oem _Under the Willows_, in which he describes
particularly one ancient willow that had been spared, he "knows not by
what grace" by the ruthless "New World subduers"--

"One of six, a willow Pleiades,
The seventh fallen, that lean along the brink
Where the steep upland dips into the marsh."

In a letter written twenty years after the _Reverie_ to J.T. Fields,
Lowell says: "My heart was almost broken yesterday by seeing nailed to
_my_ willow a board with these words on it, 'These trees for sale.'
The wretch is going to peddle them for firewood! If I had the money, I
would buy the piece of ground they stand on to save them--the dear
friends of a lifetime."

255. Paul Potter: One of the most famous of the Dutch painters of
the seventeenth century, notable for the strong realism of his work.

264. Collegisse juvat: The full sentence, in the first ode of
Horace, reads, "Curriculo pulverem Olympicum collegisse juvat." (It is
a pleasure to have collected the dust of Olympus on one's chariot
wheels.) The allusion is to the Olympic games, the most celebrated
festival of Greece. Lowell puns upon the word _collegisse_ with his
own coinage, which may have the double meaning of _going to college_
and _collecting._

272. Blinding anguish: An allusion to the death of his little
daughter Blanche. See _The Changeling, The First Snow-fall,_ and _She
Came and Went_.

_THE OAK_

11. Uncinctured front: The forehead no longer encircled with a
crown.

13-16. There is a little confusion in the figures here, the cathedral
part of the picture being a little far fetched.

40. Mad Pucks: Puck is the frolicsome, mischief-making spirit of
Shakespeare's _Midsummer Night's Dream._

45. Dodona grove: The grove of oaks at Dodona was the seat of a
famous Greek oracle, whose responses were whispered through the
murmuring foliage of the trees.

_BEAVER BROOK_

Beaver Brook at Waverley was a favorite resort of Lowell's and it is
often mentioned in his writings. In summer and winter it was the
frequent goal of his walks. The poem was at first called _The Mill_.
It was first published in the _Anti-Slavery Standard_, and to the
editor, Sidney H. Gay, Lowell wrote:--"Don't you like the poem I sent
you last week? I was inclined to think pretty well of it, but I have
not seen it in print yet. The little mill stands in a valley between
one of the spurs of Wellington Hill and the main summit, just on the
edge of Waltha