_THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL_
1. The Musing organist: There is a peculiar felicity in this musical introduction. The poem is like an improvisation, and was indeed composed much as a musician improvises, with swift grasp of the subtle suggestions of musical tones. It is a dream, an elaborate and somewhat tangled metaphor, full of hidden meaning for the accordant mind, and the poet appropriately gives it a setting of music, the most symbolic of all the arts. It is an allegory, like any one of the adventures in the _Fairie Queen_, and from the very beginning the reader must be alive to the symbolic meaning, upon which Lowell, unlike Spenser, places chief emphasis, rather than upon the narrative. Compare the similar musical device in Browning"s _Abt Vogler_ and Adelaide Proctor"s _Lost Chord_.
6. Theme: The theme, subject, or underlying thought of the poem is expressed in line 12 below:
"We Sinais climb and know it not;"
or more comprehensively in the group of four lines of which this is the conclusion. The organist"s fingers wander listlessly over the keys at first; then come forms and figures from out of dreamland over the bridge of his careless melody, and gradually the vision takes consistent and expressive shape. So the poet comes upon his central subject, or theme, shaped from his wandering thought and imagination.
7. Auroral flushes: Like the first faint glimmerings of light in the East that point out the pathway of the rising sun, the uncertain, wavering outlines of the poet"s vision precede the perfected theme that is drawing near.
9. Not only around our infancy, etc.: The allusion is to Wordsworth"s _Ode on the Intimations of Immortality_, especially these lines:
"Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close Upon the growing Boy, But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, He sees it in his joy; The Youth, who daily farther from the east Must travel, still is Nature"s Priest, And by the vision splendid Is on his way attended; At length the Man perceives it die away, And fade into the light of common day."
As Lowell"s central theme is so intimately a.s.sociated with that of Wordsworth"s poem, if not directly suggested by it, the two poems should be read together and compared. Lowell maintains that "heaven lies about us" not only in our infancy, but at all times, if only we have the soul to comprehend it.
12. We Sinais climb, etc.: Mount Sinai was the mountain in Arabia on which Moses talked with G.o.d (_Exodus_ xix, xx). G.o.d"s miracles are taking place about us all the time, if only we can emanc.i.p.ate our souls sufficiently to see them. From out of our materialized daily lives we may rise at any moment, if we will, to ideal and spiritual things. In a letter to his nephew Lowell says: "This same name of G.o.d is written all over the world in little phenomena that occur under our eyes every moment, and I confess that I feel very much inclined to hang my head with Pizarro when I cannot translate those hieroglyphics into my own vernacular." (_Letters_, I, 164).
Compare the following pa.s.sage in the poem _Bibliolatres_:
"If thou hast wanderings in the wilderness And find"st not Sinai, "t is thy soul is poor; There towers the Mountain of the Voice no less, Which whoso seeks shall find, but he who bends, Intent on manna still and mortal ends, Sees it not, neither hears its thundered lore."
15. Prophecies: Prophecy is not only prediction, but also any inspired discourse or teaching. Compare the following lines from the poem _Freedom_, written the same year:
"Are we, then, wholly fallen? Can it be That thou, North wind, that from thy mountains bringest Their spirit to our plains, and thou, blue sea, Who on our rocks thy wreaths of freedom flingest, As on an altar,--can it be that ye Have wasted inspiration on dead ears, Dulled with the too familiar clank of chains?"
At the end of this poem Lowell gives his view of "fallen and traitor lives." He speaks of the "boundless future" of our country--
"Ours if we be strong; Or if we shrink, better remount our ships And, fleeing G.o.d"s express design, trace back The hero-freighted Mayflower"s prophet-track To Europe entering her blood-red eclipse."
While reading _Sir Launfal_ the fact must be kept in mind that Lowell was at the time of writing the poem filled with the spirit of freedom and reform, and was writing fiery articles in prose for the _Anti-Slavery Standard_, expressing his bitter indignation at the indifference and lukewarmness of the Northern people on the subject of slavery.
17. Druid wood: The Druids were the aged priests of the Celts, who performed their religious ceremonies in the forests, especially among oaks, which were peculiarly sacred to them. Hence the venerable woods, like the aged priests, offer their benediction. Every power of nature, the winds, the mountain, the wood, the sea, has a symbolic meaning which we should be able to interpret for our inspiration and uplifting. Read Bryant"s _A Forest Hymn_.
18. Benedicite: An invocation of blessing. Imperative form of the Latin _benedicere_, to bless. Longfellow speaks of the power of songs that--
"Come like the benediction That follows after prayer."
19-20. Compare these lines with the ninth strophe of Wordsworth"s _Ode_. The "inspiring sea" is Wordsworth"s "immortal sea." Both poets rejoice that some of the impulses and ideals of youth are kept alive in old age.
21. Earth gets its price, etc.: Notice the special meaning given to _Earth_ here, in contrast with _heaven_ in line 29. Here again the thought is suggested by Wordsworth"s _Ode_, sixth strophe:
"Earth fills our lap with pleasures of her own."
23. Shrives: The priest shrives one when he hears confession and grants absolution.
25. Devil"s booth: Expand this metaphor and unfold its application to every-day life.
27. Cap and bells: The conventional dress of the court fool, or jester, of the Middle Ages, and, after him, of the stage clown, consisted of the "fool"s cap" and suit of motley, ornamented with little tinkling bells.
28. Bubbles we buy, etc.: This line, as first published, had "earn"
for "buy."
31. This line read originally: "There is no price set," etc. The next line began with "And."
32-95. This rapturous pa.s.sage descriptive of June is unquestionably the most familiar and most celebrated piece of nature poetry in our literature. It is not only beautiful and inspiring in its felicitous phrasings of external nature, but it is especially significant as a true expression of the heart and soul of the poet himself. It was always "the high-tide of the year" with Lowell in June, when his spirits were in fine accord with the universal joy of nature. Wherever in his poetry he refers to spring and its a.s.sociations, he always expresses the same ecstasy of delight. The pa.s.sage must be compared with the opening lines of _Under the Willows_ (which he at first named _A June Idyll_):
"June is the pearl of our New England year.
Still a surprisal, though expected long, Her coming startles. Long she lies in wait, Makes many a feint, peeps forth, draws coyly back, Then, from some southern ambush in the sky, With one great gush of blossom storms the world," etc.
And in _Sunthin" in the Pastoral Line_ the coming of spring is delightfully pictured:
"Our Spring gets everything in tune An" gives one leap from April into June," etc.
In a letter written in June, 1867, Lowell says: "There never _is_ such a season, and that shows what a poet G.o.d is. He says the same thing over to us so often and always new. Here I"ve been reading the same poem for near half a century, and never had a notion what the b.u.t.tercup in the third stanza meant before."
It is worth noting that Lowell"s happy June corresponds to May in the English poets, as in Wordsworth"s _Ode_:
"With the heart of May Doth every beast keep holiday."
In New England where "Northern natur" is "slow an" apt to doubt,"
"May is a pious fraud of the almanac."
or as Hosea Biglow says:
"Half our May is so awfully like May n"t, "T would rile a Shaker or an evrige saint."
41. The original edition has "grasping" instead of "groping."
42. Climbs to a soul, etc.: In his intimate sympathy with nature, Lowell endows her forms with conscious life, as Wordsworth did, who says in _Lines Written in Early Spring_:
"And "t is my faith that every flower Enjoys the air it breathes."
So Lowell in _The Cathedral_ says:
"And I believe the brown earth takes delight, In the new snow-drop looking back at her, To think that by some vernal alchemy It could trans.m.u.te her darkness into pearl."
So again he says in _Under the Willows_:
"I in June am midway to believe A tree among my far progenitors, Such sympathy is mine with all the race, Such mutual recognition vaguely sweet There is between us."
It must be remembered that this humanizing of nature is an att.i.tude toward natural objects characteristic only of modern poetry, being practically unknown in English poetry before the period of Burns and Wordsworth.
45. The cowslip startles: Surprises the eye with its bright patches of green sprinkled with golden blossoms. _Cowslip_ is the common name in New England for the marsh-marigold, which appears early in spring in low wet meadows, and furnishes not infrequently a savory "mess of greens" for the farmer"s dinner-table.