Lowell+Poetry

flat =She Came and Went=

James Russell Lowell
As a twig trembles, which a bird Lights on to sing, then leaves unbent, So is my memory thrilled and stirred;-- I only know she came and went.

As clasps some lake, by gusts unriven, The blue dome's measureless content, So my soul held that moment's heaven;-- I only know she came and went.

As, at one bound, our swift spring heaps The orchards full of bloom and scent, So clove her May my wintry sleeps;-- I only know she came and went.

An angel stood and met my gaze, Through the low doorway of my tent; The tent is struck, the vision stays;-- I only know she came and went.

Oh, when the room grows slowly dim, And life's last oil is nearly spent, One gush of light these eyes will brim, Only to think she came and went.

=Auspex=

James Russell Lowell
My heart, I cannot still it, Nest that had song-birds in it; And when the last shall go, The dreary days to fill it, Instead of lark or linnet, Shall whirl dead leaves and snow.

Had they been swallows only, Without the passion stronger That skyward longs and sings,-- Woe's me, I shall be lonely When I can feel no longer The impatience of their wings!

A moment, sweet delusion, Like birds the brown leaves hover; But it will not be long Before their wild confusion Fall wavering down to cover The poet and his song

=The Changeling=

James Russell Lowell
I had a little daughter, And she was given to me To lead me gently backward To the Heavenly Father's knee, That I, by the force of nature, Might in some dim wise divine The depth of his infinite patience To this wayward soul of mine.

I know not how others saw her, But to me she was wholly fair, And the light of the heaven she came from Still lingered and gleamed in her hair; For it was as wavy and golden, And as many changes took, As the shadows of the sun-gilt ripples On the yellow bed of a brook.

To what can I liken her smiling Upon me, her kneeling lover, How it leaped from her lips to her eyelids, And dimpled her wholly over, Till her outstretched hands smiled also, And I almost seemed to see The very heart of her mother Sending sun through her veins to me!

She had been with us scarce a twelvemonth, And it hardly seemed a day, When a troop of wandering angels Stole my little daughter away; Or perhaps those heavenly Zingari But loosed the hampering strings, And when they had opened her cage-door, My little bird used her wings.

But they left in her stead a changeling, A little angel child, That seems like her bud in full blossom, And smiles as she never smiled: When I wake in the morning, I see it Where she always used to lie, And I feel as weak as a violet Alone 'neath the awful sky.

As weak, yet as trustful also; For the whole year long I see All the wonders of faithful Nature Still worked for the love of me; Winds wander, and dews drip earthward, Rain falls, suns rise and set, Earth whirls, and all but to prosper A poor little violet.

The child is not mine as the first was, I cannot sing it to rest, I cannot lift it up fatherly And bliss it upon my breast; Yet it lies in my little one's cradle And sits in my little one's chair, And the light of the heaven she's gone to Transfigures its golden hair.

see [|John Greenleaf Whittier's use of this same theme]