JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. [Born in Boston in 1819; Professor of Modern Languages in Harvard College. A writer of critical and other prose works, as well as of poetry. His serious poems have secured a large, and deserved a not inconsiderable, measure of admiration; but his humorous Biglow Papers, written in Yankee dialect, seem more likely to live with a genuine life than anything else from his pen]. SUMMER STORM. UNTREMULOUS in the river clear, Towards the sky's image, hangs the imaged bridge; Out of the stillness, with a gathering creep, Wavers the long green sedge's shade from side to side; But up the west, like a rock-shivered surge, Climbs a great cloud edged with sun-whitened spray; Huge whirls of foam boil toppling o'er its verge, And falling still it seems, and yet it climbs alway. Suddenly all the sky is hid As with the shutting of a lid. Down the pane they are crookedly crawling, Slowly the circles widen on the river, Widen and mingle, one and all; Here and there the slenderer flowers shiver, Now on the hills I hear the thunder mutter, Up from the stream with sluggish flap You can hear the quick heart of the tempest beat. Look! look! that livid flash! And instantly follows the rattling thunder, Fell, splintering with a ruinous crash, On the Earth, which crouches in silence under; Shuts off the landscape, mile by mile. For a breath's space I see the blue wood again, And, ere the next heart-beat, the wind-hurled pile, That seemed but now a league aloof, Bursts crackling o'er the sun-parched roof. Against the windows the storm comes dashing, Through tattered foliage the hail tears crashing, The blue lightning flashes, The rapid hail clashes, The white waves are tumbling, And crashing and crumbling, Will silence return never more? Hush! Still as death, The tempest holds his breath, As from a sudden will; The rain stops short, but from the eaves You see it drop, and hear it from the leaves. All is so bodingly still; Again, now, now, again Plashes the rain in heavy gouts, The crinkled lightning Seems ever brightening, Again the thunder shouts His battle-song,- One wildering crash, Followed by silence dead and dull, Leapt bodily below To whelm the earth in one mad overthrow, Gone, gone, so soon! No more my half-crazed fancy there Makes her calm forehead bare, A PRAYER. GOD! do not let my loved-one die, Enough to enter thy pure clime Y Oh let her stay! She is by birth What I through death must learn to be. We need her more on our poor earth Than Thou canst need in heaven with Thee: She hath her wings already; I Must burst this earth-shell ere I fly. Then, God, take me! We shall be near, THE HERITAGE. THE rich man's son inherits lands, And he inherits soft white hands, And tender flesh that fears the cold, A heritage, it seems to me, The rich man's son inherits cares; The bank may break, the factory burn, The rich man's son inherits wants, A heritage, it seems to me, One scarce would wish to hold in fee. What doth the poor man's son inherit? What doth the poor man's son inherit? A heritage, it seems to me, What doth the poor man's son inherit? To make the outcast bless his door; A heritage, it seems to me, O rich man's son! there is a toil But only whiten, soft white hands,This is the best crop from thy lands; A heritage, it seems to be, Worth being rich to hold in fee. O poor man's son! scorn not thy state; In merely being rich and great; And makes rest fragrant and benign; A heritage, it seems to me, |