Early Poems: 'Not what we give, but what we share, for the gift without the giver is bare''

By James Russell Lowell

James Russell Lowell was born on February 22nd, 1819.

He attended Harvard College at age 15 from 1834, but failed to show any talent or dedication to learning which often caused disruption. After graduating, he attempted many careers including business, the ministry, medicine, and law. The latter gained him admittance to the bar in 1842.

Lowell's earliest poems were published in the Southern Literary Messenger in 1840.

In December 1844 Lowell married Maria White, shortly after he had published ‘Conversations on the Old Poets’, a collection of previously published essays.

He co-founded the literary journal The Pioneer, hoping to enjoy a regular income. The magazine ceased after three issues leaving him $1,800 in debt.

‘A Fable for Critics’ one of his most popular works, was published in 1848. It sold out quickly. The same year he published ‘The Biglow Papers’. It was cited as the most influential book of 1848.

His wife, Maria, who had suffered poor health for years, died on October 27th 1853 of tuberculosis.

Lowell was asked to deliver a lecture series. He accepted hoping it might bring him a sense of purpose. The first lecture, on January 9th, 1855, was on John Milton. It was a sell out.

He was offered the Smith Professorship of Modern Languages at Harvard. Lowell accepted if he could have a year of study abroad first. It was noted that Lowell had no natural inclination to teach. Lowell agreed, but retained his position for twenty years.

In the autumn of 1857, The Atlantic Monthly was established with Lowell as its first editor. In its first November issue he gave the magazine the stamp of high literature and of bold speech on public affairs.

With the outbreak of Civil War Lowell used his position to praise Abraham Lincoln. Lowell, generally a pacifist, wrote, "If the destruction of slavery is to be a consequence of the war, shall we regret it? If it be needful to the successful prosecution of the war, shall anyone oppose it?"

After Lincoln's assassination, Lowell delivered a poem at Harvard in memory of graduates killed in the war. The poem, ‘Ode Recited at the Harvard Commemoration, July 21, 1865’, was the result of a 48-hour writing binge.

‘Under the Willows and Other Poems’ was released in 1869.

Lowell resigned from his Harvard professorship in 1874, though continued to teach through 1877. He spent part of the 1880s delivering speeches. His last published works were mostly collections of essays, and a collection of his poems ‘Heartsease and Rue’ in 1888.

In the last few months of his life, during 1891, he struggled with gout, sciatica, and chronic nausea; by the summer doctors believed that Lowell had cancer in his kidneys, liver, and lungs, he was administered opium for the pain and was rarely fully conscious.

James Russell Lowell died on August 12th, 1891, at Elmwood.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Portable Poetry
• Release date: Nov 18, 2019
• ISBN: 9781839671562

Book preview

Early Poems by James Russell Lowell

James Russell Lowell was born on February 22nd, 1819.

He attended Harvard College at age 15 from 1834, but failed to show any talent or dedication to learning which often caused disruption.  After graduating, he attempted many careers including business, the ministry, medicine, and law. The latter gained him admittance to the bar in 1842.

Lowell's earliest poems were published in the Southern Literary Messenger in 1840.

In December 1844 Lowell married Maria White, shortly after he had published ‘Conversations on the Old Poets’, a collection of previously published essays.

He co-founded the literary journal The Pioneer, hoping to enjoy a regular income. The magazine ceased after three issues leaving him $1,800 in debt.

‘A Fable for Critics’ one of his most popular works, was published in 1848. It sold out quickly.  The same year he published ‘The Biglow Papers’. It was cited as the most influential book of 1848.

His wife, Maria, who had suffered poor health for years, died on October 27th 1853 of tuberculosis.

Lowell was asked to deliver a lecture series. He accepted hoping it might bring him a sense of purpose. The first lecture, on January 9th, 1855, was on John Milton. It was a sell out.

He was offered the Smith Professorship of Modern Languages at Harvard. Lowell accepted if he could have a year of study abroad first. It was noted that Lowell had no natural inclination to teach. Lowell agreed, but retained his position for twenty years.

In the autumn of 1857, The Atlantic Monthly was established with Lowell as its first editor. In its first November issue he gave the magazine the stamp of high literature and of bold speech on public affairs.

With the outbreak of Civil War Lowell used his position to praise Abraham Lincoln. Lowell, generally a pacifist, wrote, If the destruction of slavery is to be a consequence of the war, shall we regret it? If it be needful to the successful prosecution of the war, shall anyone oppose it?

After Lincoln's assassination, Lowell delivered a poem at Harvard in memory of graduates killed in the war. The poem, ‘Ode Recited at the Harvard Commemoration, July 21, 1865’, was the result of a 48-hour writing binge.

‘Under the Willows and Other Poems’ was released in 1869.

Lowell resigned from his Harvard professorship in 1874, though continued to teach through 1877. He spent part of the 1880s delivering speeches. His last published works were mostly collections of essays, and a collection of his poems ‘Heartsease and Rue’ in 1888.

In the last few months of his life, during 1891, he struggled with gout, sciatica, and chronic nausea; by the summer doctors believed that Lowell had cancer in his kidneys, liver, and lungs, he was administered opium for the pain and was rarely fully conscious.

James Russell Lowell died on August 12th, 1891, at Elmwood.

Index of Contents

Biographical Sketch

EARLY POEMS

Sonnet

Hakon's Lay

Out of Doors

A Reverie

In Sadness

Farewell

A Dirge

Fancies about a Rosebud

New Year's Eve, 1844

A Mystical Ballad

Opening Poem to A Year's Life

Dedication to Volume of Poems entitled A Year's Life

The Serenade

Song

The Departed

The Bobolink

Forgetfulness

Song

The Poet

Flowers

The Lover

To E. W. G.

Isabel

Music

Song

Ianthe

Love's Altar

Impartiality

Bellerophon

Something Natural

A Feeling

The Lost Child

The Church

The Unlovely

Love-Song

Song

A Love-Dream

Fourth of July Ode

Sphinx

Goe, Little Booke!

SONNETS

Sonets I - XXVIII 

Sonnets on Names

James Russell Lowell – A Short Biography

James Russell Lowell – A Concise Bibliography

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

In the year 1639 Percival Lowle, or Lowell, a merchant of Bristol, England, landed at the little seaport town of Newbury, Mass.

We generally speak of a man's descent. In the case of James Russell Lowell's ancestry it was rather an ascent through eight generations. Percival Lowle's son, John Lowell, was a worthy cooper in old Newbury; his great-grandson was a shoemaker, his great-great-grandson was the Rev. John Lowell of Newburyport, the father of the Hon. John Lowell, who is regarded as the author of the clause in the Massachusetts Constitution abolishing slavery.

Judge Lowell's son, Charles, was a Unitarian minister, learned, saintly, and discreet. He married Miss Harriet Traill Spence, of Portsmouth,—a woman of superior mind, of great wit, vivacity, and an impetuosity that reached eccentricity. She was of Keltic blood, of a family that came from the Orkneys, and claimed descent from the Sir Patrick Spens of the grand old ballad. Several of her family were connected with the American navy. Her father was Keith Spence, purser of the frigate Philadelphia, and a prisoner at Tripoli.

By ancestry on both sides, and by connections with the Russells and other distinguished families, Lowell was a good type of the New England gentleman.

He was born on the 22d of February, 1819, at Elmwood, not far from Brattle Street, Cambridge.

This three-storied colonial mansion of wood, was built in 1767 by Thomas Oliver, the last royal Lieutenant-Governor, before the Revolution.[1] Like other houses in Tory Row, it was abandoned by its owners. Soon afterwards it came into possession of Elbridge Gerry, Governor of Massachusetts, and fifth Vice-President of the United States, whose memory and name are kept alive by the term gerrymander. It next became the property of Dr. Lowell about a year before the birth of his youngest child, and it was the home of the poet until his death.

Lowell's early education was obtained mainly at a school kept nearly opposite Elmwood by a retired publisher, an Englishman, Mr. William Wells. He also studied in the classical school of Mr. Danial G. Ingraham in Boston. He was graduated from Harvard College in the class of 1838. He is reported as declaring that he read almost everything except the class-books prescribed by the faculty. Lowell says, in one of his early poems referring to Harvard,—

"Tho' lightly prized the ribboned parchments three,

Yet collegisse juvat, I am glad

That here what colleging was mine I had."

He was secretary of the Hasty Pudding Society, and one of the editors of the college periodical Harvardiana, to which he contributed various articles in prose and verse. His neglect of prescribed studies, and disregard of college discipline, resulted in his rustication just before commencement in 1838. He was sent to Concord, where he resided in the family of Barzillai Frost, and made the acquaintance of Emerson, then beginning to rouse the ire of conservative Unitarianism by his transcendental philosophy, of the brilliant but overestimated Margaret Fuller, who afterwards severely criticised Lowell's verse, and of other well-known residents of the pretty town. He had been elected poet of his class. His removal from college prevented him from delivering the poem which was afterwards published anonymously for private distribution. It contained a satire on abolitionists and reformers. I know the village, he writes long afterwards in the person of Hosea Biglow, Esquire.

"I know the village though, was sent there once

A-schoolin', 'cause to home I played the dunce!"

On his return to Cambridge he took up the study of law, and, in 1840, received the degree of LL.B. He even went so far as to open an office in Boston; but it is a question whether there was any actual basis of fact in a whimsical sketch of his entitled My First Client, published in the short-lived Boston Miscellany, edited by Nathan Hale.

Several things engrossed Lowell's attention to the exclusion of law. Society at Cambridge was particularly attractive at that time. Allston the painter was living at Cambridgeport. Judge Story's pleasant home was on Brattle