In these two odes as well as in the one given on the great centennial day, the Fourth of July, 1876, Lowell spoke with no uncertain sound regarding those eternal truths of freedom and country which made patriotism with him a solemn passion. But so much the more impossible was it for him to close his eyes to the signs of defection from high ideals, or his lips when the impulse of speech came to him. In his poem on Agassiz written while still in Europe and obliged, as he has elsewhere said, always to be on the defensive, he gave expression to his deep scorn in a few lines which have not lost their sting, though a quarter of a century has passed since they were written. No one whose memory carries him back to the days of Grant’s second administration can forget the breathless fear of what next might be disclosed, and an American like Lowell, compelled to read the elegant extracts of peculation and fraud in high places which the English press in those days culled as examples of American public life, was even more keenly impressed than if he were in the midst of it all and could yet brace himself with the knowledge of better things mingled with these.[59] But the second stanza of the Agassiz was mild compared with the condensed bitterness of “The World’s Fair, 1876,” which he printed in the _Nation_, or the sarcastic arraignment in “Tempora Mutantur,” printed in the same journal. The longer poem, with its etchings of Tweed and Fisk, bitten in with an acid that is keener than any used in the “Biglow Papers,” is preserved in “Heartsease and Rue,” a record of shame that is wholesomely unpleasant to recall whenever one is disposed to be complacent. The other was set up for the same volume, but afterward withdrawn. It could well be spared from Lowell’s works, but has a stronger claim in a record of his life and character. THE WORLD’S FAIR, 1876. Columbia, puzzled what she should display Of true home-make on her Centennial Day, Asked Brother Jonathan: he scratched his head, Whittled a while reflectively, and said, “Your own invention and own making, too? Why, any child could tell ye what to do: Show ’em your Civil Service, and explain How all men’s loss is everybody’s gain; Show your new patent to increase your rents By paying quarters for collecting cents; Show your short cut to cure financial ills By making paper collars current bills; Show your new bleaching-process, cheap and brief, To wit, a jury chosen by the thief; Show your State Legislatures; show your Rings; And challenge Europe to produce such things As high officials sitting half in sight To share the plunder and to fix things right. If that don’t fetch her, why, you only need To show your latest style in martyrs,--Tweed: She’ll find it hard to hide her spiteful tears At such advance in one poor hundred years.”