"But John P.
Robinson, he
Sez they didn't know everythin'
Down in Judee."
Among the political poems occurs in "The Notices of the Press," which form the introduction, the exquisite love-poem, The Courtin'.
In wit, scholarship, and knowledge of human nature, the Biglow papers are acknowledged as a classic, and the future student of American literature will be ever grateful for this preservation of the Yankee dialect by New England's greatest poet.
Lowell's next important contribution to literature was the publication of the poem, The Vision of Sir Launfal. This beautiful poem, in which in a vision a young knight arms himself and starts in search of the Holy Grail, reads like a sacred legend of the Middle Ages. It is full of the pious spirit of the old monks who still believed the story of the existence of the Holy Grail, and the possibility of its recovery by the pure in heart. This story, which has appealed to the art of every age, found in Lowell a poet worthy of its expression, and one who has transcribed the mysticism of the past into the vital charity of the present. Though a dream of the Old World, it is still the New England poet who translates it, as may be seen from the bits of landscape shining through it. Glimpses of the northern winter; of the wind sweeping down from the heights, and of the little brook that
"Heard it and built a roof
'Neath which he could house him winter-proof,"
show the poet in his mood of loving reminiscence.