THE first book of poetry issued by Lowell, if we except the pamphlet containing his Class Poem, was A Year's Life, published in 1841 by C. C. Little and J. Brown, Boston. It contained thirty-two poems and songs and thirtyfive sonnets, besides a l'envoi headed" Goe, Little Booke," and a dedication addressed, though not formally, to Miss Maria White, to whom he had become engaged in the fall of 1840.

The gentle Una I have loved,

The snowy maiden, pure and mild,
Since ever by her side I roved

Through ventures strange, a wondering child,
In fantasy a Red Cross Knight
Burning for her dear sake to fight.

If there be one who can, like her,
Make sunshine in life's shady places,
One in whose holy bosom stir

As many gentle household graces, —
And such I think there needs must be,
Will she accept this book from me?

The poems which filled the volume had appeared in The Knickerbocker, The Southern Literary Messenger, and some of the Boston

THRENODIA

As first printed in The Knickerbocker magazine for May, 1839, this poem bore the title Threnodia on an Infant, and was signed H. P., the initials for Hugh Perceval, a pseudonym which Lowell used occasionally at the outset of his career. In a letter to G. B. Loring, upon the appearance of the poem, Lowell says that his brother Robert animadverted on the irregular metre of the Threnodia; "but as I think," he adds, "very unphilosophically and without much perception of the true rules of poetry. In my opinion no verse ought to be longer than the writer can sensibly make it. It has been this senseless stretching of verses to make them octo- or deka-syllabic or what not, that has brought such an abundance of useless epithets on the shoulders of poor English verse."

GONE, gone from us! and shall we see Those sibyl-leaves of destiny, Those calm eyes, nevermore?

newspapers. How little value the author set upon the contents of this first volume is evident when one discovers that on making his first general collection of poems in 1849, he retained but seven of those printed in A Year's Life. He continued to contribute to the magazines of his time, especially to The Democratic Review, Graham's Magazine, The Boston Miscellany, and The Pioneer, the last named being a very short-lived magazine which he conducted in company with Mr. Robert Carter, and in 1843 he issued a second volume of Poems, in which he gathered the product of the intervening time, whether printed or in manuscript. The division Earlier Poems, first used in the collection dated 1877, contains but seven of the poems, two of them being sonnets included in A Year's Life. Of the thirty-five poems and thirty-seven sonnets printed in the 1843 volume of Poems, seven poems and thirteen sonnets were silently dropped from later collections, and the poems included in the two volumes were distributed mainly between the two divisions Earlier Poems and Miscellaneous Poems.

Those deep, dark eyes so warm and bright,
Wherein the fortunes of the man
Lay slumbering in prophetic light,
In characters a child might scan?
So bright, and gone forth utterly!
Oh stern word Nevermore!

The stars of those two gentle eyes
Will shine no more on earth;
Quenched are the hopes that had their
birth,

As we watched them slowly rise,
Stars of a mother's fate;

And she would read them o'er and o'er,
Pondering, as she sate,

Over their dear astrology,

Which she had conned and conned before,
Deeming she needs must read aright
What was writ so passing bright.
And yet, alas! she knew not why,
Her voice would falter in its song,

And tears would slide from out her eye,
Silent, as they were doing wrong.
Oh stern word-Nevermore!

The tongue that scarce had learned to
claim

An entrance to a mother's heart
By that dear talisman, a mother's name,
Sleeps all forgetful of its art!
I loved to see the infant soul
(How mighty in the weakness
Of its untutored meekness!)
Peep timidly from out its nest,
His lips, the while,

Fluttering with half-fledged words,
Or hushing to a smile

That more than words expressed,
When his glad mother on him stole
And snatched him to her breast!

Oh, thoughts were brooding in those eyes, That would have soared like strong-winged birds

Far, far into the skies,
Gladding the earth with song,
And gushing harmonies,

Had he but tarried with us long!
Oh stern word-Nevermore !

He did but float a little way Adown the stream of time,

With dreamy eyes watching the ripples play,

Or hearkening their fairy chime;
His slender sail

Ne'er felt the gale;

He did but float a little way,
And, putting to the shore
While yet 't was early day,
Went calmly on his way,
To dwell with us no more!
No jarring did he feel,

No grating on his shallop's keel;
A strip of silver sand

Mingled the waters with the land
Where he was seen no more:
Oh stern word - Nevermore !

Full short his journey was; no dust
Of earth unto his sandals clave;
The weary weight that old men must,
He bore not to the grave.

He seemed a cherub who had lost his way
And wandered hither, so his stay

With us was short, and 't was most meet
That he should be no delver in earth's clod,
Nor need to pause and cleanse his feet
To stand before his God:

Oh blest word- Evermore!

THE SIRENS

This poem in A Year's Life is dated Nantasket, July, 1840.

THE sea is lonely, the sea is dreary,
The sea is restless and uneasy;
Thou seekest quiet, thou art weary,
Wandering thou knowest not whither;
Our little isle is green and breezy,
Come and rest thee! Oh come hither,
Come to this peaceful home of ours,
Where evermore

Look how the gray old Ocean
From the depth of his heart rejoices,
Heaving with a gentle motion,
When he hears our restful voices;
List how he sings in an undertone,
Chiming with our melody;

And all sweet sounds of earth and air
Melt into one low voice alone,
That murmurs over the weary sea,
And seems to sing from everywhere,
"Here mayst thou harbor peacefully,
Here mayst thou rest from the aching oar;
Turn thy curved prow ashore,

And in our green isle rest forevermore!
Forevermore!"

And Echo half wakes in the wooded hill,
And, to her heart so calm and deep,
Murmurs over in her sleep,
Doubtfully pausing and murmuring still,
"Evermore!"

Thus, on Life's weary sea,
Heareth the marinere

Voices sweet, from far and near,
Ever singing low and clear,
Ever singing longingly.

Is it not better here to be,
Than to be toiling late and soon?
In the dreary night to see
Nothing but the blood-red moon
Go up and down into the sea;
Or, in the loneliness of day,

To see the still seals only
Solemnly lift their faces gray,
Making it yet more lonely?
Is it not better than to hear
Only the sliding of the wave
Beneath the plank, and feel so near
A cold and lonely grave,

A restless grave, where thou shalt lie
Even in death unquietly?

Look down beneath thy wave-worn bark,

Lean over the side and see

The leaden eye of the sidelong shark
Upturned patiently,

Ever waiting there for thee:

Look down and see those shapeless forms,
Which ever keep their dreamless sleep
Far down within the gloomy deep,
And only stir themselves in storms,
Rising like islands from beneath,
And snorting through the angry spray,
As the frail vessel perisheth

In the whirls of their unwieldy play;
Look down! Look down!
Upon the seaweed, slimy and dark,
That waves its arms so lank and brown,
Beckoning for thee !

Look down beneath thy wave-worn bark
Into the cold depth of the sea!

Look down! Look down!
Thus, on Life's lonely sea,
Heareth the marinere

Voices sad, from far and near,
Ever singing full of fear,
Ever singing dreadfully.

Here all is pleasant as a dream;

The wind scarce shaketh down the dew, The green grass floweth like a stream Into the ocean's blue;

Listen! Oh, listen!
Here is a gush of many streams,

A
And every wish and longing seems
Lulled to a numbered flow of words, -
Listen! Oh, listen!

song of many birds,

Here ever hum the golden bees
Underneath full-blossomed trees,

IRENÉ

The indirect as well as direct references to Maria White are frequent in these early poems. Lowell, in a letter to G. B. Loring shortly after this poem appeared, wrote: "Maria fills my ideal and I satisfy hers, and I mean to live as one beloved by such a woman should live. She is every way noble. People have called Irené a beautiful piece of poetry. And so it is. It owes all its beauty to her."

HERS is a spirit deep, and crystal-clear; Calmly beneath her earnest face it lies, Free without boldness, meek without a fear,

Quicker to look than speak its sympathies;
Far down into her large and patient eyes
I gaze, deep-drinking of the infinite,

As, in the mid-watch of a clear, still night,
I look into the fathomless blue skies.

With a full peace, that never can depart From its own steadfastness; a holy awe For holy things, - not those which men call holy,

But such as are revealed to the eyes

| Of a true woman's soul bent down and lowly

Before the face of daily mysteries;

light,

That from the shade of self she walketh

free;

The garden of her soul still keepeth she
An Eden where the snake did never enter;
She hath a natural, wise sincerity,

A simple truthfulness, and these have lent her

A dignity as moveless as the centre;

So that no influence of our earth can stir Her steadfast courage, nor can take away The holy peacefulness, which night and day,

Unto her queenly soul doth minister.

Most gentle is she; her large charity (An all unwitting, childlike gift in her) Not freer is to give than meek to bear; And, though herself not unacquaint with care,

Hath in her heart wide room for all that be,

Her heart that hath no secrets of its own,
But open is as eglantine full blown.
Cloudless forever is her brow serene,
Speaking calm hope and trust within her,
whence

Welleth a noiseless spring of patience,
That keepeth all her life so fresh, so green
And full of holiness, that every look,
The greatness of her woman's soul reveal-
ing,