'
Turning backward from these evidences of Lowell's ripening powers to his
early poems, astonishment at his versatility is the first emotion
produced. It is hard to believe that the 'Biglow Papers' slid from under
the hand that wrote the 'Prometheus' and the 'Legend of Brittany.' His
genius flashes upon us like a certain flamboyant style of poetic
architecture--the flowing, flame-like curves of his humor blending
happily with the Gothic cusps of veneration for the old, with quaint
ivy-leaves, green and still rustling under the wind and rain, springing
easily out of its severer lines. What resistless magic is there in the
fingers whose touch upon the same rich banks of keys, summons solemn,
vibrant peals as of Beethoven's grandest fugues, endless harmonies as of
the deep seas, and the light and graceful fantasies of Rossini, which
are as the glad sunshine upon their waves. Truly the poet's gift is a
divine and an awful one. His heart must needs be proud and humble too,
who is claimed as nearer of kin than a brother by myriads of stranger
souls, each, perhaps, owning its separate creed, and in whose unspoken
prayers his name is ever present. In his 'Conversations on some of the
old Poets,' we discover the alembic through which his crude opinions,
his glowing impulses, his exquisitely minute discrimination were
distilled;--the old poets, to whom the heart turns ever lovingly as to
the wide west at eve.
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