of 
 Lowell takes its name. Another uncle is responsible 
 
 (5) 
 
6 THE CEANE CLASSICS. ' ^ 
 
 for establishing the famous Lowell Institute, of Boston. 
 James Kussell's father was a minister. His mother, 
 whose maiden name was Harriet Spence, was of Scotch 
 descent, and it was from her that her son received his 
 poetic heritage. There were four other children in the 
 family — two sons and two daughters — all older than 
 himself. 
 
 In 1844 Lowell was married to Maria White, a woman 
 of poetic temperament, whose influence over his life was 
 most helpful. Added to her fine literary sense was her 
 still finer moral sense of justice and high notion of purity 
 and right. Something of Maria Wliite-Lowell speaks in 
 The Present Crisis, The Commemoration Ode, and Villa 
 Franca. She died in 1853. On the night of her death 
 one of Longfellow's children was born. It was of this 
 occasion that Longfellow wrote his beautiful poem em 
 titled The Two Angels. There were three children born 
 to the poet and his wife. Blanche died in infancy, Walter 
 in childhood, while a third, Mrs. Burnett, outlived both 
 parents. 
 
 In 1857 Lowell married Miss Trancis Dunlap, of Port- 
 land, Maine. Her death occurred in 1885. For six 
 years longer the poet lived a quiet, somewhat lonely life 
 in his beloved Elmwood. 
 
 He passed away at the age of seventy-two, leaving be- 
 hind such a record of nobility and usefulness that he has 
 more than once been called America's greatest man of 
 letters. 
 
BIOGEAPHY OF JAMES EUSSELL LOWELL. 7 
 
 11. 
 
 Lowell lived always among books. His first years 
 were spent in a private school. Later he took up classical 
 studies under William Wells, an English teacher of great 
 thoroughness. He graduated from Harvard College in 
 1838, and two years later received his degree from the 
 Harvard Law School. 
 
 Although he made some effort to follow the law and 
 other pursuits, his inclination was always toward litera- 
 ture. And he soon returned to it after every departure. 
 So we may say of him, that his life-work, excepting his 
 years of public service, lay along literary lines. 
 
 In the year 1854 he delivered a course of lectures be- 
 fore the Lowell Institute. The following year he was 
 elected to succeed Longfellow, to the chair of Modern 
 Languages and Literature at Harvard College. He spent 
 two years abroad fitting himself for this work. From 
 1857 to 1861 Lowell was the editor of the Atlantic 
 Monthly. Later, with Charles Eliot Norton, he edited 
 the N orth- American Review for ten years. Again, in 
 1886, he lectured before the Lowell Institute. 
 
 His usefulness, however, was not limited to his teach- 
 ing power and his pen. Through these years here noted 
 he had made a study of history and politics. And when 
 in 1877 he was appointed United States minister to 
 Spain, he was amply able to fill the place offered to him. 
 In 1880 he was sent as minister to the Court of St. James. 
 'No American minister was ever more acceptable to the 
 English government, or was more honored by it. 
 
 Lowell's public service ranks him as a statesman of 
 
8 THE CKAI^E CLASSICS. 
 
 high order. He was not in the narrow sense a partisan, 
 but looked upon all public issues broadly as affecting the 
 people, not the political party. Some of his best literary 
 work is in his critical essays and addresses. It was in- 
 evitable that the fearless expression of his views should 
 create a storm of bitter criticism from party leaders, who 
 set office-holding above principle; but the perspective of 
 history has justified Lowell and given him fame and 
 honor. 
 
 III. 
 
 However, it is not Lowell the teacher, editor and states- 
 man who most interests the student of classics, but LoAvell 
 the poet, dear to every mind who studies well the product 
 of his pen. 
 
 He was a many-sided writer, an ^' all-round " man. 
 Note the titles given to him : ^^ The Songster of Elm- 
 wood," ^' The Author of the American Hudibras," " Our 
 Ablest Critic," " Our N'ew Theocritus." 
 
 Like all poets, he drew subjects from l^ature, whom he 
 studied and loved. E^otable among this class of his poems 
 are An Indian Summer Reverie, The Oaks, Beaver Brooh, 
 and Under the Willows. Also in his papers. My Garden 
 Acquaintances and A Good Word for Winter, one sees how 
 Lowell saw the outdoor world. In all American litera- 
 ture no poetry inspired by the sea is finer than Lowell's 
 Pictures from Appledore. It is praise-compelling, lead- 
 ing the reader by the grip of its power. 
 
 " Trust me, 'tis something to be cast 
 Face to face with one's self at last, 
 To be taken out of the fuss and strife. 
 The endless clatter of plate and knife, 
 
BIOGRAPHY OF JAMES EUSSELL LOWELL. 9 
 
 The bore of books and the bores of the street, 
 From the singular mess we agree to call Life, 
 Where that is best which most fools vote is. 
 And to be set down on one's own two feet 
 So nigh to the great warm heart of God, 
 You almost seem to feel it beat 
 Down from the sunshine and up from the sod." 
 
 So Lowell speaks when lie transforms his Apple do re 
 from a common island into the wonderful thing his Pic- 
 tures reveal. 
 
 Had the poet written nothing more than The Vision of 
 Sir Launfal, he would have taken first rank with his kind. 
 Since a study of it follows in this volume, it is not neces- 
 sary to consider it here. 
 
 The Biglow Papers, for their day and purpose, stand 
 unrivaled. The poet in them undertook to strike a 
 blow at human slavery and the extension of the territory 
 wherein it could exist. E^o forces are more powerful than 
 satire and sarcasm. While they are of necessity short- 
 lived, they are inversely proportional in their strength. In 
 these papers the quaint Yankee dialect appealed at once 
 to the common mind, while the richness of the humor 
 fascinated it. With the close of the Civil War their pur- 
 pose ceased to be, but by the merit of aptness their lines 
 became household phrases, and so they grew into the liv- 
 ing language from which they will never be uprooted. 
 
 But it must be conceded that the crowning glory of 
 Lowell's literary ability lay not in his graceful poetry on 
 I^ature, nor the beautiful imagery of his legends, but in 
 the strength and sublimity of his poems on Freedom. 
 Here the reach of his mentality, his nobleness of charac- 
 ter and clear insight and sense of justice^ had full play. 
 
10 THE CRANE CLASSICS. 
 
 So long as American literature endures, so long will The 
 Present Crisis and the Harvard Commemoration Ode be 
 studied with delight. And the inspiration to patriotism 
 and heroism and unselfish right-living that they teach will 
 still be a light to lead the future generations. 
 
 IV. 
 
 James Kussell Lowell's life was cast in fortunate lines. 
 Born of good parentage, surrounded Avith comforts, bred 
 in an atmosphere of books, with literary associations on 
 every hand, one more thing was in his favor. His time 
 of life befell when history was at a fever heat of interest 
 and inspiration. Wars sow the seeds for classic litera- 
 ture. AVars do not merely happen: they are the tre- 
 mendous expression of clashing principles. E^ot alone do 
 they spring from a wrestling of right with wrong — they 
 are the struggle of the principles of a Lesser Good against 
 a Greater Good. The poet who lives in the heart of 
 warring times and places can put a soul into his poetry 
 that no peaceful annals of history can inspire. In such 
 a time Lowell lived, and helped to make life great. His 
 laurels are of the unfading hue. As a writer he had 
 grace of expression and beauty of imaginative conception. 
 With these powers he lay his best gifts at the feet of 
 Truth, and she crovnied him with beauty and grace im- 
 mortal. 
 
 And let it not be forgotten that the common man, 
 Lowell, the teacher, the man of business, the statesman 
 among statesmen, the friend and husband and father, was 
 also noble, modest, capable, affectionate, brave, and true. 
 
BIOGRAPHY OF JAMES KUSSELL LOWELL. 11 
 
 Such an American needs no coat of arms nor blazon of 
 heraldry, but for all generations he will stand as he stood 
 in his own generation, — 
 
 "A king, ay, every inch a king." 
 
 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 
 
 According to the best authority, The Vision of Sir 
 Launfal was composed under the spell of a poetic transport 
 in forty-eight hours. It is one of the finest productions 
 in American literature. The following note was prefixed 
 to the first edition by the author, and was retained by him 
 in all subsequent editions: 
 
 "According to the mythology of the Romancers, the San Greal, 
 or Holy Grail, was the cup out of which Jesus Christ partook of the 
 last supper with his disciples. It was brought into England by 
 Joseph of Arimathea, and remained there, an object of pilgrimage 
 and adoration for many years, in the keeping of his lineal descend- 
 ants. It was incumbent upon those who had charge of it to be 
 chaste in thought, word and deed; but one of the keepers having, 
 broken this condition, the Holy Grail disappeared. From that time 
 it was a favorite enterprise of the knights of Arthur's court to go 
 in search of it. Sir Galahad was at last successful in finding it, 
 as may be read in the seventeenth book of the Romance of King 
 Arthur. Tennyson has made Sir Galahad the subject of one of the 
 most exquisite of his poems." 
 
 The purpose of the poem is to teach modern Christianity 
 through one of the old legends of King Arthur. It is 
 symmetrical in its proportions, the two parts being intro- 
 duced by preludes. In each of these preludes the poet, 
 like the organist, gives the keynote to his composition. 
 The first is full of. the upbubbling life and joy of the 
 June time. There is in it the suggestion of morning and 
 
12 THE CRANE CLASSICS. 
 
 sunshine, and youth and hope and high ambition, all of 
 which the first part holds. 
 
 The second prelude, in direct contrast with the first, 
 carries all the chill of December in its tone. The dreary 
 frost of old age and dead ambition is in its suggestion. 
 Hope has given place to Endurance, and Pride and Selfish- 
 ness are overcome by Humility and Love. 
 
 The literary style is exquisite. The poem abounds in 
 beautiful figures of rhetoric that are as finely contrasted 
 as the thought of the parts themselves, and the student 
 finds a series of word-pictures that holds a world-wide 
 lesson in its application. 
 
 In the study of this poem the following suggestions may 
 be useful: 
 
 1. To know the meaning of each word. 
 
 2. To study the figures of rhetoric, especially the meta- 
 phors and similes in which it excels. 
 
 3. To contrast the figures in the first part and prelude 
 with the corresponding figures in the last part and pre- 
 lude. 
 
 4. To commit to memory the finest passages. 
 Suggestions 1, 2, and 4 apply equally to all the poems 
 
 in this book. 
 
THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 
 
 PRELUDE TO PART FI^ST. 
 
 Over his keys the musing organist, 
 
 Beginning doubtfully and far aAvay, 
 First lets his fingers wander as they list, 
 
 And builds a bridge from Dreamland for his lay : 
 Then, as the touch of his loved instrument 
 
 Gives hope and fervor, nearer draws his theme, 
 First guessed by faint auroral flushes sent 
 
 Along the wavering vista of his dream. 
 
 'Not only around our infancy 
 Doth heaven with all its splendors lie ; 
 Daily, with souls that cringe and plot. 
 We Sinais climb and know it not. 
 
 Over our manhood bend the skies ; 
 
 Against our fallen and traitor lives 
 The great winds utter prophecies : 
 
 With our faint hearts the mountain strives; 
 Its arms outstretched, the druid wood 
 
 Waits with its benedicite; 
 And to our age's drowsy blood 
 
 Still shouts the inspiring sea. 
 
 Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us; 
 The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in, 
 
 (13) 
 
 10 
 
 15 
 
 20 
 
14 THE CEANE CLASSICS. 
 
 The priest hatli his fee who comes and shrives us, 
 We bargain for the graves we lie in; 
 
 At the Devil's booth are all things sold, 
 Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold ; 
 
 For a cap and bells our lives we pay, 
 Bubbles we buy with a whole soul's tasking: 
 
 'T is heaven alone that is given away, 
 'Tis only God may be had for the asking; 
 'No price is set on the lavish summer; 
 June may be had by the poorest comer. 
 
 And what is so rare as a day in June ? 
 
 Then, if ever, come perfect days; 
 Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune, 
 
 And over it softly her warm ear lays: 
 Whether we look, or whether we listen. 
 We hear life murmur, or see it glisten; 
 Every clod feels a stir of might, 
 
 An instant within it that reaches and towers. 
 And, groping blindly above it for light, 
 
 Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers; 
 The flush of life may well be seen 
 
 Thrilling back over hills and valleys; 
 The cowslip startles in meadows green. 
 
 The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice. 
 And there's never a leaf nor a blade too mean 
 
 To be some happy creature's palace; 
 The little bird sits at his door in the sun, 
 
 Atilt like a blossom among the leaves, 
 And lets his illumined being o'er run 
 
 With the deluge of summer it receives; 
 
 25 
 
 30 
 
 35 
 
 40 
 
 45 
 
 50 
 
THE VISION OF SIR LAUIS'FAL. 15 
 
 His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings, 
 And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings ; 
 He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest, — 
 In the nice ear of ITature which song is the best ? 
 
 55 
 
 65 
 
 'Now is the high-tide of the year, 
 
 And whatever of life hath ebbed away 
 Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer. 
 
 Into every bare inlet and creek and bay; ^^ 
 
 Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it. 
 We are happy now because God wills it ; 
 'No matter how barren the past may have been, 
 'T is enough for us now that the leaves are green; 
 We sit in the warm shade and feel right well 
 How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell; 
 We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing 
 That skies are clear and grass is growing; 
 The breeze comes whispering in our ear. 
 That dandelions are blossoming near. 
 
 That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing. 
 That the river is bluer than the sky. 
 That the robin is plastering his house hard by; 
 And if the breeze kept the good news back, 
 For other couriers we should not lack; '^^ 
 
 We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing, — 
 And hark ! how clear bold Chanticleer, 
 Warmed with the new wine of the year. 
 
 Tells all in his lusty crowing ! 
 
 Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how ; ^^ 
 
 Everything is happy now. 
 
 Everything is upward striving ; 
 
 70 
 
90 
 
 16 THE CRAN-E CLASSICS. 
 
 'T is as easy now for the lieart to be true 
 As for grass to be green or skies to be blue^ — 
 
 'T is the natural way of living: 
 Who knows wliitlier the clouds have fled? 
 
 In the unscarred heaven they leave no wake; 
 And the eyes forget the tears they have shed, 
 
 The heart forgets its sorrow and ache; 
 The ^ul partakes of the season's youth, 
 
 And the sulphurous rifts of passion and woe 
 Lie deep 'neath a silence pure and smooth, 
 
 Like burnt-out craters healed with snow. 
 What w^onder if Sir Launfal now 
 Remembered the keeping of his vow ? ^^ 
 
 PART FIRST. 
 I. 
 My golden spurs now bring to me, 
 
 a 
 
 And bring to me my richest mail, 
 For to-morrow I go .over land and sea 
 
 In search of the Holy Grail; 
 Shall never a bed for me be spread, ^^^ 
 
 l^ov shall a pillow be under my head, 
 Till I begin my vow to keep; 
 Here on the rushes will I sleep. 
 And perchance there may come a vision true 
 Ere day create the world anew." ^^^ 
 
 Slowly Sir Launfal's eyes grew dim, 
 
 Slumber fell like a cloud on him. 
 And into his soul the vision flew. 
 
THE visioisr of sir lauitfal. 
 
 II. 
 The crows flapped over by twos and threes, 
 In the pool drowsed the cattle up to their knees, 
 
 The little birds sang as if it were 
 
 The one day of summer in all the year, 
 And the very leaves seemed to sing on the trees : 
 The castle alone in the landscape lay 
 Like an outpost of winter, dull and gray: 
 'Twas the proudest hall in the North Countree, 
 iVnd never its gates might opened be. 
 Save to lord or lady of high degree; 
 Summer besieged it on every side, 
 But the churlish stone her assaults defied; 
 She could not scale the chilly wall. 
 Though around it for leagues her pavilions tall 
 Stretched left and right. 
 Over the hills and out of sight; 
 
 Green and broad was every tent. 
 
 And out of each a murmur went 
 Till the breeze fell off at night. 
 
 III. 
 
 The drawbridge dropped with a surly clang, 
 And through the dark arch a charger sprang. 
 Bearing Sir Launfal, the maiden knight. 
 In his gilded mail, that flamed so bright 
 It seemed the dark castle had gathered all 
 Those shafts the fierce sun had shot over its wall 
 
 In his siege of three hundred summers long, 
 And, binding them all in one blazing sheaf, 
 
 Had cast them forth: so, young and strong, 
 ~2 
 
 17 
 
 't>7 
 
 110 
 
 115 
 
 120 
 
 125 
 
 130 
 
 135 
 
140 
 
 145 
 
 18 THE CEAI^E CLASSICS. 
 
 And lightsome as a locust-leaf, 
 
 Sir Laiinfal flashed forth in his nnscarred mail, 
 
 To seek in all climes for the Holy Grail. 
 
 IV. 
 
 It was morning on hill and stream and tree. 
 And morning in the young knight's heart; 
 
 Only the castle moodily 
 
 Rebuffed the gifts of the sunshine free, 
 And gloomed by itself apart; 
 
 The season brimmed all other things up 
 
 Full as the rain fills the pitcher-plant's cup. 
 
 V. 
 
 As Sir Launfal made morn through the darksome gate. 
 
 He was 'ware of a leper, crouched by the same. 
 Who begged with his hand and moaned as he sate ; 
 
 And a loathing over Sir Launfal came; ^^^ 
 
 The sunshine went out of his soul with a thrill, 
 
 The flesh 'neath his armor 'gan shrink and crawl. 
 And midway its leap his heart stood still 
 
 Like a frozen waterfall; 
 For this man, so foul and bent of stature, ^^^ 
 
 Rasped harshly against his dainty nature. 
 And seemed the one blot on the summer morn, — 
 So he tossed him a piece of gold in scorn. 
 
 VI. 
 
 The leper raised not the gold from the dust: 
 
 " Better to me the poor man's crust, ^^^ 
 
 Better the blessing of the poor. 
 
 Though I turn me empty from his door ; 
 
THE VISION OF SIK LAUlTFAIi. 19 
 
 Tliat is no true alms wliicli tlie hand can hold; 
 He gives nothing but worthless gold 
 
 Who gives from a sense of duty; 
 But he who gives but a slender mite. 
 And gives to that which is out of sight, 
 
 165 
 
 That thread of the all-sustaining Beauty 
 "Which runs through all and doth all unite, — 
 The hand cannot clasp the whole of his alms, 
 The heart outstretches its eager palms, 
 For a god goes with it and makes it store 
 To the soul that was starving in darkness before." 
 
 PRELUDE TO PART SECOND. 
 
 DowiT swept the chill wind from the mountain peak. 
 From the snow five thousand summers old; 
 
 On open wold and hill-top bleak 
 It had gathered all the cold. 
 
 And whirled it like sleet on the wanderer's cheek ; 
 
 It carried a shiver everywhere 
 
 From the unleafed boughs and pastures bare; 
 
 The little brook heard it and built a roof 
 
 '^eath which he could house him, winter-proof; 
 
 All night by the white stars' frosty gleams 
 
 He groined his arches and matched his beams; 
 
 Slender and clear were his crystal spars 
 
 As the lashes of light that trim the stars; 
 
 He sculptured every summer delight 
 
 In his halls and chambers out of sight; 
 
 Sometimes his tinkling waters slipt 
 
 Down through a frost-leaved forest-crypt, 
 
 170 
 
 175 
 
 180 
 
 185 
 
 190 
 
20 THE CRAWE CLASSICS. 
 
 Long, sparkling aisles of steel-stemmed trees 
 
 Bending to counterfeit a breeze ; 
 
 Sometimes the roof no fretwork knew 
 
 But silvery mosses that downward grew ; 
 
 Sometimes it was carved in sharp relief ^^^ 
 
 With quaint arabesques of ice-fern leaf; 
 
 Sometimes it was simply smooth and clear 
 
 For the gladness of heaven to shine through, and here 
 
 He had caught the nodding bulrush-tops 
 
 And hung them thickly with diamond-drops, ^oo 
 
 That crystalled the beams of moon and sun. 
 
 And made a star of every one: 
 
 'No mortal builder's most rare device 
 
 Could match this winter-palace of ice; 
 
 'Twas as if every image that mirrored lay ^^' 
 
 In his depths serene through the summer day. 
 
 Each fleeting shadow of earth and sky, 
 
 Lest the happy model should be lost, 
 Had been mimicked in fairy masonry 
 
 By the elfin builders of the frost. 210 
 
 Within the hall are song and laughter, 
 
 The cheeks of Christmas grow red and jolly. 
 And sprouting is every corbel and rafter 
 
 With lightsome green of ivy and holly; 
 Through the deep gulf of the chimney wide 215 
 
 Wallows the Yule-log's roaring tide; 
 The broad flame-pennons droop and flap 
 
 And belly and tug as a flag in the wind ; 
 Like a locust shrills the imprisoned sap. 
 
 Hunted to death in its galleries blind ; 220 
 
225 
 
 THE VISION" OF SIR LAUNFAL. 21 
 
 And swift little troops of silent sparks, 
 
 Now pausing, now scattering away as in fear, 
 Go threading the soot-forest's tangled darks 
 
 Like herds of startled deer. 
 But the wind without was eager and sharp. 
 Of Sir Launfal's gray hair it makes a harp, 
 And rattles and wrings 
 The icy strings. 
 Singing, in dreary monotone, 
 A Christmas carol of its o^\m. 
 Whose burden still, as he might guess. 
 Was — ^^ Shelterless, shelterless, shelterless ! '' 
 The voice of the seneschal flared like a torch 
 As he shouted the wanderer away from the porch. 
 And he sat in the gateway and saw all night 
 The great hall-fire, so cheery and bold, 
 Through the window-slits of the castle old, 
 Build out its piers of ruddy light 
 Again the drift of the cold. 
 
 PART SECOND. 
 I. 
 
 There was never a leaf on bush or tree. 
 The bare boughs rattled shudder ingly ; 
 The river was dumb and could not speak. 
 
 For the weaver Winter its shroud had spun, 
 A single crow on the tree-top bleak 
 
 From his shining feathers shed off the cold sun ; 
 Again it was morning, but shrunk and cold. 
 As if her veins were sapless and old, 
 And she rose up decrepitly 
 For a last dim look at earth and sea. 
 
 230 
 
 23! 
 
 240 
 
 245 
 
22 
 
 THE CRATsTE CLASSICS. 
 
 II. 
 
 Sir Launfal turned from his own hard gate, ^^^ 
 
 For another heir in his earldom sate; 
 
 An old, bent man, worn out and frail. 
 
 He came back from seeking the Holy Grail; 
 
 Little he recked of his earldom's loss, 
 
 'No more on his surcoat was blazoned the cross, ^^^ 
 
 But deep in his soul the sign he wore. 
 
 The badge of the suffering and the poor. 
 
 III. 
 
 Sir Launfal's raiment thin and spare 
 
 Was idle mail 'gainst the barbed air. 
 
 For it was just at the Christmas time ; ^^^ 
 
 So he mused, as he sat, of a sunnier clime. 
 
 And sought for a shelter from cold and snow 
 
 In the light and warmth of long-ago; 
 
 He sees the snake-like caravan crawl 
 
 O'er the edge of the desert, black and small, " ^es 
 
 Then nearer and nearer, till, one by one, 
 
 He can count the camels in the sun, 
 
 As over the red-hot sands they pass 
 
 To where, in its slender necklace of grass. 
 
 The little spring laughed and leapt in the shade, ^^^ 
 
 And with its own self like an infant played, 
 
 And waved its signal of palms. 
 
 IV. 
 
 " For Christ's sweet sake, I beg an alms ; " — 
 
 The happy camels may reach the spring. 
 
 But Sir Launfal sees only the grewsome thing, 275 
 
THE VISION" OF SIR LAUI^TFAL. 23 
 
 The leper, lank as the rain-blanched bone, 
 That cowers beside him, a thing as lone 
 And white as the ice-isles of IsTorthern seas 
 In the desolate horror of his disease. 
 
 V. 
 
 280 
 
 And Sir Laiinfal said, — "I behold in thee 
 
 An image of Him who died on the tree; 
 
 Thou also hast had thy crown of thorns, — 
 
 Thou also hast had the world's buffets and scorns, — 
 
 And to thy life were not denied 
 
 The wounds in the hands and feet and side : ^^^ 
 
 Mild Mary's Son, acknowledge me ; 
 
 Behold, through him, I give to Thee ! " 
 
 VI, 
 
 Then the soul of the leper stood up in his eyes 
 
 And looked at Sir Launfal, and straightway he 
 Remembered in what a haughtier guise ^^^ 
 
 He had flung an alms to leprosie. 
 When he girt his young life up in gilded mail 
 And set forth in search of the Holy Grail. 
 The heart within him was ashes and dust; 
 He parted in twain his single crust, ^^^ 
 
 He broke the ice on the streamlet's brink, 
 And gave the leper to eat and drink: 
 'T was a mouldy crust of coarse brown bread, 
 
 'T was water out of a wooden bowl, — 
 Yet with fine wheaten bread was the leper fed, ^^^ 
 
 And 'twas red wine he drank with his thirsty soul. 
 
24 
 
 THE CRANE CLASSICS. 
 
 VII. 
 
 As Sir Laimfal mused with a downcast face, 
 
 A light shone round about the place ; 
 
 The leper no longer crouched at his side, 
 
 But stood before him glorified, ^^^ 
 
 Shining and tall and fair and straight 
 
 As the pillar that stood by the Beautiful Gate, — 
 
 Himself the Gate whereby men can 
 
 Enter the temple of God and Man. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 His words were shed softer than leaves from the pine, 
 
 And they fell on Sir Launfal as snows on the brine. 
 
 That mingle their softness and quiet in one 
 
 With the shaggy unrest they float down upon; 
 
 And the voice that was calmer than silence said, 
 
 ^^Lo it is I, be not afraid! ^^^ 
 
 In many climes, without avail, 
 
 Thou hast spent thy life for the Holy Grail; 
 
 Behold, it is here, — this cup which thou 
 
 Didst fill at the streamlet for Me but now; 
 
 This crust is My body broken for thee, ' ^^^ 
 
 This water His blood that died on the tree; 
 
 The Holy Supper is kept, indeed. 
 
 In whatso we share with another's need : 
 
 !N^ot what we give, but what we share, — 
 
 For the gift without the giver is bare ; ^^^ 
 
 Who gives himself with his alms feeds three, — 
 
 Himself, his hungering neighbor, and Me/' 
 
THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 25 
 
 IX. 
 
 Sir Launf al awoke as from a swoimd : — 
 ^^ The Grail in my castle here is found ! 
 Hang my idle armor np on the wall, 
 Let it be the spider's banquet-hall; 
 He must be fenced with stronger mail 
 Who would seek and find the Holy Grail." 
 
 330 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 What is a prelude? What is the purpose of this prelude? 
 Define : 
 
 7. Auroral. 
 
 8. Vista. 
 
 9-10. See Wordsworth's Intimations of Immortality, line 67: 
 " Heaven lies about us in our infancy." 
 12. Sinais. 
 
 17. Druids. 
 25. Shrines. 
 
 18. Benedicite (Latin) ; literally, Be thou blessed. A blessing. 
 27. The cap hung round with bells was the head-gear of the court 
 
 jester of the Middle Ages when the dress marked the rank to which 
 each person belonged. See Shakespeare's King Lear, The Merchant 
 of Venice, and Scott's Ivanhoe. 
 
 42. Explain line. 
 
 52. Explain " deluge of summer." 
 
 77. Define " Chanticleer." 
 
 91-93. Note the fine simile. 
 
 97. "Mail." Explain. 
 
 Define : 
 
 100. " Shall never a bed." 
 
 103. "Rushes." 
 
 116. North Countree — the former spelling in rhyme. 
 
 120. Explain " churlish stones." 
 
 Define : 
 
 122. Pavilions. 
 
 128. Drawbridge. 
 
 130. Maiden knight. One whose honors were yet to be won, , 
 
26 THE CEANE CLASSICS. 
 
 Define : 
 
 146. Pitcher-plant. 
 
 147. Explain the rhetorical figure. 
 164. What is "worthless gold"? 
 
 160-173. Commit to memory. Contrast two preludes, carefully. 
 
 181-210. Commit to memory. 
 
 Define: 
 
 176. Wold. 
 
 184. Groined. 
 
 196. Arabesque. 
 
 204. Catherine II., Empress of Russia, had an ice palace built to 
 gratify her royal whim. It lasted only a short time. 
 
 Note the contrast between the picture in 211-224 and the one in 
 225-231. 
 
 213. Define " corbel." 
 
 216. The Yule-log was the huge log of wood burned by the Scandi- 
 navians at the feast of Jule (Yule). The time of this feast cor- 
 responded with our Christmas, and when the Scandinavians became 
 Christians they celebrated the Christmastide as they had their 
 Yule-tide. So long as the Yule-log lasted there was holiday and 
 feasting in the castle. 
 
 217. Explain " flame-pennons." 
 221-224. Note the beautiful figure. 
 233. Define seneschal. 
 
 Contrast 244 with 109. 
 
 Contrast 246-249 with 140-146. 
 
 250. "Hard gate." Explain. 
 
 255. Define " surcoat." 
 
 259. "Idle mail." Explain. 
 
 278-279. Note the powerful simile. 
 
 294-327. Commit to memory. 
 
 307. What was the " Beautiful Gate " ? 
 
 315-327. Point out the two noblest lines. 
 
 What is the finest simile in the poem? The finest metaphor? 
 What is the purpose of the poem? 
 
 How long a time did the author spend in composing it? 
 If you were a painter, what group of lines suggests the finest 
 picture to put on canvas? 
 
ODE RECITED AT THE HARVARD COMMEMO- 
 RATION 
 
 [The following poem was read by Mr. Lowell on July 21, 1865, at 
 Harvard University. The occasion was the commemoration of the 
 services of the living and the dead Harvard students and graduates 
 who had fought for the Union in the Civil War.] 
 
 I. 
 
 Weak-wi]^ged is song, 
 'Nov 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 ^ 
 
 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: ^^ 
 
 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 
 Her wisest Scholars, those who understood 
 The deeper teaching of her mystic tome. 
 
 And offered their fresh lives to make it good: 
 ISTo lore of Greece or Rome, 
 No science peddling with the names of things, 
 
 (27) 
 
 15 
 
 20 
 
28 
 
 THE CEAISTE CLASSICS. 
 
 Or reading stars to find inglorious fates, 
 
 Can lift our life with wings 
 Tar 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 ! 
 
 ISTot such the trumpet-call 
 
 Of thy diviner mood, 
 
 That could thy sons entice so 
 
 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 ^5 
 
 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, ^^ ^o 
 
 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. ^5 
 
 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, 
 
HARVARD COMMEMORATION ODE. 29 
 
 So loved her that they died for her, ^^ 
 
 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; ^^ 
 
 They followed her and found her 
 Where all may hope to find, 
 ^ot in the ashes of the burnt-out mind. 
 But beautiful, with danger's sweetness round her. 
 
 Where faith made whole with deed. ^^ 
 
 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. ^^ 
 
 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 "^^ 
 
 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; '^" 
 
 The little that we do 
 
 Is but half -nobly true; 
 
 With our laborious hiving 
 
30 THE CEAiq^E CLASSICS. 
 
 What men call treasure, and tlie gods call dross, 
 
 Life seems a jest of Fate's contriving, ^^ 
 
 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, ^^ 
 
 Loves, hates, ambitions, and immortal fires. 
 
 Are tossed pell-mell together in the grave. 
 
 But stay ! no age was e'er degenerate, 
 
 LTnless men held it at too cheap a rate. 
 
 For in our likeness still we shape our fate. ^^ 
 
 Ah, there is something here 
 
 TJnfathomed by the cynic's sneer, 
 
 Something that gives our feeble light 
 
 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 dullness with the beams of stars, 
 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 
 
 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. 
 
HARVARD COMMEMORATIOIT ODE. 31 
 
 V. 
 
 Whitlier leads the path 
 
 To ampler fates that leads ? 
 
 ISTot down through flowery meads, ^^^ 
 
 To reap an aftermath 
 
 Of youth's vainglorious weeds ; 
 
 But up the steep J amid the wrath 
 And shock of deadly-hostile creeds, 
 Where the world's best hope and stay ^^^ 
 
 By battle's flashes groups a desperate way, 
 And every turf the fierce foot clings to bleeds. 
 
 Peace hath her not ignoble wreath, 
 
 Ere yet the sharp, decisive word 
 Light the black lips of cannon, and the sword 
 
 Dreams in its easeful sheath ; 
 But some day the live coal behind the thought, 
 
 Whether from Baal's stone obscene. 
 
 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. 
 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 ; 
 I claim of thee the promise of thy youth ; 
 Give me thy life, or cower in empty phrase. 
 
 120 
 
 125 
 
 130 
 
 135 
 
32 THE CRAN'E CLASSICS. 
 
 The victim of thy genius, not its mate ! " 
 Life may be given in many ways, 
 And loyalty to Truth be sealed 
 As bravely in the closet as the field, 
 
 So bountiful is Fate ; ^^^ 
 
 But then to stand beside her, 
 When craven churls deride her. 
 To front a lie in arms and not to yield, 
 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. 
 Fed from within with all the strength he needs. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Such was he, our Martyr-Chief, 
 
 Whom late the E'ation he had led, 
 With ashes on her head. 
 Wept with the passion of an angry grief : 
 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 
 
 Save on some worn-out plan. 
 
 Repeating us by rote: 
 For him her Old- World moulds aside she threw. 
 And, choosing sweet clay from the breast 
 
 Of the unexhausted West, 
 With stuff untainted shaped a hero new. 
 
 150 
 
 155 
 
 160 
 
HARVARD COMMEMORATION ODE. 33 
 
 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; 
 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 ; 
 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. 
 His was no lonely mountain-peak of mind. 
 Thrusting to thin air o'er our cloudy bars, 
 A sea-mark now, now lost in vapors blind; ^^^ 
 
 Broad prairie rather, genial, level-lined, 
 Fruitful and friendly for all human-kind. 
 Yet also nigh to heaven and loved of loftiest stars. 
 
 E^othing of Europe here, 
 Or, then, of Europe fronting mornward still, ^^^ 
 
 Ere any names of Serf and Peer 
 Could ITature's equal scheme deface 
 
 And thwart her genial will; 
 Here was a type of the true elder race. 
 And one of Plutarch's men talked with us face to face. ^^^ 
 
 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, 
 
 —3 
 
200' 
 
 205 
 
 34 THE CEANE CLASSICS. 
 
 Safe in himself as in a fate. ^®' 
 
 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. 
 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. 
 
 The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man, 
 Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame, 
 ISTew birth of our new soil, the first American. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Long as man's hope insatiate can discern 
 Or only guess some more inspiring goal 
 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; ^^^ 
 
 So long this faith to some ideal Good, 
 
 Under whatever mortal name it masks, 
 
 Freedom, Law, Country, this ethereal mood 
 That thanks the Fates for their severer tasks, 
 
 Feeling its challenged pulses leap, ^^^ 
 
 "While others skulk in subterfuges cheap. 
 And, set in Danger's van, has all the boon its asks. 
 
 Shall win man's praise and woman's love. 
 
 Shall be a wisdom that we set above 
 
 210 
 
230 
 
 235 
 
 HARVARD COMMEMORATION" ODE. 35 
 
 All other skills and gifts to culture dear, ^^^ 
 
 A virtue round whose forehead we enwreathe 
 Laurels that with a living passion breathe 
 
 When other crowns grow, while we twine them, sear. 
 Wliat brings us thronging these high rites to pay, 
 
 And seal these hours the noblest of our year, 
 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 't was they won it, sword in hand. 
 Making the nettle danger soft for us as silk. 
 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, 
 And will not please the ear : 
 I sweep them for a psean, but they wane 
 
 Again and yet again 
 Into a dirge, and die away in pain. 
 In these brave ranks I only see the gaps, 
 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 ^^^ 
 
 Salute the sacred dead, 
 Who went, and who return not. — Say not so ! 
 ^T is not the grapes of Canaan that repay. 
 But the high faith that failed not by the way; 
 
 240 
 
 245 
 
36 THE CRANE CLASSICS. 
 
 IX. 
 
 255 
 
 Virtue treads paths that end not in the grave; 
 'No bar 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: ^^^ 
 
 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, ^^^ 
 
 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 ^^^ 
 
 Of morn on their white Shields of Expectation! 
 
 But is there hope to save 
 Even this ethereal essence from the grave? 
 What ever 'scaped Oblivion's subtle wrong 
 
 Save a few clarion names, or golden threads of song ? ^^^ 
 Before my musing eye 
 
 , The mighty ones of old sweep by, 
 
 Disvoiced now and insubstantial things. 
 
 As noisy once as we ; poor ghosts of kings. 
 
 Shadows of empire wholly gone to dust, ^^^ 
 
 And many races, nameless long ago, 
 
 To darkness driven by that imperious gust 
 
 Of ever-rushing Time that here doth blow : 
 
290 
 
 295 
 
 HAEVAED COMMEMOEATION ODE. 37 
 
 O visionary world, condition strange, 
 
 Where naught abiding is but only Change, ^^^ 
 
 Where the deep-bolted stars themselves still shift and 
 range ! 
 
 Shall we to more continuance make pretence ? 
 Renown builds tombs ; a life-estate is Wit ; 
 
 And, bit by bit. 
 The cunning years steal all from us but woe : 
 
 Leaves are we, whose decays no harvest sow. 
 But, when we vanish hence, 
 
 Shall they lie forceless in the dark below. 
 
 Save to make green their little length of sods. 
 
 Or deepen pansies for a year or two, 
 
 Who now to us are shining-sweet as gods ? 
 
 Was dying all they had the skill to do ? 
 
 That were not fruitless : but the Soul resents 
 
 Such short-lived service, as if blind events 
 
 Ruled without her, or earth could so endure; 
 
 She claims a more divine investiture 
 
 Of longer tenure than Fame's airy rents ; 
 
 Whate'er she touches doth her nature share ; 
 
 Her inspiration haunts the ennobled air. 
 Gives eyes to mountains blind, 
 
 Ears to the deaf earth, voices to the wind, ^^^ 
 
 And her clear trump sings succor every^diere 
 
 By lonely bivouacs to the wakeful mind ; 
 
 For soul inherits all that soul could dare: 
 Yea, Manhood hath a wider span 
 
 And larger privilege of life than man. 
 
 The single deed, the private sacrifice. 
 
 So radiant now through proudly-hidden tears, 
 
 300 
 
 10 
 
38 THE CRANE CLASSICS. 
 
 Is covered up ere long from mortal eyes 
 With thouglitless drift of tlie deciduous years ; 
 But that high privilege that makes all men peers, ^^^ 
 That leap of heart whereby a people rise 
 Up to a noble anger's height, 
 And, flamed on by the Fates, not shrink, but grow more 
 bright. 
 That swift validity in noble veins, 
 Of choosing danger and disdaining shame, ^^^ 
 
 Of being set on flame 
 By the pure fire that flies all contact base. 
 But wraps its chosen with angelic might, 
 These are imperishable gains. 
 Sure as the sun, medicinal as light, ^^^ 
 
 These hold great futures in their lusty reins 
 And certify to earth a new imperial race. 
 
 X. 
 
 Who now shall sneer ? 
 Who dare again to say we trace 
 Our lines to a plebeian race ? ^^^ 
 
 Roundhead and Cavalier ! 
 Dumb are those names erewhile in battle loud ; 
 Dream-footed as the shadow of a cloud, 
 
 They flit across the ear : 
 That is best blood that hath most iron in 't. ^^^ 
 
 To edge resolve with, pouring without stint 
 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, 
 
HARVAED COMMEMOEATION ODE. 39 
 
 Matclied with one leaf of that plain civic wreath 
 Our brave for honor's blazon shall bequeath, 
 
 Through whose desert a rescued l^ation sets 
 Her heel on treason, and the trumpet hears ^*^ 
 
 Shout victory, tingling Europe's sullen ears 
 
 With vain resentments and more vain regrets ! 
 
 XI. 
 
 ]^ot in anger, not in pride. 
 
 Pure from passion's mixture rude. 
 
 Ever to base earth allied, ^^^ 
 
 But with far-heard gratitude. 
 
 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, 
 
 'Not without a martial ring, 
 
 ISTot without a prouder tread 
 
 And a peal of exultation: 
 
 Little right has he to sing ^^^ 
 
 Through whose heart in such an hour 
 
 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 Eate, 
 But the pith and marrow of a ISTation 
 Drawing force from all her men. 
 Highest, humblest, weakest, all, 
 
 Eor her time of need, and then ^^^ 
 
 Pulsing it again through them, 
 
40 THE CKAIVJ-E CLASSICS. 
 
 Till the basest can no longer cower, 
 Feeling his soul spring np divinely tall, 
 Touched but in passing by her mantle-hem. 
 Come back, then, noble pride, for 't is her dower ! ^^^ 
 
 How could poet ever tower, 
 If his passions, hopes, and fears. 
 If his triumphs and his tears, 
 Kept not measure with his people ? 
 Boom, cannon, boom to all the winds and waves 1 ^^^ 
 
 Clash out, glad bells, from every rocking steeple ! 
 Banners, advance with triumph, bend your staves ! 
 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 
 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! 390 
 
 She that lifts up the manhood of the poor, 
 She of the open soul and open door. 
 With room about her hearth for all mankind ! 
 The fire is dreadful in her eyes no more; 
 From her bold front the helm she doth unbind, ^^^ 
 
 Sends all her handmaid armies back to spin. 
 And bids her navies, that so lately hurled 
 Their crashing battle, hold their thunders in. 
 Swimming like birds of calm along the unharmful shore. 
 1^0 challenge sends she to the elder world, ^^^ 
 
 That looked askance and hated; a light scorn 
 
HAEVAED COZvIMEMOEATIOK' ODE. 41 
 
 Plays o'er her moutli, as round her mighty knees 
 She calls her children back, and waits the morn 
 Of nobler day, enthroned between her subject seas." 
 
 405 
 
 410 
 
 415 
 
 XII. 
 
 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 ! 
 'No poorest in thy borders but may now 
 Lift to the juster skies a man's enfranchised brow, 
 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. 
 The rosy edges of their smile lay bare. 
 What words divine of lover or of ]Doet 
 Could tell our love and make thee know it, 
 Among the Nations bright beyond compare ? 
 
 What were our lives without thee ? 
 
 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 I ^^^ 
 
 ^■OTES. 
 
 2. Define " elear-ethered.'' 
 
 5. Explain meaning. 
 
 9. What are "' squadron-strophes '" ? 
 13. Lethe, a river in Hades, whose waters, when drunk, caused 
 forgetfulness of the past; oblivion. 
 
 15. Reverend Mother — Alma Mater. Harvard University. 
 
 420 
 
42 THE CEANE CLASSICS. 
 
 37. Veritas — truth. The emblem of Harvard University is a 
 shield with "Veritas " upon three open books. 
 
 38. Explain " unprolific sheath." 
 42-65. Commit to memory. 
 
 85. What are the " pasteboard passions and desires " ? 
 94. Define " immunity." 
 107. Explain "undegenerate years." 
 117. Explain the line. 
 
 123. Baal. The god of the Phoenicians, Assyrians, and other an- 
 cient heathen nations. 
 
 136. Explain the meaning. 
 
 137-149. Commit to memory. 
 
 Name some of the " stalwart men " of history. 
 
 150. Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 151. Antecedent of whom. 
 
 152. Antecedent of her. 
 
 175-177. Note the fineness of the figure. 
 
 190. Plutarch was a writer of the early Christian Era, whose 
 biographies combined the attributes of heroes and the attributes of 
 men. He was master of his art. 
 
 201-208. Commit to memory. 
 
 242-244. Contrast the terms " paeans " and " dirge." 
 
 253. See Numbers, chapter XIII. 
 
 255, See Gray's Elegy in a Country Churchyard: 
 
 " The paths of glory lead but to the grave." 
 
 260. Explain " aureoled presence." 
 
 280. Note the beauty of the line. 
 
 289. How does Renown build tombs? 
 
 301. Define "investiture." 
 
 315. What figure in "deciduous years"? 
 
 325. How is light medicinal? 
 
 331. The Roundheads were the Puritans in England who fought 
 against King Charles I. They wore their hair cropped short, while 
 the Cavaliers, the king's supporters, wore long hair elaborately 
 dressed. 
 
 333. Note the beauty of the simile. 
 
 338. Plantagenets. The second dynasty of English kings after the 
 Norman conquest. They were Henry II., Richard I., John, Henry 
 III., Edward I., II., III., Richard II. 
 
HAKVAED COMMEMORATION" ODE. 43 
 
 339. Eapshurg, the house that succeeded the Stuart house on the 
 English throne. 
 
 Guelph, the surname of the present royal house of England. 
 
 342, Explain " civic wreath," 
 
 343, Explain " honor's blazon." 
 360-363. Note the spirit of patriotism, 
 376-379. Is this true of poets? 
 
 385. New England mountain-peaks. 
 391. Antecedent of "she"? 
 396. What are " handmaid armies " ? 
 404. What are " subject seas " ? 
 408. Explain the meaning of the line. 
 
44 
 
 THE CEAIs^E CLASSICS. 
 
 THE FIRST SlSrOW-FALL. 
 
 The snow had begun in the gloaming, 
 
 And busily all the night 
 Had been heaping field and highway 
 
 With a silence deep and white. 
 
 Every pine and fir and hemlock ^ 
 
 Wore ermine too dear for an earl, 
 x\nd the poorest twig on the elm-tree, 
 
 Was ridged inch-deep with pearl. 
 
 From sheds new-roofed with Carrara 
 
 Came Chanticleer's muffled crow, ^^ 
 
 The stiff rails were softened to swan's-down. 
 
 And still fluttered down the snow. 
 
 I stood and watched by the window 
 
 The noiseless work of the sky. 
 And the sudden flurries of snow-birds, ^^ 
 
 Like brown leaves whirling by. 
 
 I thought of a mound in sweet Auburn 
 
 Where a little headstone stood ; 
 How the flakes were folding it gently, 
 
 As did robins the babes in the wood. ^o 
 
 Up spoke our own little Mabel, 
 
 Saying, "Father, who makes it snow ?" 
 
 And-T told her of the good All-father 
 Who cares for us here below. 
 
THE FIRST SNOW-FALL. 45 
 
 Again I looked at the snow-fall, 
 And thonglit of the leaden sky 
 
 That arched o'er our first great sorrow, 
 When that mound was heaped so high. 
 
 I rememhered the gradual patience 
 That fell from that cloud like snow, 
 
 Flake by flake, healing and hiding 
 The scar of our deep-plunged woe. 
 
 And again to the child I whispered, 
 ^' The snow that husheth all. 
 
 Darling, the merciful Father 
 Alone can make it fall ! " 
 
 Then, with ^yes that saw not, I kissed her ; 
 
 And she, kissing back, could not know 
 That my kiss was given to her sister. 
 
 Folded close under deepening snow. 
 
 25 
 
 30 
 
 35 
 
 40 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 Contrast the first three stanzas with Whittier's 8now-Bound, lines 
 32-65. The volume containing this poem is dedicated " to the ever 
 fresh and happy memory of our little Blanche." 
 
 9. Carrara. A beautiful Italian marble, noted for its purity. 
 
 15. Note the simile. 
 
 29-30. Note the simile. 
 
46 THE CRANE CLASSICS. 
 
 VILLA rKAITCA. 
 
 [In 1859, Italy by the battles of Magenta and Solferino had hope 
 of complete emancipation from Austrian rule. Napoleon III., who 
 was in alliance with Victor Emmanuel, King of Sardinia, had a 
 conference with Francis Joseph, Emperor of Austria, at Villa 
 Franca. The result of the conference was far from pleasing to Victor 
 Emmanuel or promising for the unification of Italy. Napoleon was 
 regarded as untrue to his trust, and the war continued, Mr. Lowell 
 in the following poem gives his estimate of the French emperor.] 
 
 Wait a little : do loe not wait ? 
 Louis ISTapoleon is not Fate, 
 Francis Joseph is not Time; 
 There's One hath swifter feet than Crime ; 
 Cannon-parliaments settle naught; ^ 
 
 Venice is Austria's, — whose is Thought? 
 Minie is good, but, spite of change, 
 Gutenberg's gun has the longest range. 
 
 Spin, spin, Clotho, spin ! 
 
 Lachesis, twist ! and, Atropos, sever ! 
 
 In the shadow, year out, year in, 
 
 The silent headsman waits forever. 
 
 Wait, we say; our years are long; 
 Men are weak, but Man is strong; 
 Since the stars first curved their rings. 
 We have looked on many things ; 
 Great wars come and great wars go. 
 Wolf -tracks light on polar snow ; 
 We shall see him come and gone, 
 This second-hand ^N^apoleon. 
 Spin, spin, Clotho, spin! 
 
 10 
 
 15 
 
 20 
 
VILLA FRAINTCA. 
 
 47 
 
 Lachesis, twist ! and, Atropos, sever ! 
 In the shadow, year out, year in, 
 The silent headsman waits forever. 
 
 25 
 
 We saw the elder Corsican, 
 
 And Clotho muttered as she span. 
 
 While crowned lackeys bore the train, 
 
 Of the pinchbeck Charlemagne: 
 
 ^^ Sister, stint not length of thread ! 
 
 Sister, stay the scissors dread ! ^^ 
 
 On Saint Helen's granite bleak. 
 
 Hark, the vulture whets his beak ! " 
 
 Spin, spin, Clotho, spin ! 
 
 Lachesis, twist ! and, Atropos, sever ! 
 
 In the shadow, year out, year in, "^ 
 
 The silent headsman waits forever. 
 
 The Bonapartes, we know their bees 
 That wade in honey red to the knees : 
 Their patent reaper, its sheaves sleep sound 
 In dreamless garners underground: ^^ 
 
 We know false glory's spendthrift race 
 Pawning nations for feathers and lace ; 
 It may be short, it may be long, 
 " 'T is reckoning-day ! " sneers unpaid Wrong. 
 Spin, spin, Clotho, spin ! *^ 
 
 Lachesis, twist ! and, Atropos, sever ! 
 In the shadow, year out, year in, 
 The silent headsman waits forever. 
 
 The Cock that wears the Eagle's skin 
 
 Can promise what he ne'er could win; ^^ 
 
48 • THE CEAI^E CLASSICS. 
 
 Slavery reaped for fine words sown, 
 
 System for all, and rights for none, 
 
 Despots atop, a wild clan below. 
 
 Such is the Gaul from long ago ; 
 
 Wash the black from the Ethiop's face, ^^ 
 
 Wash the past out of man or race ! 
 
 Spin, spin, Clotho, spin! 
 
 Lachesis, twist! and, Atropos, sever! 
 
 In the shadow, year out, year in. 
 
 The silent headsman waits forever. ^^ 
 
 'ISTeath Gregory's throne a spider swings. 
 
 And snares the people for the kings; 
 
 "Luther is dead; old quarrels pass; 
 
 The stake's black scars are healed with grass ;" 
 
 So dreamers prate ; did man e'er live ^^ 
 
 Saw priest or woman yet forgive; 
 
 But Luther's broom is left, and eyes 
 
 Peep o'er their creeds to where it lies. 
 
 Spin, spin, Clotho, spin ! 
 
 Lachesis, twist ! and, Atropos, sever ! ^ '^^ 
 
 In the shadow, year out, year in. 
 
 The silent headsman waits forever. 
 
 Smooth sails the ship of either realm, 
 
 Kaiser and Jesuit at the helm; 
 
 We look down the depths, and mark '^^ 
 
 Silent workers in the dark 
 
 Building slow the sharp-tusked reefs, 
 
 Old instincts hardening to new beliefs; 
 
 Patience a little; learn to wait; 
 
 Hours are long on the clock of Fate. *^ 
 
VILLA FEANCA. 49 
 
 Spin, spin, Clotho, spin! 
 Lachesis, twist ! and, Atropos, sever ! 
 Darkness is strong, and so is Sin, 
 But only God endures forever ! 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 5. What are "cannon" parliaments? 
 
 7. Minie, a rifle invented by Claude Etienne Minie; was adopted 
 by the French government in 1849. It was superior in the preci- 
 sion and range it gave to the bullet over all other firearms of that 
 time. 
 
 8. Gutenberg's gun. The printing-press. Another way of say- 
 ing, " The pen is mightier than the sword." 
 
 9. Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos were the three Fates of early 
 mythology. Clotho spun the thread of human destiny; Lachesis 
 twisted it, and Atropos severed it. They have furnished a subject 
 for many masterpieces of art. Clotho and Lachesis are sometimes 
 represented as young maidens, while Atropos appears as an old 
 woman. She carries the shears, while Clotho holds the distaff. 
 
 17. See Commemoration Ode, lines 201-208. Also, Kipling's Re- 
 cessional : 
 
 " Far-culled our navies melt away — ^ 
 On dune and headland sinks the fire — 
 Lo, all our pomp of yesterday 
 Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!" 
 25. The elder Gorsican, Napoleon Bonaparte. 
 28. Pinchheek, cheap imitation jewelry. 
 
 Gharlemagne, Charles the Great, master of all western Europe in 
 the eighth century. 
 
 37. The bee was the emblem of the Bonaparte family. 
 54. Gaul, the early Celtic race in France. 
 
 61. Pope Gregory VII., in the eleventh century humbled the 
 kings and brought papacy to its supreme power. 
 
 4— 
 
50 THE CRANE CLASSICS. 
 
 THE ITIGHTINGALE IN THE STUDY. 
 
 " Come forth ! " mj catbird calls to me, 
 
 "And hear me sing a cavatina 
 That, in this old familiar tree, 
 
 Shall hang a garden of Alcina. 
 
 " These buttercups shall brim with wine 
 Beyond all Lesbian juice or Massic; 
 
 May not ISTew England be divine ? 
 My ode to ripening summer classic ? 
 
 " Or, if to me you will not hark. 
 By Beaver Brook a thrush is ringing 
 
 Till all the alder-coverts dark 
 
 Seem sunshine-dappled with his singing. 
 
 " Come out beneath the unmastered sky. 
 
 With its emancipating spaces. 
 And learn to sing as well as I, 
 
 Without premeditated graces. 
 
 '' What boot your many-volumed gains, 
 Those withered leaves forever turning, 
 
 To win, at best, for all your pains, 
 A nature mummy-wrapt in learning? 
 
 " The leaves wherein true wisdom lies 
 On living trees the sun are drinking; 
 
 Those white clouds, drawing through the skies. 
 Grew not so beautiful by thinking. 
 
THE N^IGHTINGALE IN THE STUDY. 
 
 " Come out ! with me tlie oriole cries, 
 Escape the demon that pursues you ! 
 
 And, hark, the cuckoo weatherwise, 
 
 Still hiding, farther onward wooes you." 
 
 ''Alas, dear friend, that, all my days. 
 Has poured from thy syringa thicket 
 
 The quaintly discontinuous lays 
 
 To which I hold a season-ticket, — 
 
 "A season-ticket cheaply bought 
 With a dessert of pilfered berries. 
 
 And who so oft my soul has caught 
 With morn and evening voluntaries, — 
 
 " Deem me not faithless, if all day 
 Among my dusty books I linger, 
 
 'So pipe, like thee, for June to play 
 With fancy-led, half-conscious finger. 
 
 ''A bird is singing in my brain 
 
 And bubbling o'er with mingled fancies. 
 Gay, tragic, rapt, right heart of Spain 
 
 Fed Avith the sap of old romances. 
 
 " I ask no ampler skies than those 
 His magic music rears above me, 
 
 So falser friends, no truer foes, — 
 And does not Doiia Clara love me ? 
 
 " Cloaked shapes, a twanging of guitars, 
 A rush of feet, and rapiers clashing. 
 
 51 
 
 25 
 
 30 
 
 35 
 
 40 
 
 45 
 
 50 
 
52 , THE CEAKE CLASSICS. 
 
 Then silence deep with breathless stars, 
 And overhead a white hand flashing. 
 
 " O music of all moods and climes, 
 Vengeful, forgiving, sensuous, saintly, 
 
 Where still, between the Christian chimes, ^^ 
 
 The Moorish cymbal tinkles faintly! 
 
 ^^ O life borne lightly in the hand. 
 
 For friend or foe with grace Castilian ! 
 
 O valley safe in Fancy's land, 
 
 !N^ot tramped to mud yet by the million ! ^^ 
 
 " Bird of to-day, thy songs are stale 
 To his, my singer of all weathers, 
 
 My Calderon, my nightingale. 
 
 My Arab soul in Spanish feathers. 
 
 ^'Ah, friend, these singers dead so long, ^^ 
 
 And still, God knows, in purgatory. 
 
 Give its best sweetness to all song, 
 To Nature's self her better glory." 
 
THE PEESENT CRISIS. 53 
 
 THE PEESENT CRISIS. 
 
 [The following poem was written in 1844, when the annexation of 
 Texas was pending. It had become a party issue in the presidential 
 campaign. The pro-slavery party favored it as a means of increasing 
 slave territory, and the anti-slavery party opposed it for the same 
 reason. It is one of the finest poems in American literature.] 
 
 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. ^ 
 
 Through the walls of hut and palace shoots the instan- 
 taneous 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, 
 
 l^ation wildly looks at nation, standing with mu,te lips 
 apart. 
 
 And glad Truth's yet mightier man-child leaps beneath 
 the Future's heart. ^^ 
 
 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 
 
54 THE CRAKE CLASSICS. 
 
 In hot tear-drops ebbing eartliwardj to be drnnk np by 
 
 tlie sod, 
 Till a corpse crawls ronnd unbnried, delving in the nobler 
 
 clod. 1^ 
 
 For mankind are one in spirit, and an instinct bears along, 
 Round tbe 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. ^^ 
 
 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. ^^ 
 
 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, 
 
THE PEESEN'T CBISIS. 00 
 
 And, albeit she wander onteast now^ I see around her 
 
 throng 
 Troops of beantifulj lall angels^ to enshield her from all 
 
 wrong. ^^ 
 
 Backward look across the ages and the beacon-moments see, 
 That, like peaks of some sunk continent^ jnt throngh Ob- 
 livion's sea; 
 Xot an ear in court or market for the low foreboding cry 
 Of those Crises, Grod's stem winnowers, from whose feet 
 
 earth's chaff mnst flv: 
 Xever shows the choice momentous till the jndgment hath 
 passed bv. so 
 
 Careless seems the great Avenger; history's pages bnt re- 
 cord 
 
 One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt old systems and 
 the Word ; 
 
 Tnith forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the 
 
 throne, — 
 Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim 
 
 nnknown, 
 Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his 
 
 own. *'^ 
 
 We see dimly in the Present what is small and what is 
 
 great, 
 Slow of faith how weak an arm may torn the iron helm of 
 
 fate, 
 Bnt the sonl is still oracnlar ; amid the market's din, 
 
56 THE CRAITE CLASSICS. 
 
 List the ominous stern whisper from the Delphic cave 
 within, — 
 
 " They enslave their children's children who make com- 
 promise with sin." *^ 
 
 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. ^^ 
 
 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 
 
THE PKESEISTT CRISIS. 
 
 57 
 
 To the side of perfect justice, mastered by tlieir faith 
 
 divine, 
 By one man's plain truth to manhood and to God's supreme 
 
 design. ^^ 
 
 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. ^^ 
 
 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. 
 
 'T is 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 Ply- 
 mouth Rock sublime ? '^^ 
 
58 THE CRAWE CLASSICS. 
 
 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. ^^ 
 
 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 des- 
 perate winter sea, 
 
 Not attempt the Future's portal with the Past's blood- 
 rusted key. ^^ 
 
THE PKESEITT CRISIS. 59 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 17. Morse's telegraph had been first operated a short time before 
 this poem was written. 
 
 26-30. Commit to memory. 
 
 46. Look up the story of Cyclops. 
 
 57. Define " contumelious." 
 
 64. Credo, " I believe." The creed or belief of the church. In 
 the Latin it begins with the word Credo. 
 
 74. Reference to the Mayflower was especially pertinent, since 
 Lowell Avas a New England man. 
 
 76. Iconoclasts, idol-breakers. 
 
 84-85. Explain the figure. 
 
60 . . THE CRAN'E CLASSICS. 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPEKS. 
 
 [The Biglow Papers were a series of satirical poems, written in 
 Yankee dialect and published in a Boston newspaper. They were 
 assumed to be written by Hosea Biglow and edited by the Reverend 
 Homer Wilbur. They were political in purpose, and their keen wit 
 and satire made them powerful weapons against the Southern party 
 during the time of the Mexican War. 
 
 When the Civil War broke out, Mr. Lowell wrote a second series 
 of "Biglow Papers,'' for the Atlantic Monthly. They were as 
 powerful as the first series had been. The following poem was writ- 
 ten just before the close of the war.] 
 
 Dear Sir^ — Your letter come to lian' 
 
 Pequestin' me to please be funny ; 
 But I ain't made upon a plan 
 
 Thet knows wut's comin', gall or honey: 
 Ther' 's times the world doos look so queer, ^ 
 
 Odd fancies come afore I call 'em; 
 An' then agin, for half a year, 
 
 1^0 preacher 'thout a call 's more solemn. 
 
 10 
 
 You 're 'n want o' sunthin' light an' cute, 
 
 Battlin' an' shrewd an' kin' o' jinglish, 
 An' wish, pervidin' it 'ould suit, 
 
 I'd take an' citify my English. 
 I hen write long-tailed, ef I please, — 
 
 But when I'm jokin', no, I thankee; 
 Then, 'fore I know it, my idees ^^ 
 
 Run helter-skelter into Yankee. 
 
 Sence I begun to scribble rhyme, 
 I tell ye wut, I hain't ben foolin' ; 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 61 
 
 20 
 
 25 
 
 30 
 
 The parson's books, life, death, an' time 
 Hev took some trouble with my schoolin' ; 
 
 ^or th' airth don't git put out with me, 
 Thet love her 'z though she wnz a woman ; 
 
 Why, th' ain't a bird upon the tree 
 But half forgives my bein' human. 
 
 An' yit I love th' unhighschooled way 
 
 01' farmers hed when I wuz younger ; 
 Their, talk wuz meatier, an' 'ould stay, 
 
 While book-froth seems to whet your hunger; 
 For puttin' in a do^vnright lick 
 
 'Twixt Humbug's eyes, ther' 's few can metch it. 
 An' then it helves my thoughts ez slick 
 
 Ez stret-grained hickry doos a hatchet. 
 
 But when I can't, I can't, thet's all, 
 
 For N^atur' won't put up with gullin' ; 
 I dees you hev to shove an' haul 
 
 Like a druv pig ain't wuth a mullein : 
 Live thoughts ain't sent for ; thru all rifts 
 
 O' sense they pour an' resh ye onwards. 
 Like rivers when south-lyin' drifts 
 
 Feel thet th' old airth 's a-wheelin' sunwards. ^^ 
 
 Time wuz, the rhymes come crowdin' thick 
 
 Ez office-seekers arter 'lection, 
 An' into ary place 'ould stick 
 
 Without no bother nor objection ; 
 But sence the war my thoughts hang back *^ 
 
 Ez though I wanted to enlist 'em, 
 
 85 
 
50 
 
 62 THE CEAlSrE CLASSICS. 
 
 An' subs'tutes — tJiey don't never lack, 
 
 But then thej '11 slope afore jou 've mist 'em. 
 
 !N^otliin' don't seem like wut it wnz; 
 
 I can't see wut there is to liender, 
 An' yit my brains jes' go buzz, buzz, 
 
 Like bumblebees agin a winder ; 
 Tore these times come, in all airth's row, 
 
 Ther' wuz one quiet place, my head in, 
 Where I could hide an' think, — but now ^^ 
 
 It's all one teeter, hopin', dreadin'. 
 
 Where's Peace ? I start, some clear-blown night, 
 
 When gaunt stone walls grow numb an' number. 
 An', creakin' 'cross the snow-crus' white, 
 
 Walk the col' starlight into summer; 
 Up grows the moon, an' swell by swell 
 
 Thru the pale pasturs silvers dimmer 
 Than the last smile thet strives to tell 
 
 O' love gone heavenward in its shimmer. 
 
 60 
 
 I hev ben gladder o' sech things 
 
 Than cocks o' spring or bees o' clover. 
 They filled my heart with livin' springs. 
 
 But now they seem to freeze em' over; 
 Sights innercent ez babes on knee. 
 
 Peaceful ez eyes o' pastur'd cattle, 
 Jes' coz they be so, seem to me 
 
 To rile me more with thoughts o' battle. 
 
 In-doors an' out by spells I try ; 
 
 Ma'am IsTatur' keeps her spin- wheel goin'. 
 
 65 
 
 70 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 63 
 
 75 
 
 But leaves my natur' stiff and dr j 
 
 Ez fiel's o' clover arter mowin' ; 
 An' her jes' kepin' on tlie same, 
 
 Calmer n' a clock, an' never car in', 
 An' findin' nary thing to blame, 
 
 Is wns than ef she took to swearin'. ^^ 
 
 Snow-flakes come whisperin' on the pane. 
 
 The charm makes blazin' logs so pleasant, 
 But I can't hark to wut they're say'n'. 
 
 With Grant or Sherman oilers present; 
 The chimbleys shudder in the gale, 
 
 Thet lulls, then suddin takes to flappin' 
 Like a shot hawk, but all 's ez stale 
 
 To me ez so much sperit-rappin'. 
 
 Under the yaller-pines I house. 
 
 When sunshine makes 'em all sweet-scented. 
 An' hear among their furry boughs 
 
 The baskin' west-wind pour contented. 
 While 'way o'erhead, ez sweet an' low 
 
 Ez distant bells thet ring for meetin', 
 The wedged wil' geese their bugles blow. 
 
 Further an' further South retreatin'. 
 
 Or up the slippery knob I strain 
 An' see a hundred hills like islan's 
 
 Lift their blue woods in broken chain 
 Out o' the sea o' snowy silence; 
 
 The farm-smokes, sweetes' sight on airth^ 
 Slow thru the winter air a-shrinkin' 
 
 85 
 
 90 
 
 95 
 
 100 
 
64 
 
 THE CEANE CLASSICS. 
 
 Seem kin^ o' sad, an' roW the hearth 
 Of empty places set me thinkin'. 
 
 Beaver roars hoarse with meltin' snows, ^^^ 
 
 An' rattles di'mon's from his granite; 
 Time wuz, he snatched away my prose, 
 
 An' into psalms or satires ran it; 
 But he, nor all the rest thet once 
 
 Started my blood to country-dances, ^^^ 
 
 Can't set me goin' more'n a dunce 
 
 Thet hain't no use for dreams an' fancies. 
 
 Eat-tat-tat-tattle thru the street 
 
 I hear the drummers makin' riot, 
 An' I set thinkin' o' the feet n^ 
 
 Thet f oUered once an' now are quiet, — 
 White feet ez snowdrops innercent, 
 
 Thet never knowed the paths o' Satan, 
 Whose comin' step ther' 's ears thet won't, 
 
 ]^o, not lifelong, leave off awaitin'. ^20 
 
 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 ^^s 
 
 Whose natur', jes' like theirn, keeps climbin', 
 Ez long 'z it lives, in shinin' ways, 
 
 An' half despise myself for rhymin'. 
 
 Wut's words to them whose faith an' truth 
 
 On War's red techstone rang true metal, ^^^ 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 Who ventered life an' love an' youth 
 For the gret prize o' death in battle ? 
 
 To him who, deadly hurt, agen 
 
 Flashed on afore the charge's thunder, 
 
 Tippin' with fire the bolt of men 
 Thet rived the Rebel line asunder ? 
 
 'T ain't right to hev the young go fust, 
 
 All throbbin' full o' gifts an' graces, 
 Leavin' life's paupers dry ez dust 
 
 To try an' make b'lieve fill their places : 
 Nothin' but tells us wut we miss, 
 
 Ther' 's gaps our lives can't never fay in. 
 An' thet world seems so fur from this 
 
 Lef for us loafers to grow gray in! 
 
 My eyes cloud up for rain ; my mouth 
 
 Will take to twitchin' roun' the corners; 
 I pity mothers, tu, down South, 
 
 For all they sot among the scorners : 
 I'd sooner take my chance to stan' 
 
 At Jedgment where your meanest slave is. 
 Than at God's bar hoi' up a han' 
 
 Ez drippin' red ez yourn, Jeff Davis ! 
 
 Come, Peace ! not like a mourner bowed 
 For honor lost an' dear ones wasted. 
 
 But proud, to meet a people proud, 
 With eyes thet tell o' triumph tasted ! 
 
 Come, with han' grippin' on the hilt. 
 
 An' step thet proves ye Victory's daughter 
 —5 
 
 65 
 
 135 
 
 140 
 
 145 
 
 150 
 
 155 
 
66 THE CEAKE CLASSICS. 
 
 Longin' for you, our sperits wilt 
 
 Like shipwrecked men's on raf's for water. 
 
 160 
 
 Come, while our country feels the lift 
 
 Of a gret instinct shoutin' forwards, 
 An' knows thet freedom ain't a gift 
 
 Thet tarries long in han's o' cowards ! 
 Come, sech ez mothers prayed for, when ^^^ 
 
 They kissed their cross with lips thet quivered, 
 An' bring fair wages for brave jnen, 
 
 A nation saved, a race delivered ! 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 93. Note tlie figure. 
 
 95. Wedged wiV geese. Explain the force of the adjective wedged. 
 
 97. Compare with Longfellow's " Golden Milestone." 
 
 105. Beaver Brook flows into the Charles. 
 
 145. A quaint figure. 
 
PEOMETHEtJS. 67 
 
 PEOMETHEUS. 
 
 [According to Greek mythology, Prometheus stole fire from the 
 altar of Zeus and gave it as a gift to man. For this offense he 
 was bound upon a lonely rock on Mount Caucasus, and it was de- 
 creed that a vulture should prey upon his liver daily, and what 
 was destroyed in the daytime was renewed at night. The struggle of 
 humanity against fear and superstition, and the whole realm of 
 untrained imagination, is typified by the poem. Longfellow, Shelley, 
 Goethe and Mrs. Browning have all made this myth subject for 
 poetic production.] 
 
 On"e after one the stars have risen and set, 
 Sparkling upon the hoarfrost on mj chain : 
 The Bear, that prowled all night about the fold 
 Of the !N"orth-Star, hath shrunk into his den, 
 Scared by the blithesome footsteps of the Dawn, ^ 
 
 Whose blushing smile floods all the Orient; 
 And now bright Lucifer grows less and less, 
 Into the heaven's blue quiet deep-withdrawn. 
 Sunless and starless all, the desert sky 
 Arches above me, empty as this heart 
 For ages hath been empty of all joy, 
 Except to brood upon its silent hope. 
 As o'er its hope of day the sky doth now. 
 All night have I heard voices: deeper yet 
 The deep low breathing of the silence grew, 
 While all about, muffled in awe, there stood 
 Shadows, or forms, or both, clear-felt at heart. 
 But, when I turned to front them, far along 
 Only a shudder through the midnight ran, 
 And the dense stillness walled me closer round. 
 But still I heard them wander up and down 
 
 10 
 
 15 
 
 20 
 
68 
 
 THE CEANE CLASSICS. 
 
 That solitude, and flappings of dusk wings 
 
 Did mingle with them, whether of those hags 
 
 Let slip upon me once from Hades deep, 
 
 Or of yet direr torments, if such be, ^^ 
 
 I could but guess; and then toward me came 
 
 A shape as of a woman: very pale 
 
 It was, and calm ; its cold eyes did not move. 
 
 And mine moved not, but only stared on them. 
 
 Their fixed awe went through my brain like ice ; ^^ 
 
 A skeleton hand seemed clutching at my heart. 
 
 And a sharp chill, as if a dank night fog 
 
 Suddenly closed me in, was all I felt: 
 
 And then, methought, I heard a freezing sigh, 
 
 A long, deep, shivering sigh, as from blue lips ^^ 
 
 Stiffening in death, close to mine ear. I thought 
 
 Some doom was close upon me, and I looked 
 
 And saw the red moon through the heavy mist. 
 
 Just setting, and it seemed as it were falling. 
 
 Or reeling to its fall, so dim and dead ^^ 
 
 And palsy-struck it looked. Then all sounds merged 
 
 Into the rising surges of the pines. 
 
 Which, leagues below me, clothing the gaunt loins 
 
 Of ancient Caucasus with hairy strength. 
 
 Sent up a murmur in the morning wind, 
 
 Sad as the wail that from the populous earth 
 
 All day and night to high Olympus soars. 
 
 Fit incense to thy wicked throne, O Jove ! 
 
 45 
 
 Thy hated name is tossed once more in scorn 
 From off my lips, for I will tell thy doom. 
 And are these tears ? Nay, do not triumph, Jove ! 
 
 50 
 
60 
 
 65 
 
 PEOMETHEUS. 69 
 
 They are wrung from me but by the agonies 
 
 Of prophecy, like those sparse drops which fall 
 
 From clouds in travel of the lightning, when 
 
 The great wave of the storm high-curled and black ^^ 
 
 Rolls steadily onward to its thunderous break. 
 
 Why art thou made a god of, thou poor type 
 
 Of anger, and revenge, and cunning force ? 
 
 True Power was never born of brutish strength, 
 
 Nor sweet Truth suckled at the shaggy dugs 
 
 Of that old she-wolf. Are thy thunder-bolts, 
 
 That quell the darkness for a space, so strong 
 
 As the prevailing patience of meek Light, 
 
 ^'\nio, with the invincible tenderness of peace, 
 
 Wins it to be a portion of herself ? 
 
 Why art thou made a god of, thou, who hast 
 
 The never-sleeping terror at thy heart. 
 
 That birthright of all tyrants, worse to bear 
 
 Than this thy ravening bird on which I smile ? 
 
 Thou swear'st to free me, if I will unfold ^^ 
 
 What kind of doom it is whose omen flits 
 
 Across thy heart, as o'er a troop of doves 
 
 The fearful shadow of the kite. What need 
 
 To know that truth whose knowledge cannot save ? 
 
 Evil its errand hath, as well as God ; 
 
 When thine is finished, thou art known no more : 
 
 There is a higher purity than thou. 
 
 And higher purity is greater strength ; 
 
 Thy nature is thy doom, at which thy heart 
 
 Trembles behind the thick wall of thy might. 
 
 Let man but hope, and thou art straightway chilled 
 
 With thought of that drear silence and deep night 
 
 75 
 
 80 
 
70 THE CRAI^E CLASSICS. 
 
 Which, like a dream, shall swallow thee and thine : 
 
 Let man but will, and thou art god no more, 
 
 More capable of ruin than the gold ^^ 
 
 And ivory that image thee on earth. 
 
 He who hurled down the monstrous Titan-brood 
 
 Blinded with lightnings, with rough thunder stunned, 
 
 Is weaker than a simple human thought. 
 
 My slender voice can shake thee, as the breeze, 
 
 That seems but apt to stir a maiden's hair, 
 
 Sways huge Oceanus from pole to pole; 
 
 For I am still Prometheus, and foreknow 
 
 In my wise heart the end and doom of all. 
 
 90 
 
 95 
 
 100 
 
 Yes, I am still Prometheus, wiser grown 
 By years of solitude, — that holds apart 
 The past and future, giving the soul room 
 To search into itself, — and long commune 
 With this eternal silence ; — more a god, 
 In my long-suffering and strength to meet 
 With equal front the direst shafts of fate, 
 Than thou in thy faint-hearted despotism, 
 Girt with thy baby-toys of force and wrath. 
 Yes, I am that Prometheus who brought down 
 The light to man, which thou, in selfish fear, 
 Hadst to thyself usurped, — his by sole right, 
 For man hath right to all save Tyranny, — 
 And which shall free him yet from thy frail throne. 
 Tyrants are but the spawn of Ignorance, 
 Begotten by the slaves they trample on, ^^^ 
 
 Who, could they win a glimmer of the light, 
 And see that Tyranny is always weakness, 
 
 105 
 
PEOMETHEUS. 71 
 
 Or Fear with its own bosom ill at ease. 
 
 ^? 
 
 Would laugh away in scorn the sand-wove chain 
 
 T^Tiich their own blindness feigned for adamant. ^'^'^ 
 
 Wrong ever builds on quicksands, but the Right 
 
 To the firm centre lays its moveless base. 
 
 The tyrant trembles, if the air but stirs 
 
 The innocent ringlets of a child's free hair, 
 
 And crouches, when the thought of some great spirit, ^^'^ 
 
 With world-wide murmur, like a rising gale, 
 
 Over men's hearts, as over standing corn, 
 
 Hushes, and bends them to its own strong will. 
 
 So shall some thought of mine yet circle earth. 
 
 And puff away thy crumbling altars, Jove ! ^^'^ 
 
 And, wouldst thou know of my supreme revenge. 
 Poor tyrant, even now dethroned in heart, 
 Realmless in soul, as tyrants ever are. 
 Listen! and tell me if this bitter peak. 
 This never-glutted vulture, and these chains ^"*^ 
 
 Shrink not before it ; for it shall befit 
 A sorrow-taught, unconquered Titan-heart. 
 Men, when their death is on them, seem to stand 
 On a precipitous crag that overhangs 
 The abyss of doom, and in that depth to see. 
 As in a ^lass, the features dim and vast 
 Of things to come, the shadows, as it seems. 
 Of what had been. Death ever fronts the wise ; 
 'Not fearfully, but with clear promises 
 Of larger life, on whose broad vans upborne, 
 Their outlook widens, and they see beyond 
 The horizon of the present and the past. 
 
 135 
 
 140 
 
72 THE CRAITE CLASSICS. 
 
 Even to the very source and end of things. 
 
 Such am I now: immortal woe hath made 
 
 My heart a seer, and my soul a judge ^*^ 
 
 Between the substance and the shadow of Truth. 
 
 The sure supremeness of the Beautiful, 
 
 By all the martyrdoms made dou'bly sure 
 
 Of such as I am, this is my revenge, 
 
 Which of my wrongs builds a triumphal arch, ^^^ 
 
 Through which I see a sceptre and a throne. 
 
 The pipings of glad shepherds on the hills. 
 
 Tending the flocks no more to bleed for thee, — 
 
 The songs of maidens pressing with white feet 
 
 The vintage on thine altars poured no more, — ^^^ 
 
 The murmurous bliss of lovers, underneath 
 
 Dim grapevine bowers, whose rosy bunches press 
 
 ]N^ot half so closely their warm cheeks, unpaled 
 
 By thoughts of thy brute lust, — the hive-like hum 
 
 Of peaceful commonwealths, where sunburnt Toil 
 
 Reaps for itself the rich earth made its own 
 
 By its own labor, lightened with glad hymns 
 
 To an omnipotence which thy mad bolts 
 
 Would cope with as a spark with the vast sea, — 
 
 Even the spirit of free love and peace, 
 
 Duty's sure recompense through life and death, — 
 
 These are such harvests as all master-spirits 
 
 Beap, haply not on earth, but reap no less 
 
 Because the sheaves are bound by hands not theirs ; 
 
 These are the bloodless daggers wherewithal ^^^ 
 
 They stab fallen tyrants, this their high revenge: 
 
 Eor their best part of life on earth is when, 
 
 Long after death, prisoned and pent no more, 
 
 160 
 
 165 
 
PROMETHEUS. 
 
 73 
 
 Their thoughts^ their wild dreams even, have become 
 
 Part of the necessary air men breathe: ^^^ 
 
 When, like the moon, herself behind a cloud. 
 
 They shed down light before us on life's sea. 
 
 That cheers us to steer onward still in hope. 
 
 Earth with her twining memories ivies o'er 
 
 Their holy sepulchres ; the chainless sea, ^^^ 
 
 In tempest or wide calm, repeats their thoughts ; 
 
 The lightning and the thunder, all free things. 
 
 Have legends of them for the ears of men. 
 
 All other glories are as falling stars, 
 
 But universal I^ature watches theirs: ^^^ 
 
 Such strength is won by love of human-kind. 
 
 !N^ot that I feel that hunger after fame, 
 Which souls of a half-greatness are beset with; 
 But that the memory of noble deeds 
 Cries shame upon the idle and the vile, 
 And keeps the heart of Man forever up 
 To the heroic level of old time. 
 To be forgot at first is little pain 
 To a heart conscious of such high intent 
 As must be deathless on the lips of men ; 
 But, having been a name, to sink and be 
 A something which the world can do without. 
 Which, having been or not, would never change 
 The lightest pulse of fate, — this is indeed 
 A cup of bitterness the worst to taste. 
 And this thy heart shall empty to the dregs. 
 Endless despair shall be thy Caucasus, 
 And memory thy vulture ; thou wilt find 
 
 190 
 
 195 
 
 200 
 
71 
 
 THE CEATsTE CLASSICS. 
 
 Oblivion far lonelier than this peak, — 
 
 Behold thy destiny! Thou think'st it much 205 
 
 That I should brave thee, miserable god ! 
 
 But I have braved a mightier than thou. 
 
 Even the tempting of this soaring heart, 
 
 Which might have made me, scarcely less than thou, 
 
 A god among my brethren weak and blind, — ^^^ 
 
 Scarce less than thou, a pitiable thing 
 
 To be down-trodden into darkness soon. 
 
 But now I am above thee, for thou art 
 
 The bungling workmanship of fear, the block 
 
 That awes the swart Barbarian; but I ^^^ 
 
 Am what myself have made, — a nature wise 
 
 With finding in itself the types of all, — 
 
 With watching from the dim verge of the time 
 
 What things to be are visible in the gleams 
 
 Thrown forward on them from the luminous past, — ^^^ 
 
 Wise with the history of its own frail heart. 
 
 With reverence and with sorrow, and with love, 
 
 Broad as the world, for freedom and for man. 
 
 Thou and all strength shall crumble, except Love, 
 By whom, and for whose glory, ye shall cease : ^^^ 
 
 And, when thou art but a dim moaning heard 
 Prom out the pitiless gloom of Chaos, I 
 Shall be a power and a memory, 
 A name to fright all tyrants with, a light 
 Unsetting as the pole-star, a great voice 230 
 
 Heard in the breathless pauses of the fight 
 By truth and freedom ever waged with wrong. 
 Clear as a silver trumpet, to awake 
 Huge echoes that from age to age live on 
 
PROMETHEUS. 75 
 
 In kindred spirits, giving them a sense ^^^ 
 
 Of boundless power from boundless suffering wrung: 
 
 And many a glazing eye shall smile to see 
 
 The memory of my triumph (for to meet 
 
 Wrong with endurance, and to overcome 
 
 The present with a heart that looks beyond, ^*° 
 
 Are triumph), like a prophet eagle, perch 
 
 Upon the sacred banner of the Right. 
 
 Evil springs up, and flowers, and bears no seed, 
 
 And feeds the green earth with its swift decay. 
 
 Leaving it richer for the growth of truth; ^*^ 
 
 But Good, once put in action or in thought, 
 
 Like a strong oak, doth from its boughs shed doT\Ti 
 
 The ripe germs of a forest. Thou, weak god, 
 
 Shalt fade and be forgotten ! but this soul, 
 
 Fresh-living still in the serene abyss, ^^^ 
 
 In every heaving shall partake, that grows 
 
 From heart to heart among the sons of men, — 
 
 As the ominous hum before the earthquake runs 
 
 Far through the ^gean from roused isle to isle, — 
 
 Foreboding wreck to palaces and shrines, ^^^ 
 
 And mighty rents in many a cavernous error 
 
 That darkens the free light to man : — This heart, 
 
 Unscarred by thy grim vulture, as the truth 
 
 Grows but more lovely 'neath the beaks and claws 
 
 Of Harpies blind that fain would soil it, shall ^go 
 
 In all the throbbing exultations share 
 
 That wait on freedom's triumphs, and in all 
 
 The glorious agonies of martyr-spirits, — 
 
 Sharp lightning-throes to split the jagged clouds 
 
 That veil the future, showing them the end, — ^es 
 
76 
 
 THE CRA]M"E CLASSICS. 
 
 275 
 
 280 
 
 Pain's thorny crown for constancy and truth, 
 Girding the temples like a wreath of stars. 
 This is a thought, that, like the fabled laurel, 
 Makes my faith thunder-proof; and thy dread bolts 
 Fall on me like the silent flakes of snow ^"^^ 
 
 On the hoar brows of aged Caucasus : 
 But, O thought far more blissful, they can rend 
 This cloud of flesh, and make my soul a star ! 
 
 Unleash thy crouching thunders now, O Jove ! 
 Free this high heart, which, a poor captive long. 
 Doth knock to be let forth, this heart which still. 
 In its invincible manhood, overtops 
 Thy puny godship, as this mountain doth 
 The pines that moss its roots. Oh, even now, 
 While from my peak of suffering I look down. 
 Beholding with a far-spread gush of hope 
 The sunrise of that Beauty, in whose face. 
 Shone all around with love, no man shall look 
 But straightway like a god he is uplift 
 Unto the throne long empty for his sake, ^^^ 
 
 And clearly oft foreshadowed in wide dreams 
 By his free inward nature, which nor thou, 
 N^or any anarch after thee, can bind 
 Erom working its great doom, — now, now set free 
 This essence, not to die, but to become ^oo 
 
 Part of that awful Presence which doth haunt 
 The palaces of tyrants, to hunt off, 
 With its grim eyes and fearful whisperings 
 And hideous sense of utter loneliness. 
 All hope of safety, all desire of peace, 295 
 
 All but the loathed f oref eeling of blank death, — 
 
PEOMETHEUS. 77 
 
 Part of that spirit whicli dotli ever brood 
 
 In patient calm on the nnpilfered nest 
 
 Of man's deep heart, till mighty thoughts grow fledged 
 
 To sail with darkening shadow o'er the world, ^^^ 
 
 Filling with dread such souls as dare not trust 
 
 In the unfailing energy of Good, 
 
 Until they swoop, and their pale quarry make 
 
 Of some o'erbloated wrong, — that spirit which 
 
 Scatters great hopes in the seed-field of man, ^^^ 
 
 Like acorns among grain, to grow and be 
 
 A roof for freedom in all coming time ! 
 
 But no, this cannot be ; for ages yet. 
 
 In solitude unbroken, shall I hear 
 
 The angry Caspian to the Euxine shout, ^^^ 
 
 And Euxine answer with a muffled roar. 
 
 On either side storming the giant walls 
 
 Of Caucasus with leagues of climbing foam 
 
 (Less, from my height, than flakes of downy snow). 
 
 That draw back baffled but to hurl again, ^^^ 
 
 Snatched up in wrath and horrible turmoil. 
 
 Mountain on mountain, as the Titans erst. 
 
 My brethren, scaling the high seat of Jove, 
 
 Heaved Pelion upon Ossa's shoulders broad 
 
 In vain emprise. The moon will come and go ^^^ 
 
 With her monotonous vicissitude; 
 
 Once beautiful, when I was free to walk 
 
 Among my fellows, and to interchange 
 
 The influence benign of loving eyes. 
 
 But now by aged use grown wearisome ; — ^^^ 
 
 False thought ! most false ! for how could I endure 
 
 These crawling centuries of lonely woe 
 
 ,.0f 
 
78 ■ THE CKANE CLASSICS. 
 
 Unslianied by weak complaining, but for tbee, 
 Loneliest, save me, of all created things, 
 Mild-eyed Astarte, my best comforter, ^^^ 
 
 With thy pale smile of sad benigTiity ? 
 
 Year after year will pass away and seem 
 To me, in mine eternal agony. 
 But as the shadows of dumb summer clouds. 
 Which I have watched so often darkening o'er ^^^ 
 
 The vast Sarmatian plain, league-wide at first. 
 But, with still swiftness, lessening on and on 
 Till cloud and shadow meet and mingle where 
 The gray horizon fades into the sky. 
 Far, far to northward. Yes, for ages yet ^^^ 
 
 Must I lie here upon my altar huge, 
 A sacrifice for man. Sorrow will be. 
 As it hath been, his portion ; endless doom, 
 Wliile the immortal with the mortal linked 
 Dreams of its wings and pines for what it dreams, ^^^ 
 With upward yearn unceasing. Better so: 
 For wisdom is meek sorrow's patient child. 
 And empire over self, and all the deep 
 Strong charities that make men seem like gods; 
 And love, that makes them be gods, from her breasts ^^^ 
 Sucks in the milk that makes mankind one blood. 
 Good never comes unmixed, or so it seems. 
 Having two faces, as some images 
 Are carved, of foolish gods; one face is ill; 
 But one heart lies beneath, and that is good, ^^^ 
 
 As are all hearts, when we explore their depths. 
 Therefore, great heart, bear up ! thou art but type 
 Of what all lofty spirits endure, that fain 
 
PEOMETHEUS. 
 
 79 
 
 Would win men back to strength and peace through love : 
 Each hath his lonely peak, and on each heart ^^^ 
 
 Envy, or scorn, or hatred, tears lifelong 
 With vulture beak; yet the high soul is left; 
 And faith, which is but hope grown wise ; and love 
 And patience, which at last shall overcome. 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 1-6. Study the figure carefully. 
 14-20. A beautiful expression. 
 49. Jove, Jupiter. Same as the Greek Zeus. 
 75. Explain the meaning, 
 79. How can one's nature be his doom? 
 84. Explain the meaning. 
 
 108. Antecedent of which. 
 
 109. See Shakespeare's Julius Caesar: 
 
 " He were no lion, were not Romans hinds." 
 
 115. Define " adamant." 
 
 116. See Matthew, vii: 24-27. 
 147-178. Commit to memory. 
 
 188. What lines of the Commemoration Ode are suggested by this 
 line? 
 
 193-201. Note the strong contrast between greatness and little- 
 ness. 
 
 202. A strong metaphor. 
 
 224. Is this a truth? 
 
 238-241. Commit parenthesis. 
 
 243-248. " Evil is only the slave of good, 
 
 Sorrow the servant of joy." — Holland. 
 
 " The first of all gospels is that a lie cannot endure." — Carlyle. 
 
 235. Why "palaces" and "shrines"? 
 
 260. Harpies, foul creatures of Greek mythology that with beak 
 and claw tore and befouled all they touched. 
 
 269-271. Fine simile. 
 
 279-307. Should this sentence be shortened into two or more 
 sentences ? 
 
 310. Euoeine, Black sea. 
 
 330. Astarte, symbol of Nature. 
 
 360-364. The summing-up of the teachings of the poem is in these 
 lines. 
 
;T 24 1904 
 
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