TO THE MUSE. The boy's first love, the man's first grief, She can glean wool to twist her rhymes; The stamp and warrant of her art; "Harass her not: thy heat and stir But greater coyness breed in her; Yet thou mayst find, ere Age's frost, Thy long apprenticeship not lost, Learning at last that Stygian Fate Unbends to him that knows to wait. The Muse is womanish, nor deigns Be something better than thy verse; MY DEAR FIELDS: To MR. JAMES T. FIELDS. Dr. Johnson's sturdy self-respect led him to invent the Bookseller as a substitute for the Patron. My relations with you have enabled me to discover how pleasantly the Friend may replace the Bookseller. Let me record my sense of many thoughtful services by associating your name with a poem which owes its appearance in this form to your partiality. Cordially yours, CAMBRIDGE, November 29, 1869. J. R. LOWELL. |