mood to seize him, he allowed eighteen years to go by, from 1850 to
1868, before publishing another volume of verse. In the latter year
appeared _Under the Willows_, which contains some of his ripest and
most perfect work; notably _A Winter Evening Hymn to my Fire_, with its
noble and touching close--suggested by, perhaps, at any rate recalling,
the dedication of Goethe's _Faust_,

"Ihr naht euch wieder, schwankende Gestalten;"

{501} the subtle _Footpath_ and _In the Twilight_, the lovely little
poems _Auf Wiedersehen_ and _After the Funeral_, and a number of
spirited political pieces, such as _Villa Franca_, and the _Washers of
the Shroud_. This volume contained also his _Ode Recited at the
Harvard Commemoration_ in 1865. This, although uneven, is one of the
finest occasional poems in the language, and the most important
contribution which our civil war has made to song. It was charged with
the grave emotion of one who not only shared the patriotic grief and
exultation of his _alma mater_ in the sacrifice of her sons, but who
felt a more personal sorrow in the loss of kindred of his own, fallen
in the front of battle. Particularly noteworthy in this memorial ode
are the tribute to Abraham Lincoln, the third strophe, beginning, "Many
loved Truth:" the exordium--"O Beautiful! my Country! ours once more!"
and the close of the eighth strophe, where the poet chants of the
youthful heroes who

"Come transfigured back,
Secure from change in their high-hearted ways,
Beautiful evermore and with the rays
Of morn on their white Shields of Expectation."

From 1857 to 1862 Lowell edited the _Atlantic Monthly_, and from 1863
to 1872 the _North American Review_. His prose, beginning with an
early volume of _Conversations on Some of the Old Poets_, 1844, has
consisted mainly of critical essays on individual writers, such as
Dante, Chaucer, Spenser, {502} Emerson, Shakespere, Thoreau, Pope,
Carlyle, etc., together with papers of a more miscellaneous kind, like
_Witchcraft_, _New England Two Centuries Ago_, _My Garden
Acquaintance_, _A Good Word for Winter_, _Abraham Lincoln_, etc., etc.
Two volumes of these were published in 1870 and 1876, under the title
_Among My Books_, and another, _My Study Windows_, in 1871. As a
literary critic Lowell ranks easily among the first of living writers.
His scholarship is thorough, his judgment sure, and he pours out upon
his page an unwithholding wealth of knowledge, h