11. Instead of climbing Sinais we "cringe
and plot."

82. Compare _Sir Launfal_, I. 26. The whole passage, II. 76-87, is a
distant echo of the second and third stanzas of _Sir Launfal_.

83-85. Puppets: The puppets are the pasteboard actors in the Punch
and Judy show, operated by unseen wires.

84. An echo of _Macbeth_, V, 5:

"Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more."

97. Elder than the Day: Elder than the first Day. "And God called
the light Day," etc. (_Genesis_ i, 5.) We may have light from the
divine fountains.

110-114. In shaping this elaborate battle metaphor, one can easily
believe the poet to have had in mind some fierce mountain struggle
during the war, such as the battle of Lookout Mountain.

111. Creeds: Here used in the broad sense of convictions,
principles, beliefs.

115-118. The construction is faulty in these lines. The two last
clauses should be co-ordinated. The substance of the meaning is: Peace
has her wreath, while the cannon are silent and while the sword
slumbers. Lowell's attention was called to this defective passage by
T.W. Higginson, and he replied: "Your criticism is perfectly just, and
I am much obliged to you for it--though I might defend myself, I
believe, by some constructions even looser in some of the Greek
choruses. But on the whole, when I have my choice, I prefer to make
sense." He then suggested an emendation, which somehow failed to get
into the published poem:

"Ere yet the sharp, decisive word
Redden the cannon's lips, and while the sword."

120. Baael's stone obscene: Human sacrifices were offered on the
altars of Baael. (_Jeremiah_ xix, 5.)

147-205. This strophe was not in the ode as delivered, but was written
immediately after the occasion, and included in the published poem.
"It is so completely imbedded in the structure of the ode," says
Scudder, "that it is difficult to think of it as an afterthought. It
is easy to perceive that while the glow of composition and of
recitation was still upon him, Lowell suddenly conceived this splendid
illustration, and indeed climax of the utterance, of the Ideal which
is so impressive in the fifth stanza.... Into these threescore lines
Lowell has poured a conception of Lincoln, which may justly be said to
be to-day the accepted idea which Americans hold of their great
President. It was the final expression of the judgment whi