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6 Nothing more. For an account of this refrain and the composition of the whole poem, the pupil should read Poe's essay, "The Philosophy of Composition.'

10 Surcease. Relief from.

ΤΟ Lenore. A favorite name for lost maidens with Poe. Perhaps borrowed from the ballad of "Lenore," by Burger.

33 Lattice. A window composed of small panes, the whole frame of which opens like a door. 38 Yore. Long ago.

39 Obeisance. Sign of greeting.

41

Pallas. Pallas Athena, the goddess of wisdom in the Greek mythology.

47 Plutonian. The underworld. Plito was ruler of Hades, the abode of the dead.

48 Raven. Ravens are very intelligent, and can be taught to talk. They have always been considered birds of ill omen.

65 Dirges. Funeral chants for the dead.

65 Burden.

Refrain.

79 Censer. A vessel in which incense is burned.

80 Seraphim. One of the orders of angels.

80 Tufted. That is, made soft by thick carpets.

82 Nepenthe. Forgetfulness. Nepenthe was a magic potion or drug supposed to make people forget.

89 Balm in Gilead. Healing. "Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there?" - Jeremiah VIII., 22.

93 Aidenn. Eden, paradise. For the sake of metre, Poe uses this word, which is an anglicized form of the Arabic for Eden.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

LOWELL

Lowell is almost the only example of both poet and critic that America has produced. While he is a true product of New England training and culture, his mind was cast in a more cosmopolitan mold than was that of any of his contemporaries, and he was less affected by the transcendentalism which more or less dominated the literary atmosphere of New England during the greater part of Lowell's life. The very circumstances of his life aroused in him other interests than those of a purely literary or speculative nature and his mind was therefore alive to many and various aspects of life. His writings, and particularly his criticisms, have in consequence a distinction and breadth of vision which is seldom found in the work of the closet philosopher or thinker. American criticism owes much to the fact that Lowell did not spend all the best years of his life in Boston or Cambridge or Concord.

In the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, stands a fine old house surrounded by garden and meadow and screened from street cars and noise by high lilac hedges and elm trees. Here lived the Rev. Charles Lowell, pastor of a large church in Boston, and here, on February 22, 1819, his son, James Russell Lowell, was born. His mother belonged to a Scotch family which came originally from the island of Orkney, and from her the son inherited his love of romance and poetry. Old songs and legends were sung over the very cradles of her children, and when James was a tiny child she used to read poetry by his bedside to put him to sleep. Soon the little boy became so interested that he would struggle to keep awake in order that none of the poetry might be lost, and much of it became fixed in his memory for life.

The early years of these children were not spent in a school-house. They were turned loose in the Elmwood garden, where the poet soon learned to know the names and habits of the birds and the peculiarities of all the trees and wild flowers. Their favorite play was to name the different parts of the grounds for different cities. Each one took up his dwelling in one of the cities, and long hours were spent in visiting London, or Paris, or Pekin.

When the poet was old enough he was sent to a private fitting school in Cambridge, where he was more fond of astonishing the other boys with marvellous tales of his own invention, than learning the prescribed lessons.

When Lowell was fifteen he was pronounced ready for Harvard, and accordingly entered the University in 1834. Here he became associated with a group of young men who gave much literary promise and began his

own literary career by becoming an editor of Harvardiana, in which his first poems and essays are published. He was not a diligent student save in the lines of work that interested him, and these were chiefly outside the regular courses. The college regulations were much more strict in those days than they are now, and Lowell found it hard to rise every morning in time for chapel. The faculty were as lenient as possible, for Lowell's great promise was apparent to all, but during his last year they were obliged, in conformity with the rules, to "rusticate" him. This meant an enforced residence with the Rev. Barzillai Frost in the town of Concord until the Commencement day in August. It also meant that, although class poet, he would not be allowed to read the poem himself. Ás a further discipline, he was obliged to recite every day ten pages of "Locke on the Human Understanding" instead of reading delightful old dramas.

The summer passed, however, and after taking his degree, Lowell entered the Law School, and two years later opened a law office in Boston. His real taste and sympathies, however, were all of a literary nature, and the law was never a serious occupation with him.

He is described at this time as "slight and small, with rosy cheeks and starry eyes and waving hair parted in the middle." His temperament was essentially artistic and so, instead of searching for clients, he spent most of his time in writing poetry, and in 1841 there appeared a small volume called, "A Year's Life," which was his first serious literary venture.

In 1844, the poet married Miss Maria White, a beautiful and charming woman whom he had known for some years, and who, he once said, could repeat from memory more English poetry than any other person of whom he had ever heard.

In 1853, Lowell's happy life in his old house at Elmwood was ended by the death of his young wife, and he therefore welcomed the appointment to the chair of modern languages in Harvard University left vacant by the resignation of Longfellow. Two years, however, were spent in Europe before the poet entered upon his duties as a professor. Although the routine of this life was irksome to Lowell, he became exceedingly popular with all classes of students, and his lectures on Dante and Italian literature will be long remembered. He made friends of his students. He always set aside one evening in the week when they were welcome to call and see him and he treated them so cordially that all were glad to go.

"I remember," writes Dr. Hale, "that some of the students took a notion that he pinched himself by his generous help to those whom he thought in need. One of his pupils told me that Lowell offered him a Christmas present of valuable books, under the pretext that he was thinning out his book-shelves. 'I declined them,' said my friend, 'simply from the feeling that he could not afford to give them.""

Lowell was not destined, however, to remain simply a poet and a professor of literature. In 1857, a new magazine, called the Atlantic Monthly, was started in Boston, and Lowell was induced to become its editor. Such a task was no easy one for a college professor whose time was already well filled, but Lowell states his reasons for accepting it. "First, it has almost

got me out of debt, and next, it compels me into morning walks to the printing office."

This appointment was important for two reasons. Under Lowell's editorship, the new magazine gave a marked stimulus to the literary culture and the literary effort of the country. It also gave Lowell a field for exercising his own powers as an "essayist and critic," a field in which he is even more successful than in that of poetry.

The year 1857 was marked by another important event for the poet his marriage to Miss Frances Dunlap. The happiness which this union brought into his life increased his capacity for work, and at the outbreak of the Civil War, in spite of his numerous duties, Lowell found time to write a second series of Biglow Papers. He also wrote many political essays which brought his name before the public in a new character. These papers show his keen interest in public affairs and his statesmanlike grasp of the situation, and are very different from his earlier satires.

It was not a common occurrence in this country to find a man of letters who also possessed qualities of statesmanship. This rather unusual combination of qualities made President Hayes anxious to confer upon Lowell a foreign mission. At first he refused any of those offered him, but finally decided to accept the post of minister to Spain. This was in 1877. In this new office he soon gave another proof of his great versatility. He immediately devoted himself to learning Spanish and worked as hard as any school-boy.

His service at the Spanish capital proved so valuable that in 1880 the government requested him to accept the post of minister at the English court, which he held until 1885. He not only proved himself an able minister, but his popularity with all classes of the English people was remarkable. "As a minister to England," says one critic, "Mr. Lowell rendered essential service to his country. His firmness, serenity, courtesy, and diligence enabled him to keep on the best terms with the members of the English cabinet with whom he had to do. He was to a remarkable degree a favorite with all classes of the English people." To the last he was young in spirit, a charming talker, and a cheering and inspiring personality under all circumstances.

He died in 1891 in his home at Elmwood.

THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL

NOTE

The Vision of Sir Launfal is perhaps the most generally popular of all Lowell's longer poems. It is said that the poem was written in forty-eight hours, and during its composition the poet scarcely ate or slept.

Although the legend of the Holy Grail has been made a theme of song by many poets, the treatment in Sir Launfal totally differs from that of any of the English poets. The old story, indeed, says that only the pure in heart, he whose thoughts and affections are centered in God alone, may attain the object of his search. Visions of its glorious beauty were vouchsafed to many a knight, but mystic visions do not enable a man really to behold God. Only the pure in heart, the man who keeps his life unspotted from the world, may do that.

Sir Launfal, therefore, is really only a new application of the old legend. So soon as the young knight has learned to abandon his spiritual pride, and to perform the service that lies nearest to his hand, he finds that the holy thing for which he has been seeking is already his, and would always have been his, had he sought it by striving to serve God, instead of by following his own whim. Whatever version of the old legend we may read, in the end they all teach the same lesson That man only finds God who gives himself unreservedly to His service, however humble or disagreeable a form that service may assume.

NOTE BY THE AUTHOR

According to the mythology of the Romancers, the San Greal, or Holy Grail, was the cup out of which Jesus partook of the last supper with his disciples. It was brought into England by Joseph of Arimathea, and remained there, an object of pilgrimage and adoration, for many years, in the 5 keeping of his lineal descendants. It was incumbent upon those who had charge of it to be chaste in thought, word and deed; but one of the keepers having broken this condition, the Holy Grail disappeared. From that time it was a favorite enterprise of the knights of Arthur's court to go in search of it. Sir Galahad was at last successful in finding it, as may be read in the IO seventeenth book of the "Romance of King Arthur." Tennyson has made Sir Galahad the subject of one of the most exquisite of his poems.

The plot (if I may give that name to anything so slight) of the following poem is my own, and to serve its purpose, I have enlarged the circle of competition in search of the miraculous cup in such a manner as to include, not 15 only other persons than the heroes of the Round Table, but also a period of time subsequent to the date of King Arthur's reign.

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Over his keys the musing organist,

Beginning doubtfully and far away,

*Prelude A prelude is a short introduction designed to impress the dominant mood of the following composition upon the mind of the hearer or reader. Preludes are very frequent in music.

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