style="font-size:15px;"> Or the glazed eye of age become young in its beam.
Wail! wail! for our nation; its glory is o’er,
These hills with our war-songs shall echo no more,
And the eyes of our bravest no more shall look bright
As they hear of the deeds of their fathers in fight!
“ ‘In the home of our sires we have lingered our last,
Our death-song is swelling the moan of the blast,
Yet to each hallowed spot clings fond memory still,
Like the mist that makes lovely yon far distant hill.
The eyes of our maidens are heavy with weeping,
The fire ’neath the brow of our young men is sleeping,
And the half-broken hearts of the aged are swelling,
As the smoke curls its last round their desolate dwelling!
“ ‘We must go! but the wailings ye wring from us here
Shall crowd your foul prayers from the Great Spirit’s ear,
And when ye pray for mercy, remember that Heaven
Will forgive (so ye taught us) as ye have forgiven!
Ay, slay! and our souls on the pinions of prayer
Shall mount freely to Heaven and seek justice there,
For the flame of our wigwams points sadly on high
To the sole path of mercy ye’ve left us—to die!
“ ‘God’s glad sun shone as warm on our once peaceful homes
As when gilding the pomp of your proud swelling domes,
And His wind sang a pleasanter song to the trees
Than when rustling the silk in your temples of ease;
For He judges not souls by their flesh-garment’s hue,
And His heart is as open for us as for you;
Though He fashioned the Redman of duskier skin,
Yet the Paleface’s breast is far darker within!
“ ‘We are gone! the proud Redman hath melted like snow
From the soil that is tracked by the foot of his foe;
Like a summer cloud spreading its sails to the wind,
We shall vanish and leave not a shadow behind.
The blue old Pacific roars loud for his prey,
As he taunts the tall cliffs with his glittering spray,
And the sun of our glory sinks fast to his rest,
All darkly and dim in the clouds of the west!’
“The cadence ends, and where the Indian stood
The rock looks calmly down on lake and wood,
Meet emblem of that lone and haughty race
Whose strength hath passed in sorrow from its place.”
The exile ended with the last week in August. “I shall be coming down next week, Thursday or Friday at farthest.”
VALEDICTORY EXERCISES OF THE HARVARD CLASS OF 1838.
transcription
Commencement fell that year on the 29th of August, and Lowell received his degree of Bachelor of Arts with the rest of his class.
I believe it is fair to tell an anecdote here of that summer, because the one person who could be offended by it is himself the only authority for it, and he used to tell the story with great personal gusto.
This cynic was in Rome that spring, where Dr. Lowell and Mrs. Lowell had been spending the winter. Indeed, I suppose if Dr. Lowell had been in Cambridge, the episode of rustication in Concord would never have come into his son’s life. The cynic was one of those men who seem to like to say disagreeable things whenever they can, and he thus described, I think in print, a visit he made to Dr. Lowell:—
“Dr. Lowell had not received his letters from Boston, and I had mine; so I thought I would go and tell him the Boston news. I told him that the parts for Commencement were assigned, and that Rufus Ellis was the first scholar and was to have the oration. But I told him that his son, James Lowell, had been rusticated and would not return to Cambridge until Commencement week! And I told him that the class had chosen James their class poet. ‘Oh dear!’ said Dr. Lowell, ‘James promised me that he would quit writing poetry and would go to work.’ ”
I am afraid that most fathers, even at the end of this century, would be glad to receive such a promise from a son. In this case, James Lowell certainly went to work, but, fortunately for the rest of us, he did not “quit writing poetry.”
CHAPTER V
BOSTON IN THE FORTIES
I despair of making any person appreciate the ferment in which any young person moved who came into the daily life of Boston in the days when Lowell left college. I have tried more than once, and without the slightest success. But this reader must believe me that nobody was “indifferent” then, even if he do not understand why.
Here was a little community, even quaint in some of its customs, sure of itself, and confident in its future. Generally speaking, the men and women who lived in it were of the old Puritan stock. This means that they lived to the glory of God, with the definite public spirit which belongs to such life. They had, therefore, absolute confidence that God’s kingdom was to come, and they saw no reason why it should not come soon. There were still some people, and one or two teachers in the pulpit and in what is technically called the religious press, who believed, or said they believed, that all men are born in sin and are incapable of good. But practically, and in general, the people of Boston believed in the infinite capacity of human nature, and they knew “salvation’s free,” and “free for you and me.”
As a direct result of this belief, and of the cos mopolitan habit which comes to people who send their ships all over the world, the leaders of this little community attempted everything on a generous scale. If they made a school for the blind, they made it for all the blind people in Massachusetts. They expected to succeed. They always had succeeded. Why should they not succeed? If, then, they opened a “House of Reformation,” they really supposed that they should reform the boys and girls who were sent to it. Observe that here was a man who had bought skins in Nootka Sound and sold them in China, and brought home silks and teas where he carried away tin pans and jackknives.
