TO JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL,

IN RETURN FOR A TALBOTYPE PICTURE OF VENICE.

POET and friend! if any gift could bring A joy like that of listening while you sing, 'T were such as this,-memories of the days When Tuscan airs inspired more tender lays: When the gray Appennine, or Lombard plain, Sunburnt, or spongy with autumnal rain, Mingled perchance, as first they met your sight, Some drops of disappointment with delight; When, rudely wakened from the dream of years, You heard Velino thundering in your ears, And fancy drooped,—until Romagna's wine Brought you new visions, thousand-fold more fine, When first in Florence, hearkening to the flow Of Arno's midnight music, hoarse below, You thought of home, and recollected those Who loved your verse, but hungered for your prose, And more than all the sonnets that you made, Longed for the letters-ah, too poorly paid!

Thanks for thy boon! I look, and I am there; The soaring belfry guides me to the square; The punctual doves, that wait the stroke of one, Flutter above me and becloud the sun; "Tis Venice! Venice! and with joy I put In Adria's wave, incredulous, my foot; I smell the sea-weed, and again I hear The click of oars, the screaming gondolier. Ha! the Rialto-Dominic! a boat; Now in a gondola to dream and float: Pull the slight cord and draw the silk aside, And read the city's history as we glide; For strangely here, where all is strange, indeed, Not he who runs, but he who swims, may read. Mark now, albeit the moral make thee sad, What stately palaces these merchants had! Proud houses once!-Grimani and Pisani, Spinelli, Foscari, Giustiniani;

Behold their homes and monuments in one! They writ their names in water, and are gone. My voyage is ended, all the round is past,— See! the twin columns and the bannered mast, The domes, the steeds, the lion's wingéd sign, "Peace to thee, Mark! Evangelist of mine!"*

Poetic art! reserved for prosy times

Of great inventions and of little rhymes;
For us, to whom a wisely-ordering heaven
Ether for Lethe, wires for wings, has given;
Whom vapor work for, yet who scorn a ghost,
Amid enchantments, disenchanted most;
Whose light, whose fire, whose telegraph had been
In blessed Urban's liberal days a sin.
Sure, in Damascus, any reasoning Turk
Would count your Talbotype a sorcerer's work.
Strange power! that thus to actual presence brings
The shades of distant or departed things,
And calls dead Thebes or Athens up, or Arles,
To show like spectres on the banks of Charles!
But we receive this marvel with the rest;
Nothing is new or wondrous in the West;
Life's all a miracle, and every age
To the great wonder-book but adds a page.

The legend of the winged Lion of St. Mark, seen everyhere at Venice" Pax tibi, Marce! Evangelista meus."

ON A BUST OF DANTE.

SEE, from this counterfeit of him
Whom Arno shall remember long,
How stern of lineament, how grim

The father was of Tuscan song.
There but the burning sense of wrong,
Perpetual care and scorn abide;
Small friendship for the lordly throng;
Distrust of all the world beside.

Faithful if this wan image be,

No dream his life was-but a fight; Could any BEATRICE see

A lover in that anchorite? To that cold Ghibeline's gloomy sight Who could have guess'd the visions came Of beauty, veil'd with heavenly light, In circles of eternal flame?

The lips, as Cuma's cavern close,

The cheeks, with fast and sorrow thin, The rigid front, almost morose,

But for the patient hope within, Declare a life whose course hath been Unsullied still, though still severe, Which, through the wavering days of sin, Keep itself icy-chaste and clear.

Not wholly such his haggard look
When wandering once, forlorn he stray'd
With no companion save his book,

To Corvo's hush'd monastic shade;
Where, as the Benedictine laid

His palm upon the pilgrim-guest,
The single boon for which he prayed
The convent's charity was rest."
Peace dwells not here-this rugged face
Betrays no spirit of repose;
The sullen warrior sole we trace,

The marble man of many woes.
Such was his mien when first arose
The thought of that strange tale divine,
When hell he peopled with his foes,
The scourge of many a guilty line.
War to the last he waged with all

The tyrant canker-worms of earth; Baron and duke, in hold and hall,

Cursed the dark hour that gave him birth; He used Rome's harlot for his mirth;

Pluck'd bare hypocrisy and crime;
But valiant souls of knightly worth
Transmitted to the rolls of Time.

O Time! whose verdicts mock our own,
The only righteous judge art thou;
That poor old exile, sad and lone,

Is Latium's other Virgil now:
Before his name the nations bow:

His words are parcel of mankind, Deep in whose hearts, as on his brow,

The marks have sunk of DANTE's mind.

It is told of DANTE that when he was roaming over Italy he came to a certain monastery, where he was met by one of the friars, who blessed him, and asked him what was his de sire to which the weary stranger simply answered, “Puce.”

MR. LOWELL is a native of Boston, where his father is an eminent Congregational clergyman. He completed his education at Harvard College when about twenty years of age, and subsequently studied the law, but I believe with no intention of entering the courts. His first appearance as an author was in 1839, when he printed a class poem recited at Cambridge. It was a composition in heroic verse, which, though it betrayed marks of haste, contained many strokes of vigorous satire, much sharp wit, and occasional bursts of feeling. Two years afterward he published a volume of miscellaneous poems, under the title of " A Year's Life." This bore no relationship to his first production. It illustrated entirely different thoughts, feelings, and habits. It not only evinced a change of heart, but so entire a revolution in his mode of thinking as to seem the production of a different mind. The staple of one forms the satire of the other. Not more unlike are CARLYLE'S Life of SCHILLER" and his "Sartor Resartus." Though "A Year's Life" was by no means deficient in merit, it had so many weak points as to be easily accessible to satirical criticism. The author's language was not pure. When he would "wreak his thoughts upon expression," in the absence of allowable words, he corrupted such as came nearest his meaning into terms which had an intelligible sound, but would not bear a close scrutiny. With all its faults, however, the book had gleams and flashes of genius, which justified warm praises and sanguine expectations. The new poet, it was evident, had an observing eye, and a suggestive imagination; he had caught the tone and spirit of the new and mystical philosophy; he had a large heart; and he aimed, not altogether unsuccessfully, to make Nature the representative and minister of his feelings and desires. If he failed in attempts to put thin abstractions and ever-fleeting shades of thought and emotion into palpable forms, the signs, in "A Year's Life," of the struggling of a larger nature than appeared in defined outlines, made for the author a watchful and hopeful audience.

In 1844 Mr. LoWELL published a new volume, evincing very decided advancement in thought, and feeling, and execution. The longest of its contents, "A Legend of Brittany," is without any of the striking faults of his previous compositions, and in imagination and artistic finish is the best poem he has yet printed. A knight loves and betrays a maiden, and, to conceal his crime, murders her, and places her corpse for temporary concealment behind the altar of his church, whence he is prevented by a mysterious awe from removing it. Meanwhile a festival is held there, and when the

people are all assembled, and the organ sounds the templar hears the voice of the wronged spirit, complaining that she has no rest in heaven be cause of the state of the unbaptized infant in her womb, for which she implores the sacrament. Her prayer is granted, and the repentant lover dies of remorse. The illustration of this story gives oc casion for the finest of Mr. LOWELL'S exhibitions of love, and the poem is in all respects beautiful and complete. In the same volume appeared the author's" Prometheus," "Rhaecus," and some of his most admired shorter pieces. He put forth in it his best powers, and though it embraced occasional redundancies, and he was sometimes so illsatisfied with his poem as to give in its conclusion a versified exposition of its meaning in the form of a moral, it secured the general consent to his admission into the company of men of genius. In 1845 appeared his Conversations on some of the Old Poets," consisting of a series of criticisms and relevant discussions which evince careful study, delicate perception, and a generous catholicity of taste; but the book does not contain the best specimens of his criticism or of his prose diction.

66

He gave to the public a third collection of his poems in 1848. In this there is no improvement of versification, no finer fancy, or braver imagination, than in the preceding volume; but it illustrates a deeper interest in affairs, and a warm partisanship for the philanthropists and progressists of all classes. Among his subjects are "The Present Crisis," "Anti-Texas," "The Capture of Fugitive Slaves," " Hunger and Cold," "The Landlord," &c. He gives here the first examples of a peculiar humour, which he has since cultivated with success, and many passages of finished declamation and powerful invective. He had been mar◄ ried, in 1844, to Miss MARIA WHITE, whose abili ties are shown in a graceful composition included in this volume, and by others which I have quoted in the "Female Poets of America."

In the same year Mr. LowELL published "A Fable for Critics, or a Glance at a Few of our Literary Progenies," a rhymed essay, critical and satirical, upon the principal living writers of the country. It abounds in ingenious turns of expression, and felicitous sketches of character; it is witty and humorous, and for the most part in a spirit of genial appreciation; but in a few instances the judgments indicate too narrow a range of sympathies, and the caustic severity of others has been attributed to desires of retaliation.

but sharp-witted and patriotic country parson. The book is a satire upon the defences of our recent war against Mexico, and it exhibits in various forins of indigenous and homely humour the indignation with which the contest was regarded by the best sort of people in the eastern states. The sectional peculiarities of idiom are perhaps exaggerated, but the entire work has an appearance of genuineness.

About the same time appeared Mr. LOWELL'S "Vision of Sir Launfal," a poem founded upon the legend of the search for the Holy Grail, (the cup out of which our Lord drank with his disci

ples at the last supper.) In the winter of 1854-5 he delivered a course of lectures before the Lowell Institute in Boston, on the British poets, which greatly increased his reputation; and on the retirement of Mr. LONGFELLOW from the professorship of modern languages in Harvard College, the following spring, was chosen to the vacant chair, and soon after sailed for Europe to spend there one or two years in preparation for its duties.

The growth of Mr. LowELL's fame has been steady and rapid from the beginning of his literary career, and no one of our younger authors has a prospect of greater eminence.

TO THE DANDELION.

DEAR Common flower, that grow'st beside the way, Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold,

First pledge of bithesome May, Which children pluck, and, full of pride, uphold, High-hearted buccaneers, o'erjoyed that they An Eldorado in the grass have found,

Which not the rich earth's ample round May match in wealth--thou art more dear to me Than all the prouder summer-blooms may be. Gold such as thine ne'er drew the Spanish prow Through the primeval hush of Indian seas, Nor wrinkled the lean brow

Of age, to rob the lover's heart of ease;

"Tis the Spring's largess, which she scatters now To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand,

Though most hearts never understand
To take it at Gon's value, but pass by
The offer'd wealth with unrewarded eye.
Thou art my trophies and mine Italy;
To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime;
The eyes thou givest me

Are in the heart, and heed not space or time;
Not in mid June the golden-cuirass'd bee
Feels a more summer-like, warm ravishment

In the white lily's breezy tint,
His conquer'd Sybaris, than I, when first
From the dark green thy yellow circles burst.

Then think I of deep shadows on the grassOf meadows where in sun the cattle graze,

Where, as the breezes pass,

The gleaming rushes lean a thousand ways-
Of leaves that slumber in a cloudy mass,
Or whiten in the wind-of waters blue

That from the distance sparkle through Some woodland gap-and of a sky above, [move. Where one white cloud like a stray lamb doth My childhood's earliest thoughts are link'd with The sight of thee calls back the robin's song, [thee; Who, from the dark old tree

Beside the door, sang clearly all day long,
And I, secure in childish piety,
Listen'd as if I heard an angel sing

With news from heaven, which he did bring
Fresh every day to my untainted ears,
When birds and flowers and I were happy peers.

How like a prodigal doth Nature seem,
When thou, for all thy gold, so common art!
Thou teachest me to deem

More sacredly of every human heart,
Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam
Of heaven, and could some wondrous secret show
Did we but pay the love we owe,
And with a child's undoubting wisdom look
On all these living pages of Gon's book.

TO THE MEMORY OF THOMAS HOOD
ANOTHER Star 'neath Time's horizon dropp'd,
To gleam o'er unknown lands and seas!
Another heart that beat for freedom stopp'd:
What mournful words are these!

Oh! Love divine, thou claspest our tired earth,
And lullest it upon thy heart,
Thou knowest how much a gentle soul is worth
To teach men what thou art.

His was a spirit that to all thy poor

Was kind as slumber after pain:
Why ope so soon thy heaven-deep Quiet's door
And call him home again?

Freedom needs all her poets: it is they
Who give her aspirations wings,
And to the wiser law of music sway

Her wild imaginings.

Yet thou hast call'd him, nor art thou unkind,
Oh! Love divine, for 'tis thy will
That gracious natures leave their love behind
To work for Freedom still.

Let laurell'd marbles weigh on other tombs,
Let anthems peal for other dead,
Rustling the banner'd depth of minster-glooms
With their exulting spread:

His epitaph shall mock the short-lived stone,
No lichen shall its lines efface;
He needs these few and simple lines alone
To mark his resting-place:-

"Here lies a poet: stranger, if to thee

His claim to memory be obscure, If thou wouldst learn how truly great was he Go, ask it of the poor"

THROUGH Suffering and sorrow thou hast pass'd
To show us what a woman true may be:
They have not taken sympathy from thee,
Nor made thee any other than thou wast;
Save as some tree, which, in a sudden blast,
Sheddeth those blossoms, that are weakly grown,
Upon the air, but keepeth every one

Whose strength gives warrant of good fruit at last;
So thou hast shed some blooms of gayety,
But never one of steadfast cheerfulness;
Nor hath thy knowledge of adversity
Robb'd thee of any faith in happiness,
But rather clear'd thine inner eyes to see
How many simple ways there are to bless.

II. THE FIERY TRIAL.

THE hungry flame hath never yet been hot
To him who won his name and crown of fire;
But it doth ask a stronger soul and higher
To bear, not longing for a prouder lot,
Those martyrdoms whereof the world knows not,-
Hope sneaped with frosty scorn, the faith of youth
Wasted in seeming vain defence of Truth,
Greatness o'ertopp'd with baseness, and fame got
Too late-Yet this most bitter task was meant
For those right worthy in such cause to plead,
And therefore God sent poets, men content
To live in humbleness and body's need,
If they may tread the path where Jesus went,
And sow one grain of Love's eternal seed.

III.

I ASK not for those thoughts, that sudden leap
From being's sea, like the isle-seeming Kraken,
With whose great rise the ocean all is shaken
And a heart-tremble quivers through the deep;
Give me that growth which some perchance deem
Wherewith the steadfast coral-stems uprise, [sleep,
Which, by the toil of gathering energies,
Their upward way into clear sunshine keep,
Until, by Heaven's sweetest influences,
Slowly and slowly spreads a speck of green
Into a pleasant island in the seas,

Where, mid tall palms, the cane-roof'd home is seen,
And wearied men shall sit at sunset's hour,
Hearing the leaves and loving God's dear power.

MAIDEN, when such a soul as thine is born,
The morning-stars their ancient music make,
And, joyful, once again their song awake,
Long silent now with melancholy scorn;
And thou, not mindless of so blest a morn,
By no east deed its harmony shalt break,
But shalt to that high chime thy footsteps take,
Through life's most darksome passes, unforlorn;
Therefore from thy pure faith thou shalt not fall,
Therefore shalt thou be ever fair and free,
And, in thine every motion, musical
As summer air, majestic as the sea,
A mystery to those who creep and craw!
Through Time, and part it from Eternity.

V. TO THE SAME.

My Love, I have no fear that thou shouldst dio;
Albeit I ask no fairer life than this,
Whose numbering-clock is still thy gentle kisa.
While Time and Peace with hands enlocked fly,-
Yet care I not where in Eternity

We live and love, well knowing that there is
No backward step for those who feel the bliss
Of Faith as their most lofty yearnings high:
Love hath so purified my heart's strong core,
Meseems I scarcely should be startled, even,
To find, some morn, that thou hadst gone before;
Since, with thy love, this knowledge too was given,
Which each calm day doth strengthen more and

more,

That they who love are but one step from Heaven.

IV. TO THE SPIRIT OF KEATS.

GREAT soul thou sittest with me in my room,
Uplifting me with thy vast, quiet eyes,
On whose full orbs, with kindly lustre, lies
The twilight warmth of ruddy ember-gloom:
Thy clear, strong tones will oft bring sudden bloom
Of hope secure, to him who lonely cries,
Wrestling with the young poet's agonies,
Neglect and scorn, which seem a certain doom;
Yes! the few words which, like great thunder-drops,
Thy large heart down to earth shook doubtfully,
Thrill'd by the inward lightning of its might,
Serene and pure, like gushing joy of light,
Shall track the eternal chords of Destiny,
After the moon-led pulse of ocean stops.

VII. TO.

OUR love is not a fading, earthly flower;
Its wing'd seed dropp'd down from Paradise,
And, nursed by day and night, by sun and shower,
Doth momently to fresher beauty rise:
To us the leafless autumn is not bare,
Nor winter's rattling boughs lack lusty green,
Our summer hearts make summer's fulness, where
No leaf, or bud, or blossom may be seen:
For nature's life in love's deep life doth lie,
Love, whose forgetfulness is beauty's death,
Whose mystic keys these cells of Thou and I
Into the infinite freedom openeth,

And makes the body's dark and narrow grate
The wide-flung leaves of Heaven's palace-gate

VIII. IN ABSENCE.

[lai

THESE rugged, wintry days I scarce could bear,
Did I not know, that, in the early spring,
When wild March winds upon their errands sing,
Thou wouldst return, bursting on this still air,
Like those same winds, when, startled from their
They hunt up violets, and free swift brooks
From icy cares, even as thy clear looks
Bid my heart bloom, and sing, and break all care
When drops with welcome rain the April day.
My flowers shall find their April in thine eyes,
Save there the rain in dreamy clouds doth stay.
As loath to fall out of those happy skies;
Yet sure, my love, thou art most like to May,
That comes with steady sun when April dies.

THE POET.

In the old days of awe and keen-eyed wonder, The Poet's song with blood-warm truth was rife; He saw the mysteries which circle under

The outward shell and skin of daily life. Nothing to him were fleeting time and fashion, His soul was led by the eternal law; There was in him no hope of fame, no passion, But with calm, godlike eyes, he only saw. He did not sigh o'er heroes dead and buried,

Chief mourner at the Golden Age's hearse, Nor deem that souls whom Charon grim had ferried Alone were fitting themes of epic verse: He could believe the promise of to-morrow,

And feel the wondrous meaning of to-day; He had a deeper faith in holy sorrow

Than the world's seeming loss could take away. To know the heart of all things was his duty,

All things did sing to him to make him wise, And, with a sorrowful and conquering beauty,

The soul of all looked grandly from his eyes. He gazed on all within him and without him,

He watch'd the flowing of Time's steady tide, And shapes of glory floated all about him

And whisper'd to him, and he prophesied. Than all men he more fearless was and freer, And all his brethren cried with one accord,"Behold the holy man! Behold the Seer!

Him who hath spoken with the unseen Lord!" He to his heart with large embrace had taken The universal sorrow of mankind, And, from that root, a shelter never shaken, The tree of wisdom grew with sturdy rind. He could interpret well the wondrous voices

Which to the calm and silent spirit come; He knew that the One Soul no more rejoices In the star's anthem than the insect's hum. He in his heart was ever meek and humble,

And yet with kingly pomp his numbers ran, As he foresaw how all things false should crumble Before the free, uplifted soul of man: And, when he was made full to overflowing

With all the loveliness of heaven and earth, Out rush'd his song, like molten iron glowing, To show God sitting by the humblest hearth. With calmest courage he was ever ready

To teach that action was the truth of thought, And, with strong arm and purpose firm and steady,

The anchor of the drifting world he wrought, So did he make the meanest man partaker Of all his brother-gods unto him gave; All souls did reverence him and name him Maker, And when he died heaped temples on his grave. And still his deathless words of light are swimming Serene throughout the great, deep infinite O human soul, unwaning and undimming,

To cheer and guide the mariner at night. But now the Poet is an empty rhymer

Who lies with idle elbow on the grass, And fits his singing, like a cunning timer,

To all mer's prides and fancies as they pass. Not his the song, which, in its metre holy, Chimes with the music of the eternal stars,

Humbling the tyrant, lifting up the lowly,

And sending sun through the soul's prison-bara Maker no more,-O, no! unmaker rather, For he unmakes who doth not all put forth The power given by our loving Father

To show the body's dross, the spirit's worth. Awake! great spirit of the ages olden!

Shiver the mists that hide thy starry lyre, And let man's soul be yet again beholden To thee for wings to soar to her desire. O, prophesy no more to-morrow's splendor, Be no more shame-faced to speak out for Truth Lay on her altar all the gushings tender, The hope, the fire, the loving faith of youth! O, prophesy no more the Maker's coming,

Say not his onward footsteps thou canst hear In the dim void, like to the awful humming

Of the great wings of some new-lighted sphere. O, prophesy no more, but be the Poet!

This longing was but granted unto thee That, when all beauty thou couldst feel and know it, That beauty in its highest thou couldst be. O, thou who moanest, tost with sealike longings, Who dimly hearest voices call on thee, Whose soul is overfill'd with mighty throngings Of love, and fear, and glorious agony, Thou of the toil-strung hands and iron sinews And soul by Mother Earth with freedom fed, In whom the hero-spirit yet continues,

The old free nature is not chain'd or dead, Arouse! let thy soul break in music-thunder, Let loose the ocean that is in thee pent, Pour forth thy hope, thy fear, thy love, thy wonder. And tell the age what all its signs have meant. Where'er thy wilder'd crowd of brethren jostles, Where'er there lingers but a shade of wrong, There still is need of martyrs and apostles, There still are texts for never-dying song: From age to age man's still aspiring spirit Finds wider scope and sees with clearer eyes, And thou in larger measure dost inherit

What made thy great forerunners free and wisa Sit thou enthroned where the Poet's mountain Above the thunder lifts its silent peak, And roll thy songs down like a gathering fountain, That all may drink and find the rest they seek. Sing! there shall silence grow in earth and heaven A silence of deep awe and wondering; For, listening gladly, bend the angels, even, To hear a mortal like an angel sing.

Among the toil-worn poor my soul is seeking

For one to bring the Maker's name to light, To be the voice of that almighty speaking

Which every age demands to, do it right. Proprieties our silken bards environ;

He who would be the tongue of this wide land Must string his harp with chords of sturdy iron And strike it with a toil-cmbrowned hand; One who hath dwelt with Nature well-attended. Who hath learnt wisdom from her mystic books, Whose soul with all her countless lives hath blended, So that all beauty awes us in his looks; Who not with body's waste his soul hath pamper'd, Who as the clear northwestern wind is free.