THE OAK

"And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy day."

50. Compare with this stanza the pretty little poem,The Birch Tree.

68.Lavish of their long-hid gold:The chestnut leaves,it will be remembered, turn to a bright golden yellow in autumn. These descriptions of autumn foliage are all as true as beautiful.

73.Maple-swamps:We generally speak of the swamp-maple, which grows in low ground, and has particularly brilliant foliage in autumn.

82.Tangled blackberry:This is the creeping blackberry of course, which every one remembers whose feet have been caught in its prickly tangles.

91.Martyr oak:The oak is surrounded with the blazing foliage of the ivy, like a burning martyr.

99.Dear marshes:The Charles River near Elmwood winds through broad salt marshes, the characteristic features of which Lowell describes with minute and loving fidelity.

127.Bobolink:If Lowell had a favorite bird, it was the bobolink, although the oriole was a close competitor for his praises. In one of his letters he says: "I think the bobolink the best singer in the world, even undervaluing the lark and the nightingale in the comparison." And in another he writes: "That liquid tinkle of theirs is the true fountain of youth if one can only drink it with the right ears, and I always date the New Year from the day of my first draught. Messer Roberto di Lincoln, with his summer alb over his shoulders, is the true chorister for the bridals of earth and sky. There is no bird that seems to me so thoroughly happy as he, so void of allarrière penséeabout getting a livelihood. The robin sings matins and vespers somewhat conscientiously, it seems to me—makes a business of it and pipes as it were by the yard—but Bob squanders song like a poet."

Compare the description inSunthin' in the Pastoral Line:

"'Nuff said, June's bridesman, poet o' the year,Gladness on wings, the bobolink, is here;Half hid in tip-top apple-blooms he swings,Or climbs aginst the breeze with quiverin' wings,Or, givin' way to 't in a mock despair,Runs down, a brook o' laughter, thru the air."

See also the opening lines ofUnder the Willowsfor another description full of the ecstasy of both bird and poet. The two passages woven together appear in the essayCambridge Thirty Years Ago, as a quotation. An early poem onThe Bobolink, delightful and widely popular, was omitted from later editions of his poems by Lowell, perhaps because to his maturer taste the theme was too much moralized in his early manner. "Shelley and Wordsworth," says Mr. Brownell, "have not more worthily immortalized the skylark than Lowell has the bobolink, its New England congener."

134.Another change: The description now returns to the marshes.

147.Simond's hill: In the essayCambridge Thirty Years AgoLowell describes the village as seen from the top of this hill.

159-161. An allusion to the Mexican War, against which Lowell was directing the satire of theBiglow Papers.

174-182. Compare the winter pictures in Whittier'sSnowbound.

177.Formal candles: Candles lighted for some form or ceremony, as in a religious service.

192.Stonehenge: Stonehenge on Salisbury plain in the south of England is famous for its huge blocks of stone now lying in confusion, supposed to be the remains of an ancient Druid temple.

207.Sanding: The continuance of the metaphor in "higher waves" are "whelming." With high waves the sand is brought in upon the land, encroaching upon its limits.

209.Muses' factories: The buildings of Harvard College.

218.House-bespotted swell: Lowell notes with some resentment the change from nature's simple beauties tothe pretentiousness of wealth shown in incongruous buildings.

220.Cits: Contracted from citizens. During the French Revolution, when all titles were abolished, the termcitizenwas applied to every one, to denote democratic simplicity and equality.

223.Gentle Allston: Washington Allston, the celebrated painter, whom Lowell describes as he remembered him in the charming essayCambridge Thirty Years Ago.

225.Virgilium vidi tantum: I barely saw Virgil—caught a glimpse of him—a phrase applied to any passing glimpse of greatness.

227.Undine-like: Undine, a graceful water nymph, is the heroine of the charming little romantic story by De la Motte Fouqué.

234.The village blacksmith: See Longfellow's famous poem,The Village Blacksmith. The chestnut was cut down in 1876. An arm-chair made from its wood still stands in the Longfellow house, a gift to Longfellow from the Cambridge school children.

254.Six old willows: These much-loved trees afforded Lowell a subject for a later poemUnder the Willows, in which he describes particularly one ancient willow that had been spared, he "knows not by what grace" by the ruthless "New World subduers"—

"One of six, a willow Pleiades,The seventh fallen, that lean along the brinkWhere the steep upland dips into the marsh."

In a letter written twenty years after theReverieto J.T. Fields, Lowell says: "My heart was almost broken yesterday by seeing nailed tomywillow a board with these words on it, 'These trees for sale.' The wretch is going to peddle them for firewood! If I had the money, I would buy the piece of ground they stand on to save them—the dear friends of a lifetime."

255.Paul Potter: One of the most famous of the Dutch painters of the seventeenth century, notable for the strong realism of his work.

264.Collegisse juvat: The full sentence, in the first ode of Horace, reads, "Curriculo pulverem Olympicum collegisse juvat." (It is a pleasure to have collected the dust of Olympus on one's chariot wheels.) The allusion is to the Olympic games, the most celebrated festival of Greece. Lowell puns upon the wordcollegissewith his own coinage, which may have the double meaning ofgoing to collegeandcollecting.

272.Blinding anguish: An allusion to the death of his little daughter Blanche. SeeThe Changeling, The First Snow-fall,andShe Came and Went.

11. Uncinctured front: The forehead no longer encircled with a crown.

13-16. There is a little confusion in the figures here, the cathedral part of the picture being a little far fetched.

40.Mad Pucks: Puck is the frolicsome, mischief-making spirit of Shakespeare'sMidsummer Night's Dream.

45.Dodona grove: The grove of oaks at Dodona was the seat of a famous Greek oracle, whose responses were whispered through the murmuring foliage of the trees.

Beaver Brook at Waverley was a favorite resort of Lowell's and it is often mentioned in his writings. In summer and winter it was the frequent goal of his walks. The poem was at first calledThe Mill. It was first published in theAnti-Slavery Standard, and to the editor, Sidney H. Gay, Lowell wrote:—"Don't you like the poem I sent you last week? I was inclined to think pretty well of it, but I have not seenit in print yet. The little mill stands in a valley between one of the spurs of Wellington Hill and the main summit, just on the edge of Waltham. It is surely one of the loveliest spots in the world. It is one of my lions, and if you will make me a visit this spring, I will take you up to hear it roar, and I will show you 'the oaks'—the largest, I fancy, left in the country."

21.Undine: In mythology and romance, Undine is a water-spirit who is endowed with a soul by her marriage with a mortal. Theraceis the watercourse conducted, from the dam in an open trough or "penstock" to the wheel.

45.In that new childhood of the Earth: This poem was written a few weeks after theVision of Sir Launfalwas published, and it therefore naturally partakes of its idealism.

This poem was written in 1844. The discussion over the annexation of Texas was absorbing public attention. The anti-slavery party opposed annexation, believing that it would strengthen the slave-holding interests, and for the same reason the South was urging the scheme. Lowell wrote several very strong anti-slavery poems at this time,To W.L. Garrison,Wendell Phillips,On the Death of C.T. Torrey, and others, which attracted attention to him as a new and powerful ally of the reform party. "These poems," says George William Curtis, "especially that onThe Present Crisis,have a Tyrtæan resonance, a stately rhetorical rhythm, that make their dignity of thought, their intense feeling, and picturesque imagery, superbly effective in recitation. They sang themselves on every anti-slavery platform."

While the poem was inspired by the political struggle of the time, which Lowell regarded as a crisis in the history of our national honor and progress, its chief strength is due to the fact that its lofty sentiment is universal in its appeal, and not applicable merely to temporal and local conditions.

17.Round the earth's electric circle, etc.: This prophetic figure was doubtless suggested by the first telegraph line, which Samuel F.B. Morse had just erected between Baltimore and Washington.

37.The Word: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (Johni, 1.)

44.Delphic cave: The oracle at Delphi was the most famous and authoritative among the Greeks. The priestess who voiced the answers of the god was seated in a natural fissure in the rocks.

46.Cyclops: The Cyclopes were brutish giants with one eye who lived in caverns and fed on human flesh, if the opportunity offered. Lowell is recalling in these lines the adventure of Ulysses with the Cyclops, in the ninth book of Homer'sOdyssey.

64.Credo: Latin, I believe: the first word in the Latin version of the Apostles' Creed, hence used forcreed.

This poem first appeared as "a short fragment of a pastoral," in the introduction to the First Series of theBiglow Papers. It is said to have been composed merely to fill a blank page, but its popularity was so great that Lowell expanded it to twice its original length, and finally printed it as a kind of introduction to the Second Series of theBiglow Papers. It first appeared, however, in its expanded form in a charitable publication,Autograph Leaves of Our Country's Authors, reproduced in facsimile from the original manuscript.

"This bucolic idyl," says Stedman, "is without a counterpart; no richer juice can be pressed from the wild grape of the Yankee soil." Greenslet thinks that this poem is "perhaps the most nearly perfect of his poems."

17.Crooknecks: Crookneck squashes.

19.Ole queen's-arm: The old musket brought from the Concord fight in 1775.

32. To draw a straight furrow when plowing is regarded as evidence of a skilful farmer.

36.All is: The truth is, "all there is about it."

37.Long o' her: Along of her, on account of her.

40.South slope: The slope of a hill facing south catches the spring sunshine.

43.Ole Hunderd: Old Hundred is one of the most familiar of the old hymn tunes.

58. Somewhat doubtful as to the sequel.

94.Bay o' Fundy: The Bay of Fundy is remarkable for its high and violent tides, owing to the peculiar conformation of its banks.

96.Was cried: The "bans" were cried, the announcement of the engagement in the church, according to the custom of that day.

The poem was dedicated "To the ever sweet and shining memory of the ninety-three sons of Harvard College who have died for their country in the war of nationality." The text of the poem is here given as Lowell first published it in 1865. He afterward made a few verbal changes, and added one new strophe after the eighth. There is a special interest in studying the ode in the form in which it came rushing from the poet's brain.

1-14. The deeds of the poet are weak and trivial compared with the deeds of heroes. They live their high ideals and die for them. Yet the gentle words of the poet may sometimes save unusual lives from that oblivion to which all common lives are destined.

5.Robin's-leaf: An allusion to the ballad of theBabes in the Wood.

9.Squadron-strophes: The termstropheoriginally wasapplied to a metrical form that was repeated in a certain established way, like thestropheandantistropheof the Greek ode, as sung by a divided chorus; it is now applied to any stanza form. The poem of heroism is a "battle-ode," whose successive stanzas are marching squadrons, whose verses are lines of blazing guns, and whose melody is the strenuous music of "trump and drum."

13.Lethe's dreamless ooze: Lethe is the river of oblivion in Hades; its slimy depths of forgetfulness are not even disturbed by dreams.

14.Unventurous throng: The vast majority of commonplace beings who neither achieve nor attempt deeds of "high emprise."

16.Wisest Scholars: Many students who had returned from the war were in the audience, welcomed back by their revered mother, their Alma Mater.

20.Peddling: Engaging in small, trifling interests. Lowell's attitude toward science is that of Wordsworth, when he speaks of the dry-souled scientist as one who is all eyes and no heart, "One that would peep and botanize Upon his mother's grave."

21. The pseudo-science of astrology, seeking to tell commonplace fortunes by the stars.

25-26.Clear fame: Compare Milton'sLycidas:

"Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raiseTo scorn delights and live laborious days."

32.Half-virtues: Is Lowell disparaging the virtues of peace and home in comparison with the heroic virtues of war? Or are these "half-virtues" contrasted with the loftier virtue, the devotion to Truth?

34.That stern device: The seal of Harvard College, chosen by its early founders, bears the device of a shield with the wordVe-ri-tas(truth) upon three open books.

46.Sad faith: Deep, serious faith, or there may be aslight touch of irony in the word, with a glance at the gloomy faith of early puritanism and its "lifeless creed" (l. 62).

62.Lifeless creed: Compare Tennyson's:

"Ancient formThro' which the spirit breathes no more."

73. The tide of the ocean in its flow and ebb is under the influence of the moon. To get the sense of the metaphor, "fickle" must be read with "Fortune"—unless, perchance, we like Juliet regard the moon as the "inconstant moon."

81. To protect one's self everyone connives against everyone else. CompareSir Launfal, I. 11. Instead of climbing Sinais we "cringe and plot."

82. CompareSir Launfal, I. 26. The whole passage, II. 76-87, is a distant echo of the second and third stanzas ofSir Launfal.

83-85.Puppets: The puppets are the pasteboard actors in the Punch and Judy show, operated by unseen wires.

84. An echo ofMacbeth, V, 5:

"Life's but a walking shadow, a poor playerThat struts and frets his hour upon the stage,And then is heard no more."

97.Elder than the Day: Elder than the first Day. "And God called the light Day," etc. (Genesisi, 5.) We may have light from the divine fountains.

110-114. In shaping this elaborate battle metaphor, one can easily believe the poet to have had in mind some fierce mountain struggle during the war, such as the battle of Lookout Mountain.

111.Creeds: Here used in the broad sense of convictions, principles, beliefs.

115-118. The construction is faulty in these lines. The two last clauses should be co-ordinated. The substance of the meaning is: Peace has her wreath, while the cannon are silent and while the sword slumbers. Lowell's attentionwas called to this defective passage by T.W. Higginson, and he replied: "Your criticism is perfectly just, and I am much obliged to you for it—though I might defend myself, I believe, by some constructions even looser in some of the Greek choruses. But on the whole, when I have my choice, I prefer to make sense." He then suggested an emendation, which somehow failed to get into the published poem:

"Ere yet the sharp, decisive wordRedden the cannon's lips, and while the sword."

120.Baäl's stone obscene: Human sacrifices were offered on the altars of Baäl. (Jeremiahxix, 5.)

147-205. This strophe was not in the ode as delivered, but was written immediately after the occasion, and included in the published poem. "It is so completely imbedded in the structure of the ode," says Scudder, "that it is difficult to think of it as an afterthought. It is easy to perceive that while the glow of composition and of recitation was still upon him, Lowell suddenly conceived this splendid illustration, and indeed climax of the utterance, of the Ideal which is so impressive in the fifth stanza.... Into these threescore lines Lowell has poured a conception of Lincoln, which may justly be said to be to-day the accepted idea which Americans hold of their great President. It was the final expression of the judgment which had slowly been forming in Lowell's own mind."

In a letter to Richard Watson Gilder, Lowell says: "The passage about Lincoln was not in the ode as originally recited, but added immediately after. More than eighteen months before, however, I had written about Lincoln in theNorth American Review—an article that pleased him. Ididdivine him earlier than most men of the Brahmin caste."

It is a singular fact that the other great New England poets, Longfellow, Whittier, and Holmes, had almost nothing to say about Lincoln.

150.Wept with the passion, etc.: An article in theAtlantic Monthlyfor June, 1885, began with this passage: "The funeralprocession of the late President of the United States has passed through the land from Washington to his final resting-place in the heart of the prairies. Along the line of more than fifteen hundred miles his remains were borne, as it were, through continued lines of the people; and the number of mourners and the sincerity and unanimity of grief was such as never before attended the obsequies of a human being; so that the terrible catastrophe of his end hardly struck more awe than the majestic sorrow of the people."

170.Outward grace is dust: An allusion to Lincoln's awkward and rather unkempt outward appearance.

173.Supple-tempered will: One of the most pronounced traits of Lincoln's character was his kindly, almost femininely gentle and sympathetic spirit. With this, however, was combined a determination of steel.

175-178.Nothing of Europe here: There was nothing of Europe in him, or, if anything, it was of Europe in her early ages of freedom before there was any distinction of slave and master, groveling Russian Serf and noble Lord or Peer.

180.One of Plutarch's men: The distinguished men of Greece and Rome whom Plutarch immortalized in hisLivesare accepted as types of human greatness.

182.Innative: Inborn, natural.

187.He knew to bide his time: He knew how to bide his time, as in Milton'sLycidas, "He knew himself to sing." Recall illustrations of Lincoln's wonderful patience and faith.

198.The first American: In a prose article, Lowell calls him "The American of Americans." Compare Tennyson's "The last great Englishman," in theOde on the Death of the Duke of Wellington. Stanza IV of Tennyson's ode should be compared with this Lincoln stanza.

202.Along whose course,etc.: Along the course leading to the "inspiring goal." The conjunction of the words "pole" and "axles" easily leads to a confusion of metaphor in the passage. The imagery is from the ancient chariot races.

232.Paean:A paean, originally a hymn to Apollo, usually of thanksgiving, is a song of triumph, any loud and joyous song.

236.Dear ones:Underwood says in his biography of Lowell: "In the privately printed edition of the poem the names of eight of the poet's kindred are given. The nearest in blood are the nephews, General Charles Russell Lowell, killed at Winchester, Lieutenant James Jackson Lowell, at Seven Pines, and Captain William Lowell Putnam, at Ball's Bluff. Another relative was the heroic Colonel Robert G. Shaw, who fell in the assault on Fort Wagner."

As a special memorial of Colonel Shaw, Lowell wrote the poem,Memoriae Positum.With deep tenderness he refers to his nephews in"Mr. Hosea Biglow to the Editor of the Atlantic Monthly":

"Why, hain't I held 'em on my knee?Didn't I love to see 'em growin',Three likely lads ez wal could be,Hahnsome an' brave an' not tu knowin'?I set an' look into the blazeWhose 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' truthOn War's red techstone rang true metal,Who ventered life an' love an' youthFor the gret prize o' death in battle?To him who, deadly hurt, agenFlashed on afore the charge's thunder,Tippin' with fire the bolt of menThet rived the Rebel line asunder?"

"Wut's words to them whose faith an' truthOn War's red techstone rang true metal,Who ventered life an' love an' youthFor the gret prize o' death in battle?To him who, deadly hurt, agenFlashed on afore the charge's thunder,Tippin' with fire the bolt of menThet rived the Rebel line asunder?"

243. When Moses sent men to "spy out" the Promised Land, they reported a land that "floweth with milk and honey," and they "came unto the brook of Eshcol, and cutdown from thence a branch with one cluster of grapes, and they bare it between two upon a staff; and they brought of the pomegranates and of the figs" (Numbers xiii.)

245. Compare the familiar line in Gray'sElegy:

"The paths of glory lead but to the grave."

and Tennyson's line, in theOde to the Duke of Wellington:

"The path of duty was the way of glory."

In a letter to T.W. Higginson, who was editing theHarvard Memorial Biographies, in which he was to print the ode, Lowell asked to have the following passage inserted at this point:

"Virtue treads paths that end not in the grave,But through those constellations goThat shed celestial influence on the brave.If life were but to draw this dusty breathThat doth our wits enslave,And with the crowd to hurry to and fro,Seeking we know not what, and finding death,These did unwisely; but if living be,As some are born to know,The power to ennoble, and inspireIn other souls our brave desireFor fruit, not leaves, of Time's immortal tree,These truly live, our thought's essential fire,And to the saner," etc.

Lowell's remark inThe Cathedral, that "second thoughts are prose," might be fairly applied to this emendation. Fortunately, the passage was never inserted in the ode.

255.Orient: The east, morning; hence youth, aspiration, hope. The figure is continued in l. 271.

262.Who now shall sneer?In a letter to Mr. J.B. Thayer, who had criticized this strophe, Lowell admits "that there is a certain narrowness in it as an expression ofthe popular feeling as well as my own. I confess I have never got over the feeling of wrath with which (just after the death of my nephew Willie) I read in an English paper that nothing was to be hoped of an army officered by tailors' apprentices and butcher boys." But Lowell asks his critic to observe that this strophe "leads naturally" to the next, and "that I there justify" the sentiment.

265.Roundhead and Cavalier:In a general way, it is said that New England was settled by the Roundheads, or Puritans, of England, and the South by the Cavaliers or Royalists.

272-273.Plantagenets:A line of English kings, founded by Henry II, called also the House of Anjou, from their French origin. TheHouse of Hapsburgis the Imperial family of Austria. TheGuelfswere one of the great political parties in Italy in the Middle Ages, at long and bitter enmity with theGhibelines.

323. With this passage read the last two stanzas ofMr. Hosea Biglow to the Editor of the Atlantic Monthly, beginning:

"Come, Peace! not like a mourner bowedFor honor lost and dear ones wasted,But proud, to meet a people proud,With eyes that tell of triumphs tasted!"

328.Helm:The helmet, the part of ancient armor for protecting the head, used here as the symbol of war.

343. Upon receiving the news that the war was ended, Lowell wrote to his friend, Charles Eliot Norton: "The news, my dear Charles, is from Heaven. I felt a strange and tender exaltation. I wanted to laugh and I wanted to cry, and ended by holding my peace and feeling devoutly thankful. There is something magnificent in having a country to love."

The following questions are taken from recent examination papers of the Examination Board established by the Association of Schools and Colleges in the Middle States and Maryland, and of the Regents of the State of New York. Generally only one question onThe Vision of Sir Launfalis included in the examination paper for each year.

Under what circumstances did the "vision" come to Sir Launfal? What was the vision? What was the effect upon him?

What connection have the preludes in theVision of Sir Launfalwith the main divisions which they precede? What is their part in the poem as a whole?

Contrast Sir Launfal's treatment of the leper at their first meeting with his treatment at their second.

1. Describe a scene from theVision of Sir Launfal.

2. Describe the hall of the castle as Sir Launfal saw it on Christmas eve.

"The soul partakes the season's youth ...What wonder if Sir Launfal nowRemembered the keeping of his vow?"

Give the meaning of these lines, and explain what you think is Lowell's purpose in the preface from which they are taken. Give the substance of the corresponding preface to the other part of the poem, and account for the difference between the two.

Describe the scene as it might have appeared to one standing just outside the castle gate, as Sir Launfal emerged from his castle in his search for the Holy Grail.

Compare theAncient Marinerand theVision of Sir Launfalwith regard to the representation of a moral idea in each.

Explain the meaning of Sir Launfal's vision, and show how it affected his conduct.

Describe an ideal summer day as portrayed in theVision of Sir Launfal.

Quote at least ten lines.

Discuss, with illustrations, Lowell's descriptions in theVision of Sir Launfal, touching ontwoof the following points:—(a) beauty, (b) vividness, (c) attention to details.

Write a description of winter as given in Part Second.

Outline in tabular form the story of Sir Launfal's search for the Holy Grail; be careful to include in your outline the time, the place, the leading characters, and the leading events in their order.

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