The Richmond palladium. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1855-1875, 1870-01-18
ALLADiUM CORRESPONDENCE.
For the Palladium.
James RusaeIi Lowell.

JdHitS 1uSdct LO"cu.
Mr.. EDITOR Ever since the days
when the Palladium published the tame
rhymes Of one .Mortimer,' in which
there was not the first hint at true poe
try, have been a constant reader Of all
the Wayne County newspapers. In all
that quarter of a century, do not re-
member to have seen, in any of them,
one line from Jas. Russell Lowell, until
within the last month. About three
weeks ago the Palladium Of that date
contained two poems from my favorite
American poet.
Why is it, especially in the West, that
there are ten readers of Whittier and
Longfellow. to one who reads Lowell !?
Is it possible the former are the greater
poets or does the latter strike a higher
key in poesy, than that to which our en-
lnently practical western minds are at
tuned ?
In almost every field of poetic thought
Lowell has culIed the richest aud rarcst
flowers.
From the grandes., solemn, patriotic
sentiment, down to the most pungent
satire on the follies and vices OF men, he
is equally. at home. Indeed, since the
days of Hood there is no rival of Lowell
as satirest.
During the late struggle of our nation
for its life, while nearly all of our best
American poets were as true as steel to
the cause of freedom, (God bless them) },
Lowell stood shoulder to shoulder with
the foremost. In all those tedious years
of trial, in camp and field, nothing so
cheered the weary Soldier as the month
ly instalments Of the Bigelow Papers.
They gave him new hope and courage,
and assisted him to have "Less fear OF
the foes in the rear than those III front"
Take the following specimens:
''Better that all our ships and all their crews
Should sink to rot in oceans dreamless oo1e,
Each torn fl " waving challenge as it went,
And each dumb gun brave mans monument,
Than seek such peace as only towards crave:
Give me the peace of dead men or of bravep'
"Come, while country feels The lift
OF a great instinct shouting forwards,
And know that freedom amt gift
That tarres long in hauds of towards!
Come, such mothers prayed for, when
They kissed their cross with lips that Quvered
And bring fair wages for brave men,
nation saved, race delivered!'
Then after the war. when an accident
was filing the Presidential chair, and
the nation was holding its breath in fear,
that for a time, an inscrutable Provi-
dence had forsaken it. Lowell viewing
the situation wrote his last Biglow Pa
the following:
so, did it seems if Providence
Could ever send q second Tyler?
To the South all back at once,
Reaping the spos of the Freesoiler,
Is cute as though an engineer
Should claim the old iron for his sheer
Cause t was himself that burst the boiler"
The foregoing are specimen gems,
taken from mines full of such, and show
to the same disadvantage as single dia-
monds selected from crown Of dazzling
equals.
Long before the late war Lowell gave
to the world the Present Crisis, which,
when viewed from our present stand
point, sounds like the voice of O prophes.
Take one thought only:
"Truth forever the scaffold,
Wrong forever on the throne,
Yet that scaffod SWAPS the future,
And behind the dim unknown
Standeth God within the shadow,
Keeping watch above His own"
AS descriptive poem, "a Legend Of
Brittany" is almost equal to Scott's LA
dy of the Lake.
Then who but Hood or Lowell could
have been the suthor Of the following
pathetic stanza from the "Ghost Seer -
Here comes whose cheek would blush
But to have her garments brush
'lsainst the girl whose fingers thin
Wove the weary broidery in, .se~t
Bending backward from her toll ~
Lest the tears the silk might soil
And in midnight's chill and murk,
Stitched the life into the work
Shaping from her bitter thought
Hearts-ease and forget-me-nct sG
Satrizing her despair
With the emblems woven there.
Through much of our authors poetry
there is the purest breathings Of relig-
ious sentiment. His poem ION the
Death of a Friends Cl>ildv ia full cf the