The Vision of Sir Launfal: And Other Poems by James Russell Lowell; Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Julian W. Abernethy, Ph.D.Lowell, James Russell
General
The Vision of Sir Launfal: And Other Poems by James Russell Lowell; Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Julian W. Abernethy, Ph.D.
Lowell, James Russell
American poetry
John White Chadwick: Chambers's _Cyclopedia of English Literature_.
Hamilton Wright Mabie: _My Study Fire_. Second Series, "Lowell's
Letters."
Margaret Fuller: _Art, Literature and the Drama_. 1859.
Richard Henry Stoddard: _Recollections, Personal and Literary_, "At
Lowell's Fireside."
Edwin P. Whipple: _Outlooks on Society, Literature and Politics_,
"Lowell as a Prose Writer."
H.R. Haweis: _American Humorists_.
Bayard Taylor: _Essays and Notes_.
G.W. Smalley: _London Letters_, Vol. 1., "Mr. Lowell, why the English
liked him."
THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO LOWELL
Longfellow's _Herons of Elmwood_; Whittier's _A Welcome to Lowell_;
Holmes's _Farewell to Lowell, At a Birthday Festival_, and _To James
Russell Lowell_; Aldrich's _Elmwood_; Margaret J. Preston's
_Home-Welcome to Lowell_; Richard Watson Gilder's _Lowell_;
Christopher P. Cranch's _To J.R.L. on His Fiftieth Birthday_, and _To
J.R.L. on His Homeward Voyage_; James Kenneth Stephen's _In Memoriam;
James Russell Lowell_, "Lapsus Calami and Other Verses"; William W.
Story's _To James Russell Lowell_, Blackwood's Magazine, Vol. 150;
Eugene Field's _James Russell Lowell_; Edith Thomas's _On Reading
Lowell's "Heartsease and Rue."_
THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL
AND OTHER POEMS
THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL
PRELUDE TO PART FIRST
Over his keys the musing organist,
Beginning doubtfully and far away,
First lets his fingers wander as they list,
And builds a bridge from Dreamland for his lay:
Then, as the touch of his loved instrument 5
Gives hope and fervor, nearer draws his theme,
First guessed by faint auroral flushes sent
Along the wavering vista of his dream.
Not only around our infancy 10
Doth heaven with all its splendors lie;
Daily, with souls that cringe and plot,
We Sinais, climb and know it not.
Over our manhood bend the skies;
Against our fallen and traitor lives
The great winds utter prophecies; 15
With our faint hearts the mountain strives;
Its arms outstretched, the druid wood
Waits with its benedicite;
And to our age's drowsy blood
Still shouts the inspiring sea. 20
Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us;
The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in,
The priest hath his fee who comes and shrives us,
We bargain for the graves we lie in:
At the Devil's booth are all things sold, 25
Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold;
For a cap and bells our lives we pay,
Bubbles we buy with a whole soul's tasking
'T is heaven alone that is given away,
'T is only God may be had for the asking; 30
No price is set on the lavish summer;
June may be had by the poorest comer.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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