The reëlection of Lincoln with a convincing majority, and the rapid crushing of the shell of the Confederacy, conspired at once to give Lowell a spirit of exultation, tempered with profound regret, and a keen interest in the results of the war. The one mood appears in the striking paper on “Reconstruction” which he contributed to the _North American_ for April, 1865, the other in the new “Biglow Paper” which he contributed to the _Atlantic_ for the same month. The latter was written earlier and apparently was drawn out of him by the golden persuasion of Mr. Fields, for we find Lowell writing him 2 February, 1865, when he sends him No. X. of the “Biglow Papers,” “Mr. Hosea Biglow to the Editor of the Atlantic Monthly:” “You pulled the string of this cold shower-bath, so you can’t complain. But if you don’t like it, I am willing to take back my machine. If on the other hand you _do_,--and if you don’t, by Jove, count on my undying hate,--why, suppose you send me the canvas--greenback, I mean, _before_ you print it. This would give us both a sensation which is desirable in a world where an Emperor offered a kingdom for a new one. Remember in future that asking poets for verses is almost as fatal as asking them to read them. ‘Thyself art the cause of this anguish.’ _Item._ I have been mulling over a fairy story, of which something may come and something may not.[14] I begin to suspect the egg _may_ be chalk. I have heard of such things. Even the muses in this degenerate age have learned to sophisticate. The devil tempts me to tell you I have also a novel in progress, and an epic poem and a tragedy--also a satire in which those who don’t like the foregoing are ground to powder. But I have scared you enough for once, and I really haven’t begun one of ’em, unless it may be the tragedy which one goes on composing all his life.” The ground-swell of emotion which stirs the verses written in that winter of 1865, just before spring came, and when the buds of peace were already beginning to open, is expressive of that strong personal feeling which entered into Lowell’s measure of the sacrifice which had been made when he reckoned on the great gain that was to accrue to the nation. Poetry, and especially that cast in a homely mould, was his vent for this feeling. He rarely showed emotion in his prose, but in the article which he wrote a few weeks later when the end was just in sight, he discloses in another way, and almost as strongly, the depth of his nature, for in this article on “Reconstruction” there is scarcely any of that play of wit which marks his earlier political papers. “Come, while our country feels the lift Of a gret instinct shoutin’ ‘Forwards!’”