THE first book of poetry issued by Lowell, if we except the pamphlet containing his Class Poem, was A Year's Life, published in 1841 by C. C. Little and J. Brown, Boston. It contained thirty-two poems and songs and thirtyfive sonnets, besides a l'envoi headed "Goe, Little Booke," and a dedication addressed, though not formally, to Miss Maria White, to whom he had become engaged in the fall of 1840.

The gentle Una I have loved,

The snowy maiden, pure and mild,
Since ever by her side I roved

Through ventures strange, a wondering child,
In fantasy a Red Cross Knight
Burning for her dear sake to fight.

newspapers. How little value the author set upon the contents of this first volume is evident when one discovers that on making his first general collection of poems in 1849, he retained but seven of those printed in A Year's Life. He continued to contribute to the magazines of his time, especially to The Democratic Review, Graham's Magazine, The Boston Miscellany, and The Pioneer, the last named being a very short-lived magazine which he conducted in company with Mr. Robert Carter, and in 1843 he issued a second volume of Poems, in which he gathered the product of the intervening time, whether printed or in manuscript. The division Earlier Poems, first used in the collection dated 1877, contains but seven of the poems, two of them being sonnets included in A Year's Life. Of the thirty-five poems and thirty-seven sonnets printed in the 1843 volume of Poems, seven poems and thirteen sonnets were silently dropped from later collections, and the poems included in the two volumes were distributed mainly between the two divisions Earlier Poems and Miscellaneous Poems.

THRENODIA

As first printed in The Knickerbocker magazine for May, 1839, this poem bore the title Threnodia on an Infant, and was signed H. P., the initials for Hugh Perceval, a pseudonym which Lowell used occasionally at the outset of his career. In a letter to G. B. Loring, upon the appearance of the poem, Lowell says that his brother Robert animadverted on the irregular metre of the Threnodia; "but as I think," he adds, “very unphilosophically and without much perception of the true rules of poetry. In my opinion no verse ought to be longer than the writer can sensibly make it. It has been this senseless stretching of verses to make them octo- or deka-syllabic or what not, that has brought such an abundance of useless epithets on the shoulders of poor English verse."

GONE, gone from us! and shall we see Those sibyl-leaves of destiny, Those calm eyes, nevermore?

And tears would slide from out her eye,
Silent, as they were doing wrong.
Oh stern word-Nevermore !

The tongue that scarce had learned to
claim

An entrance to a mother's heart
By that dear talisman, a mother's name,
Sleeps all forgetful of its art!
I loved to see the infant soul
(How mighty in the weakness
Of its untutored meekness!)
Peep timidly from out its nest,
His lips, the while,

Fluttering with half-fledged words,
Or hushing to a smile

That more than words expressed,
When his glad mother on him stole
And snatched him to her breast!

Oh, thoughts were brooding in those eyes, That would have soared like strong-winged birds

Far, far into the skies,
Gladding the earth with song,
And gushing harmonies,

Had he but tarried with us long!
Oh stern word-Nevermore !

How peacefully they rest,
Crossfolded there
Upon his little breast,

Those small, white hands that ne'er were still before,

But ever sported with his mother's hair, Or the plain cross that on her breast she wore!

Her heart no more will beat

To feel the touch of that soft palm,

That ever seemed a new surprise
Sending glad thoughts up to her eyes
To bless him with their holy calm,-

Sweet thoughts! they made her eyes as

sweet.

How quiet are the hands

That wove those pleasant bands!

But that they do not rise and sink

With his calm breathing, I should think That he were dropped asleep.

Alas! too deep, too deep

Is this his slumber!

Time scarce can number

The years ere he shall wake again.
Oh, may we see his eyelids open then!
Oh stern word-Nevermore!

As the airy gossamere, Floating in the sunlight clear, Where'er it toucheth clingeth tightly, Round glossy leaf or stump unsightly, So from his spirit wandered out Tendrils spreading all about, Knitting all things to its thrall With a perfect love of all: Oh stern word-Nevermore !

He did but float a little way Adown the stream of time,

With dreamy eyes watching the ripples play,

Or hearkening their fairy chime;
His slender sail

Ne'er felt the gale;

He did but float a little way,
And, putting to the shore
While yet 't was early day,
Went calmly on his way,
To dwell with us no more!
No jarring did he feel,

No grating on his shallop's keel;
A strip of silver sand

Mingled the waters with the land
Where he was seen no more:
Oh stern word Nevermore!