The Vision of Sir Launfal

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Title: The Vision of Sir Launfal
And Other Poems
Author: James Russell Lowell
Release Date: November 20, 2005 [EBook #17119]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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[Illustration: James Russell Lowell.]
The Riverside Literature Series
THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL
AND OTHER POEMS
BY
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
_WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
AND NOTES
A PORTRAIT AND OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS_
[Illustration: THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL]
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY?Boston: 4 Park Street; New York: 11 East Seventeenth Street
Chicago: 378-388 Wabash Avenue
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
Copyright, 1848, 1857, 1866, 1868, 1869, 1876, and 1885,
By JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
Copyright, 1887, 1894, and 1896,
By HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.
CONTENTS
A SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
I. ELMWOOD
II. EDUCATION
III. FIRST VENTURES
IV. VERSE AND PROSE
V. PUBLIC LIFE
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL
PRELUDE TO PART FIRST
PART FIRST
PRELUDE TO PART SECOND
PART SECOND
ODE RECITED AT THE HARVARD COMMEMORATION
ON BOARD THE '76
AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE
THE FIRST SNOW-FALL
THE OAK
PROMETHEUS
TO W.L. GARRISON
WENDELL PHILLIPS
MR. HOSEA BIGLOW TO THE EDITOR OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY
VILLA FRANCA
THE NIGHTINGALE IN THE STUDY
ALADDIN
BEAVER BROOK
THE SHEPHERD OF KING ADMETUS
THE PRESENT CRISIS
AL FRESCO
THE FOOT-PATH
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL(from a crayon by William?Page in 1842, owned by Mrs. Charles F. Briggs,?Brooklyn, N. Y.) Frontispiece
ELMWOOD, MR. LOWELL'S HOME IN CAMBRIDGE
AS SIR LAUNFAL MADE MORN THROUGH THE DARKSOME GATE
SO HE MUSED, AS HE SAT, OF A SUNNIER CLIME
THE SEAL OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY
A SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
I.
ELMWOOD.
About half a mile from the Craigie House in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on the road leading to the old town of Watertown, is Elmwood, a spacious square house set amongst lilac and syringa bushes, and overtopped by elms. Pleasant fields are on either side, and from the windows one may look out on the Charles River winding its way among the marshes. The house itself is one of a group which before the war for independence belonged to Boston merchants and officers of the crown who refused to take the side of the revolutionary party. Tory Row was the name given to the broad winding road on which the houses stood. Great farms and gardens were attached to them, and some sign of their roomy ease still remains. The estates fell into the hands of various persons after the war, and in process of time Longfellow came to occupy Craigie House. Elmwood at that time was the property of the Reverend Charles Lowell, minister of the West Church in Boston, and when Longfellow thus became his neighbor, James Russell Lowell was a junior in Harvard College. He was born at Elmwood, February 22, 1819. Any one who will read An Indian Summer Reverie will discover how affectionately Lowell dwelt on the scenes of nature and life amidst which he grew up. Indeed, it would be a pleasant task to draw from the full storehouse of his poetry the golden phrases with which he characterizes the trees, meadows, brooks, flowers, birds, and human companions that were so near to him in his youth and so vivid in his recollection. In his prose works also a lively paper, _Cambridge Thirty Years Ago_, contains many reminiscences of his early life.
To know any one well it is needful to inquire into his ancestry, and two or three hints may be given of the currents that met in this poet. On his father's side he came from a succession of New England men who for the previous three generations had been in professional life. The Lowells traced their descent from Percival Lowell,--a name which survives in the family,--of Bristol, England,