Delightful poem! Is it a case of the grass is always greener or maybe having gotten what one thought one wanted, having to live with it, is not quite what one thought it would be? Love the tone, the comparisons, the almost lilt as it goes on.
According to a bibliography of his works compiled by George Willis Cooke (Houghton-Mifflin, 1906), it was first published in "Putnam's Magazine" in April 1854 and then collected in "Under the Willows and Other Poems," 1868. I glanced at the collected poems and noticed that the text is slightly different, e.g., "rugged" in the first line of the next-to-last stanza is "ungyv'd." Looking further, I see that there is a final stanza:
Nay, when, once paid my mortal fee,
Some idler on my headstone grim
Traces the moss-blurred name, will he
Think me the happier, or I him?
I'm not fond of the dangling past participle in the first line, but I like this ending.
If you wonder why I went to the trouble of looking it up, it's because I'm putting off work I need to do.
Thanks for doing that. I usually do track down where something appeared, but I hadn't for this one, and I appreciate the information --- and the earlier version's ending.
I enjoy watching the virtual anthology being created here day by day, with essays that explicate the poem, provide a short bio of the poet, or explain why the poem is included.
Poems Ancient and Modern is my new favorite anthology, but it doesn’t quite displace in my affections an old anthology, the two-volume “The Library of Poetry and Song,” first compiled by William Cullen Bryant and published in 1870, with new editions published until at least 1925, the year of my copy. It’s oddly interesting to watch new poets, now unknown to us, as they appear in the main text or in an addition placed at the front, printed in a different font and not included in the table of contents. The new poets include George Sylvester Viereck who went on to write a book publicizing Eugen Steinach’s once famous operation to create a “second puberty” in aging men (including Yeats) and Zoë Akins, who cowrote the screenplay for “Camille” and wrote a play, “The Greeks Had a Word for It,” that was adapted into the screenplay for “How to Marry a Millionaire.”
Lowell's was a name that had eluded me--thank you for highlighting him here. I really liked this... I might be putting it in front of some students sometime soon!
And yes, of the Fireside Poets, I could readily call to mind (and also remember teaching) specific poems by Longfellow, Whittier, and Holmes, but drew a total blank at Lowell. It was good to put this poem in front of my own eyes, and also to pick him out of the crowd a little. His biography is pretty interesting, and I wish I had given it more time here, but this essay kept blowing up into some kind of Big Picture thing, and after wrangling with it for days, I finally just let it do that.
Delightful poem! Is it a case of the grass is always greener or maybe having gotten what one thought one wanted, having to live with it, is not quite what one thought it would be? Love the tone, the comparisons, the almost lilt as it goes on.
Hi Sally, delighted and daily reader here. When did Lowell first publish this poem? Tried to Google it, but no luck.
It was in his 1869 book Under the Willows : and Other Poems
Oh, I see J.S. Absher found this too.
According to a bibliography of his works compiled by George Willis Cooke (Houghton-Mifflin, 1906), it was first published in "Putnam's Magazine" in April 1854 and then collected in "Under the Willows and Other Poems," 1868. I glanced at the collected poems and noticed that the text is slightly different, e.g., "rugged" in the first line of the next-to-last stanza is "ungyv'd." Looking further, I see that there is a final stanza:
Nay, when, once paid my mortal fee,
Some idler on my headstone grim
Traces the moss-blurred name, will he
Think me the happier, or I him?
I'm not fond of the dangling past participle in the first line, but I like this ending.
If you wonder why I went to the trouble of looking it up, it's because I'm putting off work I need to do.
Thanks for doing that. I usually do track down where something appeared, but I hadn't for this one, and I appreciate the information --- and the earlier version's ending.
I enjoy watching the virtual anthology being created here day by day, with essays that explicate the poem, provide a short bio of the poet, or explain why the poem is included.
Poems Ancient and Modern is my new favorite anthology, but it doesn’t quite displace in my affections an old anthology, the two-volume “The Library of Poetry and Song,” first compiled by William Cullen Bryant and published in 1870, with new editions published until at least 1925, the year of my copy. It’s oddly interesting to watch new poets, now unknown to us, as they appear in the main text or in an addition placed at the front, printed in a different font and not included in the table of contents. The new poets include George Sylvester Viereck who went on to write a book publicizing Eugen Steinach’s once famous operation to create a “second puberty” in aging men (including Yeats) and Zoë Akins, who cowrote the screenplay for “Camille” and wrote a play, “The Greeks Had a Word for It,” that was adapted into the screenplay for “How to Marry a Millionaire.”
Wikipedia has Akins’ epitaph:
She loved
Shakespeare's sonnets,
Paris bonnets,
Country walks,
All-night talks,
Old trees and places
Children's faces
Shaw and Keats,
Opera seats,
Lonely prairies,
Tea at Sherry's,
Sunlight and air,
Vanity Fair.
Oh, I don't know that anthology and will look for it. Thanks for mentioning it!
Lowell's was a name that had eluded me--thank you for highlighting him here. I really liked this... I might be putting it in front of some students sometime soon!
Oh, good to know that you enjoyed the poem!
And yes, of the Fireside Poets, I could readily call to mind (and also remember teaching) specific poems by Longfellow, Whittier, and Holmes, but drew a total blank at Lowell. It was good to put this poem in front of my own eyes, and also to pick him out of the crowd a little. His biography is pretty interesting, and I wish I had given it more time here, but this essay kept blowing up into some kind of Big Picture thing, and after wrangling with it for days, I finally just let it do that.