Produced by David Starner, Sankar Viswanathan, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net [Illustration: James Russell Lowell.] The Riverside Literature Series THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL AND OTHER POEMS BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL _WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH AND NOTES A PORTRAIT AND OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS_ [Illustration: THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL] HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY Boston: 4 Park Street; New York: 11 East Seventeenth Street Chicago: 378-388 Wabash Avenue The Riverside Press, Cambridge Copyright, 1848, 1857, 1866, 1868, 1869, 1876, and 1885, By JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. Copyright, 1887, 1894, and 1896, By HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. CONTENTS A SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. I. ELMWOOD II. EDUCATION III. FIRST VENTURES IV. VERSE AND PROSE V. PUBLIC LIFE INTRODUCTORY NOTE THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL PRELUDE TO PART FIRST PART FIRST PRELUDE TO PART SECOND PART SECOND ODE RECITED AT THE HARVARD COMMEMORATION ON BOARD THE '76 AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE THE FIRST SNOW-FALL THE OAK PROMETHEUS TO W.L. GARRISON WENDELL PHILLIPS MR. HOSEA BIGLOW TO THE EDITOR OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY VILLA FRANCA THE NIGHTINGALE IN THE STUDY ALADDIN BEAVER BROOK THE SHEPHERD OF KING ADMETUS THE PRESENT CRISIS AL FRESCO THE FOOT-PATH LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL(from a crayon by William Page in 1842, owned by Mrs. Charles F. Briggs, Brooklyn, N. Y.) _Frontispiece_ ELMWOOD, MR. LOWELL'S HOME IN CAMBRIDGE AS SIR LAUNFAL MADE MORN THROUGH THE DARKSOME GATE SO HE MUSED, AS HE SAT, OF A SUNNIER CLIME THE SEAL OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY A SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL I. ELMWOOD.