eed lives.

60. This is as life would be without live creeds and results that will
endure. Compare Whittier's "Raphael."

67. aftermath: a second crop.

79. Baal's: belonging to the local deities of the ancient Semitic race.

105. With this stanza may well be compared "The Present Crisis."

113. dote: have the intellect weakened by age.

146. Plutarch's men. Plutarch wrote the lives of the greatest men of
Greece and Rome.

THE VISION of SIR LAUNFAL (PRELUDE)

7. auroral: morning.

12. Sinais. Read Exodus, Chapter 19. Why did Moses climb Mount Sinai?
What would be the advantage to us if we knew when we climbed a Mount
Sinai?

9-20. Wordsworth says:

"Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing boy," etc.

Lowell does not agree with him, and in these lines he declares that
heaven is as near to the aged man as to the child, since the skies, the
winds, the wood, and the sea have lessons for us always.

28. bubbles: things as useless and perishable as the child's
soap-bubbles.

20-32. The great contrast! What does Lowell mean by Earth? Does he
define it? Which does he love better?

79. Notice how details are accumulated to prove the hightide. Are his
points definite?

91. sulphurous: so terrible as to suggest the lower world.

BIGLOW PAPERS

Lowell attempted a large task in the "Biglow Papers," and on the whole he
succeeded well. He wished to discuss the current question in America
under the guise of humorous Yankee attack. The first series appeared in
1848 and dealt with the problem of the Mexican War; the second series in
1866 and refers to the Civil War. From the two series are given here
only three which are perhaps the best known. Mr. Hosea Biglow purports
to be the writer. He is an uneducated Yankee boy who "com home (from
Boston) considerabul riled." His father in No. 1, a letter, describes
the process of composition as follows: "Arter I'd gone to bed I hearn Him
a thrashin round like a shoot-tailed bull in flitime. The old woman ses
she to me ses she, Zekle, sos she, our Hosie's gut the drollery or suthin
anuther, ses she, don't you be skeered, ses I, he's oney a-makin poetery;
ses I, he's ollers on hand at that ere busyness like Da & martin, and
Shure enuf, cum mornin, Hosy he cum down stares full chizzle, hare on
eend and cote tales flyin, and sot rite of to go re