The Vision of Sir Launfal Part 16

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 attention was called to this defective pa.s.sage 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 word Redden the cannon's lips, and while the sword."

120. Baal's stone obscene: Human sacrifices were offered on the altars of Baal. (_Jeremiah_ xix, 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 ill.u.s.tration, 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 pa.s.sage 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 the _North American Review_--an article that pleased him. I _did_ divine 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 pa.s.sion, etc.: An article in the _Atlantic Monthly_ for June, 1885, began with this pa.s.sage: "The funeral procession of the late President of the United States has pa.s.sed 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 p.r.o.nounced 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 n.o.ble Lord or Peer.

180. One of Plutarch's men: The distinguished men of Greece and Rome whom Plutarch immortalized in his _Lives_ are 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's _Lycidas_, "He knew himself to sing." Recall ill.u.s.trations 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 the _Ode 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 pa.s.sage. 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 a.s.sault 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 blaze Whose 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' truth On War's red techstone rang true metal, Who ventered life an' love an' youth For the gret prize o' death in battle?

To him who, deadly hurt, agen Flashed on afore the charge's thunder, Tippin' with fire the bolt of men Thet 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 cut down from thence a branch with one cl.u.s.ter 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's _Elegy_:

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

and Tennyson's line, in the _Ode to the Duke of Wellington_:

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

In a letter to T.W. Higginson, who was editing the _Harvard Memorial Biographies_, in which he was to print the ode, Lowell asked to have the following pa.s.sage inserted at this point:

"Virtue treads paths that end not in the grave, But through those constellations go That shed celestial influence on the brave.

If life were but to draw this dusty breath That 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 enn.o.ble, and inspire In other souls our brave desire For fruit, not leaves, of Time's immortal tree, These truly live, our thought's essential fire, And to the saner," etc.

Lowell's remark in _The Cathedral_, that "second thoughts are prose,"

might be fairly applied to this emendation. Fortunately, the pa.s.sage 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 of the 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. The _House of Hapsburg_ is the Imperial family of Austria. The _Guelfs_ were one of the great political parties in Italy in the Middle Ages, at long and bitter enmity with the _Ghibelines_.

323. With this pa.s.sage read the last two stanzas of _Mr. Hosea Biglow to the Editor of the Atlantic Monthly_, beginning:

"Come, Peace! not like a mourner bowed For 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."

EXAMINATION QUESTIONS

The following questions are taken from recent examination papers of the Examination Board established by the a.s.sociation of Schools and Colleges in the Middle States and Maryland, and of the Regents of the State of New York. Generally only one question on _The Vision of Sir Launfal_ is included in the examination paper for each year.

Under what circ.u.mstances did the "vision" come to Sir Launfal? What was the vision? What was the effect upon him?

What connection have the preludes in the _Vision of Sir Launfal_ with 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.