130 'Harass her not: thy heat and stir WHEN wise Minerva still was young And just the least romantic, Soon after from Jove's head she flung That preternatural antic, "T is said, to keep from idleness Or flirting, those twin curses, She spent her leisure, more or less, Makes sure of moods and tenses, 10 With her own hand, - for prudence spares A man-(or woman-)-uensis; The Gods thought not it would amuse As with a hem! the queen of prudes At the first pause Zeus said, 'Well sung! - Fine! very fine! but I must go; They stand in need of me there; With the next gap, Mars said, 'For me Then Venus lisped, 'I'm sorely tried, 20 30 40 50 The many-volumed thunder. Some augurs counted nine, some, ten; Some said 't was war, some, famine, And all, that other-minded men Would get a precious Proud Pallas sighed, 'It will not do; Then, packing up a peplus clean, A Sunday-school in Athens. The verses? Some in ocean swilled, And gave two strong narcotics birth, Years after, when a poet asked As one whose soul its wings had tasked Put all your beauty in your rhymes, THE DEAD HOUSE 2 60 70 80 1857. 1 HERE once my step was quickened, 1 In the first number of the Atlantic Monthly, of which Lowell was editor. 2 I have a notion that the inmates of a house should never be changed. When the first occupants go out it should be burned, and a stone set up with Sacred to the memory of a HOME' on it. Suppose the body were eternal, and that when one spirit went out another took the lease. How frightful the strange expression of the eyes would be! I fancy sometimes that the look in the eyes of a familiar house changes when aliens have come into it. For certainly a dwelling adapts itself to its occupants. The front door of a hospitable man opens easily and looks broad, and you can read Welcome! on every step that leads to it. (Lowell's Letters, vol. i, pp. 283, 284. Quoted by permission of Messrs. Harper and Brothers.) For the first form of the poem, see Scudder's Life of Lowell, vol. i, pp. 435-437. ALONG a river-side, I know not where, 1 Lowell wrote to Professor Charles Eliot Norton, October 12, 1861: I had just two days allowed me by Fields for the November Atlantic, and I got it done. It had been in my head some time, and when you see it you will remember my having spoken to you about it. Indeed, I owe it to you, for the hint came from one of those books of Souvestre's you lent me - the Breton legends. The writing took hold of me enough to leave |