Selections From American Poetry | Page 7

But better far it is to speak
One simple word which, now and then
Shall waken their free nature in the
weak
And friendless sons of men.

To write some earnest verse or line
Which, seeking not the praise of art,

Shall make a clearer faith and manhood
shine
In the untutored heart."
His very accomplishments made it difficult for him to reach this aim,
since his poetry does not move "the untutored heart" so readily as does
that of Longfellow or Whittier. It is, on the whole, too deeply burdened
with learning and too individual in expression to fulfil his highest
desire. Of his early poems the most generally known is probably "The
Vision of Sir Launfal," in which a strong moral purpose is combined
with lines of beautiful nature description:
"And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days.
Two works by which he will be permanently remembered show a
deeper and more effective Lowell. "The Biglow Papers" are the most
successful of all the American poems which attempt to improve
conditions by means of humor. Although they refer in the main to the
situation at the time of the Mexican War, they deal with such universal
political traits that they may be applied to almost any age. They are
written in a Yankee dialect which, it is asserted, was never spoken, but
which enhances the humor, as in "What Mr. Robinson Thinks."
Lowell's tribute to Lincoln occurs in the Ode which he wrote to
commemorate the Harvard students who enlisted in the Civil War.
After dwelling on the search for truth which should be the aim of every
college student, he turns to the delineation of Lincoln's character in a
eulogy of great beauty. Clear in analysis, farsighted in judgment, and
loving in sentiment, he expresses that opinion of Lincoln which has
become a part of the web of American thought. His is no hurried

judgment, but the calm statement of opinion which is to-day accepted
by the world:
"They 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,
Now birth of our new soil, the first
American."
With Oliver Wendell Holmes comes the last of this brief American list
of honor. No other American has so combined delicacy with the New
England humor. We should be poorer by many a smile without "My
Aunt" and "The Deacon's Masterpiece." But this is not his entire gift.
"The Chambered Nautilus" strikes the chord of noble sentiment
sounded in the last stanza of "Thanatopsis" and it will continue to sing
in our hearts "As the swift seasons roll." There is in his poems the smile
and the sigh of the wellloved stanza,
"And if I should live to be
The last leaf upon the tree
In