Poems of the War: 'If youth be a defect, it is one that we outgrow only too soon''

By James Russell Lowell

James Russell Lowell was born on February 22nd, 1819.

He attended Harvard College at age 15 from 1834, but failed to show any talent or dedication to learning which often caused disruption. After graduating, he attempted many careers including busi

• Language: English
• Publisher: Portable Poetry
• Release date: Nov 18, 2019
• ISBN: 9781839671647

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Poems of the War by James Russell Lowell

James Russell Lowell was born on February 22nd, 1819.

He attended Harvard College at age 15 from 1834, but failed to show any talent or dedication to learning which often caused disruption.  After graduating, he attempted many careers including business, the ministry, medicine, and law. The latter gained him admittance to the bar in 1842.

Lowell's earliest poems were published in the Southern Literary Messenger in 1840.

In December 1844 Lowell married Maria White, shortly after he had published ‘Conversations on the Old Poets’, a collection of previously published essays.

He co-founded the literary journal The Pioneer, hoping to enjoy a regular income. The magazine ceased after three issues leaving him $1,800 in debt.

‘A Fable for Critics’ one of his most popular works, was published in 1848. It sold out quickly.  The same year he published ‘The Biglow Papers’. It was cited as the most influential book of 1848.

His wife, Maria, who had suffered poor health for years, died on October 27th 1853 of tuberculosis.

Lowell was asked to deliver a lecture series. He accepted hoping it might bring him a sense of purpose. The first lecture, on January 9th, 1855, was on John Milton. It was a sell out.

He was offered the Smith Professorship of Modern Languages at Harvard. Lowell accepted if he could have a year of study abroad first. It was noted that Lowell had no natural inclination to teach. Lowell agreed, but retained his position for twenty years.

In the autumn of 1857, The Atlantic Monthly was established with Lowell as its first editor. In its first November issue he gave the magazine the stamp of high literature and of bold speech on public affairs.

With the outbreak of Civil War Lowell used his position to praise Abraham Lincoln. Lowell, generally a pacifist, wrote, If the destruction of slavery is to be a consequence of the war, shall we regret it? If it be needful to the successful prosecution of the war, shall anyone oppose it?

After Lincoln's assassination, Lowell delivered a poem at Harvard in memory of graduates killed in the war. The poem, ‘Ode Recited at the Harvard Commemoration, July 21, 1865’, was the result of a 48-hour writing binge.

‘Under the Willows and Other Poems’ was released in 1869.

Lowell resigned from his Harvard professorship in 1874, though continued to teach through 1877. He spent part of the 1880s delivering speeches. His last published works were mostly collections of essays, and a collection of his poems ‘Heartsease and Rue’ in 1888.

In the last few months of his life, during 1891, he struggled with gout, sciatica, and chronic nausea; by the summer doctors believed that Lowell had cancer in his kidneys, liver, and lungs, he was administered opium for the pain and was rarely fully conscious.

James Russell Lowell died on August 12th, 1891, at Elmwood.

Index of Contents

POEMS OF THE WAR

THE WASHERS OF THE SHROUD. OCTOBER, 1861

TWO SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF BLONDEL. AUTUMN, 1863

SCENE I.—Near a castle in Germany

SCENE II.—An Inn near the Château of Chalus

MEMORIAE POSITUM - R.G. SHAW

ON BOARD THE '76

ODE RECITED AT THE HARVARD COMMEMORATION. JULY 21, 1865

L'ENVOI. TO THE MUSE

THE CATHEDRAL

THREE MEMORIAL POEMS:

ODE - READ AT THE ONE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FIGHT AT CONCORD BRIDGE

UNDER THE OLD ELM

AN ODE FOR THE FOURTH OF JULY, 1876

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL – A SHORT BIOGRAPHY

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL – A CONCISE BIBLIOGRAPHY

POEMS OF THE WAR

THE WASHERS OF THE SHROUD

OCTOBER, 1861

Along a river-side, I know not where,

I walked one night in mystery of dream;

A chill creeps curdling yet beneath my hair,

To think what chanced me by the pallid gleam

Of a moon-wraith that waned through haunted air.

Pale fireflies pulsed within the meadow-mist

Their hales, wavering thistledowns of light;

The loon, that seemed to mock some goblin tryst,

Laughed; and the echoes, huddling in affright,

Like Odin's hounds, fled baying down the night.

Then all was silent, till there smote my ear

A movement in the stream that checked my breath:

Was it the slow plash of a wading deer?

But something said, 'This water is of Death!

The Sisters wash a shroud,—ill thing to hear!'

I, looking then, beheld the ancient Three

Known to the Greek's and to the Northman's creed,

That sit in shadow of the mystic Tree,

Still crooning, as they weave their endless brede,

One song: 'Time was, Time is, and Time shall be.'

No wrinkled crones were they, as I had deemed,

But fair as yesterday, to-day, to-morrow

To mourner, lover, poet, ever seemed;

Something too high for joy, too deep for sorrow,

Thrilled in their tones, and from their faces gleamed.

'Still men and nations reap as they have strawn,'

So sang they, working at their task the while;

'The fatal raiment must be cleansed ere dawn:

For Austria? Italy? the Sea-Queen's isle?

O'er what quenched grandeur must our shroud be drawn?

'Or is it for a younger, fairer corse,

That gathered States like children round his knees,

That tamed the wave to be his posting-horse,

Feller of forests, linker of the seas,

Bridge-builder, hammerer, youngest son of Thor's?

'What make we, murmur'st thou? and what are we?

When empires must be wound, we bring the shroud,

The time-old web of the implacable Three:

Is it too coarse for him, the young and proud?

Earth's mightiest deigned to wear it,—why not he?'

'Is there no hope?' I moaned, 'so strong, so fair!

Our Fowler whose proud bird would brook erewhile

No rival's swoop in all our western air!

Gather the ravens, then, in funeral file

For him, life's morn yet golden in his hair?

'Leave me not hopeless, ye unpitying dames!

I see, half seeing. Tell me, ye who scanned

The stars, Earth's elders, still must noblest aims

Be traced upon oblivious ocean-sands?

Must Hesper join the wailing ghosts of names?'

'When grass-blades stiffen with red battle-dew,

Ye deem we choose the victor and the slain:

Say, choose we them that shall be leal and true

To the heart's longing, the high faith of brain?

Yet there the victory lies, if ye but knew.

'Three roots bear up Dominion: Knowledge, Will,—

These twain are strong, but stronger yet the third,—

Obedience,—'tis the great tap-root that still,

Knit round the rock of Duty, is not stirred,

Though Heaven-loosed tempests spend their utmost skill.

'Is the doom sealed for Hesper? 'Tis not we

Denounce it, but the Law before all time:

The brave makes danger opportunity;

The waverer, paltering with the chance sublime,

Dwarfs it to peril: which shall