ALONG a river-side, I know not where, 1 Lowell wrote to Professor Charles Eliot Norton, October 12, 1861: I had just two days allowed me by Fields for the November Atlantic, and I got it done. It nad been in my head some time, and when you see it you will remember my having spoken to you about it. Indeed, I owe it to you, for the hint came from one of those books of Souvestre's you lent me the Breton legends. The writing took hold of me enough to leave me tired out and to satisfy me entirely as to what was the original of my head and back pains. But whether it is good or not, I am not yet far enough off to say. But do like it, if you can. Fields says it is "splendid," with tears in his eyes- but then I read it to him, which is half the battle. I began it as a lyric, but it would be too aphoristic for that, and finally flatly refused to sing at any price. So I submitted, took to pentameters, and only hope the thoughts are good enough to be preserved in the ice of the colder and almost glacier-slow measure. I think I have done well-in some stanzas at least and not wasted words. It is about present matters.' (Lowell's Letters, vol. i, p. 318. Quoted by permission of Messrs. Harper and Brothers.) 1 The only attempt I had ever made at anything like a pastoral (if that may be called an attempt which was the result almost of pure accident) was in 'The Courtin'.' While the Introduction to the First Series was going through the press, I received word from the printer that there was a blank page left which must be filled. I sat down at once and improvised another fictitious notice of the press,' in which, because verse would fill up space more cheaply than prose, I inserted an extract from a supposed ballad of Mr. Biglow. I kept no copy of it, and the printer, as directed, cut it off when the gap was filled. Presently I began to receive letters asking for the rest of it, sometimes for the balance of it. I had none, but to answer such demands, I patched a conclusion upon it in a later edition. Those who had only the first continued to importune me. Afterward, being asked to write it out as an autograph for the Baltimore Sanitary Commission Fair, I added other verses, into some of which I infused a little more sentiment in a homely way, and after a fashion completed it by sketching in the characters and making a connected story. Most likely I have spoiled it, but I shall put it at the end of this Introduction, to answer once for all those kindly importunings. (LOWELL, in The Introduction' to the Biglow Papers, 1866.) "T was kin' o' kingdom-come to look On sech a blessed cretur, A dogrose blushin' to a brook He was six foot o' man, A 1, Clear grit an' human natur', None could n't quicker pitch a ton Nor dror a furrer straighter. 3с He'd sparked it with full twenty gals, But long o' her his veins 'ould run She thought no v'ice hed sech a swing Ez hisn in the choir; My! when he made Ole Hunderd ring, An' she 'd blush scarlit, right in prayer, Thet night, I tell ye, she looked some! She heered a foot, an' knowed it tu, All ways to once her feelins flew He kin' o' l'itered on the mat, Some doubtfle o' the sekle, His heart kep' goin' pity-pat, But hern went pity Zekle. An' yit she gin her cheer a jerk Ez though she wished him furder, An' on her apples kep' to work, Parin' like murder. away |