“But, if all others are unkind,
There’s one heart whither thou canst fly
For shelter from the biting wind;
And, in that home of purity,
It were no bitter thing to die.”
The “L’Envoi” of “Poems” is addressed to M. W. and is an open confession of the indebtedness of his love, three years after the veiled disclosure in “Ianthe,” “Irene,” “Isabel,” and other figurings of his affection, and runs like a golden thread through all the warp and woof of his imagination and fancy. In this serious poem, which he retained in his later collections, though without the declarative initials,[39] Lowell intimates very clearly that his maturer outlook on life, and his attitude toward poetry are due largely to the inspiration which he has derived from the aspirations of his betrothed. Not only has his love for her quickened his eye of faith, but he has caught a wider view and a firmer hold on the great realities of the spirit through the contagion of her lofty idealism and its fervent expression in a moral ardor. This is especially manifest in a long passage which has been omitted from the poem in later collections. There are portions of this omitted passage which are little better than a dissertation on the poet’s mission, and they were wisely dropped, but they drew after them by necessity a few verses which have an interest as recording in a candid fashion the change which had come over the poet’s mind in these three years just past. After the introductory lines, in which he speaks rather disdainfully of “A Year’s Life,” and intimates that he has grown a sadder and a wiser man, yet with no lessening of that trust in God which was so marked a characteristic of his betrothed, he goes on:—
“Less of that feeling which the world calls love,
Thou findest in my verse, but haply more
Of a more precious virtue, born of that,
The love of God, of Freedom, and of Man.
Thou knowest well what these three years have been,
How we have filled and graced each other’s hearts,
And every day grown fuller of that bliss,
Which, even at first, seemed more than we could bear,
And thou, meantime, unchanged, except it be
That thy large heart is larger, and thine eyes
Of palest blue, more tender with the love
Which taught me first how good it was to love;
And, if thy blessed name occur less oft,
Yet thou canst see the shadow of thy soul
In all my song, and art well-pleased to feel
That I could ne’er be rightly true to thee,
If I were recreant to higher aims.
Thou didst not grant to me so rich a fief
As thy full love, on any harder tenure
Than that of rendering thee a single heart;
And I do service for thy queenly gift
Then best, when I obey my soul, and tread
In reverence the path she beckons me.”
It would be joy enough, he proceeds, if he could so measure joy, to rest in this contentment of loving and being loved, but life had nobler destinies, and he rejoiced that she who gave him her love had a larger conception of poetry, and so he passes to an analysis of the true aims of poesy, which finally takes the turn of considering the possibility of satisfying these aims by rendering the landscape of America into verse,—
“They tell us that our land was made for song,”—
and so continues as preserved in the present form of the poem.
It will be seen thus that this volume of “Poems,” taken as a register of Lowell’s development, marks a greater sureness of himself, a more definite determination of aim, a confidence in powers whose precise range he cannot yet measure, and with all this a swaying now toward the expression of pure delight in art, now toward the use of his art for the accomplishment of some great purpose. It is noticeable, also, that in “A Year’s Life” there is no trace of humor and scarcely any singular felicity of phrase; in “Poems,” wit and humor begin to play a little on the surface. There can be little doubt that the direct influence of Maria White was toward what may without offence be called the practical issue, and this not because she was utilitarian—on the contrary, Lowell felt called on to defend her against the charge of being a transcendentalist, the charge implying a reproach as of a mere visionary; no, it was a certain high, even exalted and enthusiastic allegiance to Truth which dominated her nature, made her in a degree to accept this allegiance as sign of a mission which she was to fulfil, rendered her eager to have the close coöperation of her lover, and made him almost feverishly desirous of justifying her faith by his works. A letter which she wrote to Mr. Briggs, though it anticipates a little the course of this narrative, may be cited here as throwing some further light on her nature.
Watertown, Dec. 12th, 1844.
My dear Friend,—James is so hurried with his book that he has not an instant to spare, and has therefore commissioned me to answer your letter, and account to you for his long silence. The truth is, he delayed writing his articles on Poets and Old Dramatists, or rather delayed arranging them in the form of conversations, until he had only two months left for what really required four. The book must be out before we are married; he has three printers hard upon for copy, for which he has to rise early and sit up late, so that he can only spare time to see me twice a week, and then I have but transient glimpses of his dear face.
The pears were thought delicious, and James would have told you that we all thought so, had not these troubles about his book just been dawning upon him. The basket still remains upon a shelf in my closet, and when I look at it a pleasant train of thoughts comes up in regard to my housekeeping, in which I see it filled, with eggs white as snow, or apples from our little plot, though never again with pears like those which first consecrated it.