war “ justly waged ” for a just cause ( Cranch here acknowledges the fight to end slavery ) is a high one . He ends the poem “ Peace dawns at last . The Nation is re-born !” His optimism that the bloodshed was not for nothing carries into his sonnet “ The Death-Blow ,” even as he concedes a weariness amid the chaos of the times :
… Flowers of the Union , blue and white and red , Blooming on the balcony and spire and mast , Telling us that war ’ s wintry storm had fled , And spring was more than spring to us at last . To-day , – the nation ’ s heart lies crushed and weak ; Drooping and draped in black our banners stand . Too stunned to cry revenge , we scarce may speak The grief that chokes all utterance through the land . God is in all . With tears our eyes are dim , Yet strive through the darkness to look up to Him !
The aftermath of the Civil War was a substantial challenge — even to poetry . James Russell Lowell ( Fountain Avenue ) had earlier made his mark as an abolitionist poet with works like “ The Present Crisis ” and “ On the Capture of Fugitive Slaves Near Washington .” During the Civil War , however , he published less poetry than he had in his youth — and certainly less significant political poetry . Still , he looked for the heroes of the battlefields , including Robert Gould Shaw ( memorialized on Pine Avenue ). After the fighting had ended , Lowell offered one of his most daring attempts at versifying :“ Ode Recited at the Harvard Commemoration , July 21 , 1865 .”
The poem honored those Harvard-affiliated men who had died in the conflict , even as he acknowledged his own inability to do them justice : “ Weak-winged is song ,” he begins , when those who were killed wrote a “ nobler verse ” in their lifeblood . Lowell , who lost three nephews in the war , struggled with its composition — a fact which is clear even in the final poem , which shaped itself as a melancholy expression
Christopher Pearce Cranch , Lot 5116 Vesper Path
James Russell Lowell , Lot 323 Fountain Avenue of regret , sadness , and despondency . In stanza VIII of the published version , he wrote :
I strive to mix some gladness with my strain , But the sad strings complain , And will not please the ear : I sweep them for a paean , but they wane Again and yet again Into a dirge , a die away , in pain . In these brave ranks I only see the gaps , Thinking of dear ones whom the dumb turf wraps , Dark to the triumph which they died to gain : Fitlier may others greet the living , For me the past is unforgiving I with uncovered head Salute the sacred dead , Who went , and who return not . . .
Lowell ’ s “ Commemoration Ode ,” as it came to be known , represents the final act of Civil War – inspired poetry : how do we , as a reunited people , cope with the tragedies , the loss , the heinous acts against our fellow Americans ? Some writers would romanticize the war and elevate its participants to near divinity . Others would struggle with definitions of patriotism or whether or not there was ever valor in the killing of another human being .
Even the genteel Longfellow had trouble coping with it all . In his 1866 poem “ Killed at the Ford ,” he begins without romance ,“ He is dead , the beautiful youth .” But the death of this soldier has repercussions off the battlefield as well , as Longfellow imagines that the bullet that killed him continued to fly and take the life of another :
And I saw in a vision how far and fleet That fatal bullet went speeding forth , Till it reached a town in the distant North , Till it reached a house in a sunny street , Till it reached a heart that ceased to beat Without a murmur , without a cry ; And a bell was tolled in that far-off town , For one who had passed from cross to crown ,— And the neighbors wondered that she should die .
Rob Velella is an independent literary scholar and creator of the American Literary Blog .
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