The closing section of the poem holds a reflection of that image which is after all most enshrined in the poet’s heart, as one may gather not only from his after words concerning her, but from the influence manifest in his own early career from this time forward. “Early and late, at her soul’s gate Sits Chastity in warderwise, No thought unchallenged, small or great, Goes thence into her eyes; Nor may a low, unworthy thought Beyond that virgin warder win, Nor one, whose passion is not ‘ought,’ May go without, or enter in. I call her, seeing those pure eyes, The Eve of a new Paradise, Which she by gentle word and deed, And look no less, doth still create About her, for her great thoughts breed A calm that lifts us from our fallen state, And makes us while with her both good and great,-- Nor is their memory wanting in our need: With stronger loving, every hour, Turneth my heart to this frail flower, Which, thoughtless of the world, hath grown To beauty and meek gentleness, Here in a fair world of its own,-- By woman’s instinct trained alone,-- A lily fair which God did bless, And which from Nature’s heart did draw Love, wisdom, peace, and Heaven’s perfect law.” Lowell did not retain “Ianthe” in his later collections, but he reprinted to the last the other poem especially identified with Miss White which bears the significant title “Irene.” This, as the reader perceives, is more distinctly a piece of characterization, and its closing lines, wherein Irene is likened to the lone star seen by sailors tempest-tost, may be read as carrying more than a pretty poetic simile, for it cannot be doubted that the love which now possessed the poet was in a profound sense a word of peace to him. Something of the same strain, though more remote and dramatic, may be read in the poem “The Sirens,” which is also retained by Lowell in his later collections, and is dated in “A Year’s Life” “Nantasket, July, 1840,” a date which has an added interest when one refers to the letter given above on page 78. One more passage may be read from his letters as giving his own final word of retrospect and prospect. It occurs in a letter to G. B. Loring, 2 January, 1841. “Yes, my friend, it is most true that I have changed. I thank _her_ and one other, under God, for it.... Had the love I bore to a woman you know of three years ago, been as pure, true, and holy as that I bear to her who ‘never from me shall be divided,’ I had been a man sooner. My love for her was fierce and savage. It rose not like the fair evening star on the evening I first saw her (I remember it well), but (as _she_ has said of such love) like a lurid meteor. And it fell as suddenly. For a time I was dazed by its glare and startled by the noise of its bursting. But I grew calm and soon morning dawned....