TEST of the poet is knowledge of love, 'This quatrain was chosen by James Russell Lowell to be inscribed on the simple monument at Soldiers' Field in Cambridge, which was given as an athletic ground by Col. Henry Lee Higginson, in memory of his classmates and friends, Charles Russell Lowell, James Jackson Lowell, Robert Gould Shaw, James Savage, Jr., Edward Barry Dalton, and Stephen George Perkins, who died in the war or soon after. Compare Emerson's two addresses referred to in the note on Voluntaries.' The best commentary, however, is Colonel Higginson's story of the lives and deaths of his comrades, in his addresses on the presentation of Soldiers' Field, 1890, and on Robert Gould Shaw, 1897 (Four Addresses, Boston, 1902.) 2 A famous singer of Florence. Dante tells of meeting him (Purgatory, Canto 1, lines 76-133) and begging him to sing: If a new law take not from thee memory or practice of the song of love which was wont to quiet all my longings, may it please thee therewith somewhat to comfort my soul.' (Norton's Translation.) Casella then sings Dante's Amor che nella mente mi ragiona ('Love, that within my mind discourses with me'), 'so sweetly, that the sweetness still within me sounds. My Master, and I, and the folk who were with Touches a cheek with colors of romance, 1 Compare the essay on 'Plato: ' Plato apprehended the cardinal facts. He could prostrate himself on the earth and cover his eyes whilst he adored that which cannot be numbered, or gauged, or known, or named... He even stood ready, as in the Parmenides, to demonstrate . . . that this Being exceeded the limits of intellect. No man ever more fully acknowledged the Ineffable.' 2 Compare Bryant's Flood of Years.' LET me go where'er I will, It is not only in the rose, Not only where the rainbow glows, 'Tis not in the high stars alone, THE TITMOUSE 4 You shall not be overbold When you deal with arctic cold, 1883. 3 In 1883 this poem was printed among the 'Fragments on Nature and Life,' in an Appendix. It first appears as a separate poem, with title, in the Centenary Edition of 1904. 4 The snow still lies even with the tops of the walls across the Walden road, and, this afternoon, I waded through the woods to my grove. A chickadee came out to greet me, flew about within reach of my hands, Softly, but this way fate was pointing, This poet, though he live apart, 30 Flew near, with soft wing grazed my hand, perched on the nearest bough, flew down into the snow, rested there two seconds, then up again just over my head, and busied himself on the dead bark. I whisled to him through my teeth, and (I think, in response) he began at once to whistle. I promised him crumbs, and must not go again to these woods without them. I suppose the best food to carry would be the meat of shagbarks or Castile nuts. Thoreau tells me that they are very sociable with wood-choppers, and will take crumbs from their hands. (Journal, March 3, 1862.) Compare Holmes's characteristic comment on this poem, in his Pages from an Old Volume of Life: The moral of the poem is as heroic as the verse is exquisite; but we must not forget the non-conducting quality of fur and feathers, and remember, if we are at all delicate, to go Wrapped in our virtue, and a good surtout, by way of additional security.' Hopped on the bough, then, darting low, Here was this atom in full breath, Fronts the north-wind in waistcoat gray, I greeted loud my little savior, gray, 40 50 'You pet! what dost here? and what for? "Tis good will makes intelligence, And I began to catch the sense Of my bird's song: Live out of doors In the great woods, on prairie floors. 60 I dine in the sun; when he sinks in the sea, 70 I too have a hole in a hollow tree; For men mis-hear thy call in Spring, I think old Cæsar must have heard I, who dreamed not when I came here Now hear thee say in Roman key, 1862. BOSTON HYMN 100 1862. |