The times. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1890-1903, 1892-10-30
y.mos RUSSELL Lowell a. n Religious Poet.
BY L. b. EDwABDs.


BY L. b. EDWARDS.
81 followed where they led.
And in a hovel rude,
with naught TO fence the weather from
His head,
Thu King l sought for STOOD.
A naked, hungry child
Chung round his gracious knee.
And a poor, hunted slave looked up and
smiled
To bless the smile that set him free.
/ knelt and wept, my Christ no more l
seek;
His throne is with the outcast and the
weak"
II would seem that no estimate Of the
euthor Of the lines given above, taking
him either as a man or as poet, could be
complete which overlooks the earnest re-
ligious motif Of many Of his poems. The
healthy moral fibre of the man and the
keen insight into the subtleties of the
human mind are clearly enough expressed
I'm all of Mr.. Lowells works; but those
who have not felt the underlying current
Of religious faith. over and above all bar
rem ethical branching. have missed one
note in the chord which vibrated through
his whole being and made him what he
was.
In studying Lowell as a religious poet,
one realizes that here vas a man with full
sympathy, drawn from experience, for
all the varying and complex moods, the
alterations between the misery Of doubt
and the joyful certainty of faith which
are the common portion. He knew the
bitterness Of the despair which declares
that
mot all the preaching since Adam
Has made Death other than Death"
After the Burial.
and which finally sinks itself in the pit
eous appeal of the human to the divine.
Somewhere is comfort, somewhere faith,
Though thou in outer dark remain:
One sweet, sad voice ennobles death.
And still for eighteen centuries saith
Softly, 'Ye meet again."
-Palinode.
First and last. Lowell was what we
now somewhat inadequately define as a
humanitarian Above all else he strove
ITO show God sitting by the humblest
HEARTH
and to interpret the '1nasmuch" Of our
Lord in the lines which are perhaps bet
ter known than any other he wrote:
The Holy Supper is kept, indeed,
In what we share with another's need;
Not what we give, but what we share,
For the gift without the giver is bare.
Who gives himself with his aims feeds
three,
Himself, his hungering ~neighbor and me-
The Vision OF Sir Launfal.
His words of unfailing goodwill to-
wards his fellow-men, and high faith that
God would ultimately govern them and
lift them up forever" nave an especial
value when we remember that they were
written in troublous times. when the anti
a. oUifafinn hVonOhf orYf oil fhof
was mercenary, cowardly and contempt
tible in men. as well as all that was no.
BILE. AT that time, II ever, might the
raison d'etre for the cynic seem appa-
rent: but deeper was the discernment OF
the poet:
"who doth not sound Gods sea with
earthly plrmmet,
And find a bottom still Of earthly clay;
Who heeds not how the lower gusts are
working.
Knowing that one sure wind blows on
above.
And sees. beneath the foulest faces Turk
ing,
One-God-built shrine Of reverence and
love" Ode.
"There, but for the grace OF God, goes
John Newton" was the awed exclamation
OF Newton at the sight of the condemned
criminal on his way to be hanged. The
same spirit must have prompted the man
of unstained fame and clean hands to
write his fine Isl D~escendero In Inferrum
AIDES" with its sober recognition of hui
man weakness. its indomitable faith in
eternal mercy.
Looking within myself I note how thin
A plank Of station, chance or prosper
Gus fate,
Doth fence me from the clutching waves
OF sin.
In my W heart 1 find the worst mans
mate,
And see not dimly the smooth hinged
gate
That opes to those abysses
Where ye grope darkiy-ye who never
On you young hearts loves consecrating
dew.
Nor felt a mothers kisses.
Nor homes restraining tendrils round
you curled.
All. side by side with heart's-ease in the
world
The fatal nightshade grows. and bitter
rue!
zone band we cannot break-the force
which clips
And grasps your circles TO the central
light.
Yours is the prodigal comets long ellipse,
SelI-eAlled 10 tue IartnesL euBe or night.
Yet they who watch your God-compelled
return
May see your happy perihelion burn
Where the calm sun his unfedged plan
cts broods."
Sis Descendero In Inferrum AIDES.
Yet Mr.. Lowell was too healthy to
preach only an emasculated Gospel of
Peace. peace" where there was no peace
and too far-seeing not TO recognize the
appalling force OF the moral law which
compels US 10 SOW as we reap. No more
awful picture has ever been given Of the
tate or the man who has gained the
whole world and lost his W soul, thar
In the "Ghost-Seers'' and In Extreme
JUNCTION" One hears ringing in his ears
the cry OF Bunyan's Man n the Iron
Cage: Il cannot get out; o now / can
not"
zoo bends from out the deep and says.
4 gave thee the great gift OF life:
vast thou not called in many ways?
are not my earth and heaven at strife?
gave thee OF my seed to SOW;
Pringest thou 70 me my hundred-fold?
Can 1 look up with face agiow.
Ana answer, Father, here is gold
Yes. ] who now, with angry tears.
Am exiied back to british clod.