The poem was dedicated "To the ever sweet and shining memory of the ninety-three sons of Harvard College who have died for their country in the war of nationality." The text of the poem is here given as Lowell first published it in 1865. He afterward made a few verbal changes, and added one new strophe after the eighth. There is a special interest in studying the ode in the form in which it came rushing from the poet's brain.

1-14. The deeds of the poet are weak and trivial compared with the deeds of heroes. They live their high ideals and die for them. Yet the gentle words of the poet may sometimes save unusual lives from that oblivion to which all common lives are destined.

5. Robin's-leaf: An allusion to the ballad of the Babes in the Wood.

9. Squadron-strophes: The term strophe originally was applied to a metrical form that was repeated in a certain established way, like the strophe and antistrophe of the Greek ode, as sung by a divided chorus; it is now applied to any stanza form. The poem of heroism is a "battle-ode," whose successive stanzas are marching squadrons, whose verses are lines of blazing guns, and whose melody is the strenuous music of "trump and drum."

13. Lethe's dreamless ooze: Lethe is the river of oblivion in Hades; its slimy depths of forgetfulness are not even disturbed by dreams.

14. Unventurous throng: The vast majority of commonplace beings who neither achieve nor attempt deeds of "high emprise."

16. Wisest Scholars: Many students who had returned from the war were in the audience, welcomed back by their revered mother, their Alma Mater.

20. Peddling: Engaging in small, trifling interests. Lowell's attitude toward science is that of Wordsworth, when he speaks of the dry-souled scientist as one who is all eyes and no heart, "One that would peep and botanize Upon his mother's grave."

21. The pseudo-science of astrology, seeking to tell commonplace fortunes by the stars.

25-26. Clear fame: Compare Milton's Lycidas:

32. Half-virtues: Is Lowell disparaging the virtues of peace and home in comparison with the heroic virtues of war? Or are these "half-virtues" contrasted with the loftier virtue, the devotion to Truth?

34. That stern device: The seal of Harvard College, chosen by its early founders, bears the device of a shield with the word Ve-ri-tas (truth) upon three open books.

46. Sad faith: Deep, serious faith, or there may be a slight touch of irony in the word, with a glance at the gloomy faith of early puritanism and its "lifeless creed" (l. 62).

62. Lifeless creed: Compare Tennyson's:

73. The tide of the ocean in its flow and ebb is under the influence of the moon. To get the sense of the metaphor, "fickle" must be read with "Fortune"—unless, perchance, we like Juliet regard the moon as the "inconstant moon."

81. To protect one's self everyone connives against everyone else. Compare Sir Launfal, I. 11. Instead of climbing Sinais we "cringe and plot."

82. Compare Sir Launfal, I. 26. The whole passage, II. 76-87, is a distant echo of the second and third stanzas of Sir Launfal.

83-85. Puppets: The puppets are the pasteboard actors in the Punch and Judy show, operated by unseen wires.

84. An echo of Macbeth, V, 5:

97. Elder than the Day: Elder than the first Day. "And God called the light Day," etc. (Genesis i, 5.) We may have light from the divine fountains.

110-114. In shaping this elaborate battle metaphor, one can easily believe the poet to have had in mind some fierce mountain struggle during the war, such as the battle of Lookout Mountain.

111. Creeds: Here used in the broad sense of convictions, principles, beliefs.

115-118. The construction is faulty in these lines. The two last clauses should be co-ordinated. The substance of the meaning is: Peace has her wreath, while the cannon are silent and while the sword slumbers. Lowell's attention was called to this defective passage by T.W. Higginson, and he replied: "Your criticism is perfectly just, and I am much obliged to you for it—though I might defend myself, I believe, by some constructions even looser in some of the Greek choruses. But on the whole, when I have my choice, I prefer to make sense." He then suggested an emendation, which somehow failed to get into the published poem:

120. BaÄl's stone obscene: Human sacrifices were offered on the altars of BaÄl. (Jeremiah xix, 5.)

147-205. This strophe was not in the ode as delivered, but was written immediately after the occasion, and included in the published poem. "It is so completely imbedded in the structure of the ode," says Scudder, "that it is difficult to think of it as an afterthought. It is easy to perceive that while the glow of composition and of recitation was still upon him, Lowell suddenly conceived this splendid illustration, and indeed climax of the utterance, of the Ideal which is so impressive in the fifth stanza.... Into these threescore lines Lowell has poured a conception of Lincoln, which may justly be said to be to-day the accepted idea which Americans hold of their great President. It was the final expression of the judgment which had slowly been forming in Lowell's own mind."

In a letter to Richard Watson Gilder, Lowell says: "The passage about Lincoln was not in the ode as originally recited, but added immediately after. More than eighteen months before, however, I had written about Lincoln in the North American Review—an article that pleased him. I did divine him earlier than most men of the Brahmin caste."

It is a singular fact that the other great New England poets, Longfellow, Whittier, and Holmes, had almost nothing to say about Lincoln.

150. Wept with the passion, etc.: An article in the Atlantic Monthly for June, 1885, began with this passage: "The funeral procession of the late President of the United States has passed through the land from Washington to his final resting-place in the heart of the prairies. Along the line of more than fifteen hundred miles his remains were borne, as it were, through continued lines of the people; and the number of mourners and the sincerity and unanimity of grief was such as never before attended the obsequies of a human being; so that the terrible catastrophe of his end hardly struck more awe than the majestic sorrow of the people."

170. Outward grace is dust: An allusion to Lincoln's awkward and rather unkempt outward appearance.

173. Supple-tempered will: One of the most pronounced traits of Lincoln's character was his kindly, almost femininely gentle and sympathetic spirit. With this, however, was combined a determination of steel.

175-178. Nothing of Europe here: There was nothing of Europe in him, or, if anything, it was of Europe in her early ages of freedom before there was any distinction of slave and master, groveling Russian Serf and noble Lord or Peer.

180. One of Plutarch's men: The distinguished men of Greece and Rome whom Plutarch immortalized in his Lives are accepted as types of human greatness.

182. Innative: Inborn, natural.

187. He knew to bide his time: He knew how to bide his time, as in Milton's Lycidas, "He knew himself to sing." Recall illustrations of Lincoln's wonderful patience and faith.

198. The first American: In a prose article, Lowell calls him "The American of Americans." Compare Tennyson's "The last great Englishman," in the Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington. Stanza IV of Tennyson's ode should be compared with this Lincoln stanza.

202. Along whose course, etc.: Along the course leading to the "inspiring goal." The conjunction of the words "pole" and "axles" easily leads to a confusion of metaphor in the passage. The imagery is from the ancient chariot races.

232. Paean: A paean, originally a hymn to Apollo, usually of thanksgiving, is a song of triumph, any loud and joyous song.

236. Dear ones: Underwood says in his biography of Lowell: "In the privately printed edition of the poem the names of eight of the poet's kindred are given. The nearest in blood are the nephews, General Charles Russell Lowell, killed at Winchester, Lieutenant James Jackson Lowell, at Seven Pines, and Captain William Lowell Putnam, at Ball's Bluff. Another relative was the heroic Colonel Robert G. Shaw, who fell in the assault on Fort Wagner."

As a special memorial of Colonel Shaw, Lowell wrote the poem, Memoriae Positum. With deep tenderness he refers to his nephews in "Mr. Hosea Biglow to the Editor of the Atlantic Monthly":

243. When Moses sent men to "spy out" the Promised Land, they reported a land that "floweth with milk and honey," and they "came unto the brook of Eshcol, and cut down from thence a branch with one cluster of grapes, and they bare it between two upon a staff; and they brought of the pomegranates and of the figs" (Numbers xiii.)

245. Compare the familiar line in Gray's Elegy:

and Tennyson's line, in the Ode to the Duke of Wellington:

In a letter to T.W. Higginson, who was editing the Harvard Memorial Biographies, in which he was to print the ode, Lowell asked to have the following passage inserted at this point:

Lowell's remark in The Cathedral, that "second thoughts are prose," might be fairly applied to this emendation. Fortunately, the passage was never inserted in the ode.

255. Orient: The east, morning; hence youth, aspiration, hope. The figure is continued in l. 271.

262. Who now shall sneer? In a letter to Mr. J.B. Thayer, who had criticized this strophe, Lowell admits "that there is a certain narrowness in it as an expression of the popular feeling as well as my own. I confess I have never got over the feeling of wrath with which (just after the death of my nephew Willie) I read in an English paper that nothing was to be hoped of an army officered by tailors' apprentices and butcher boys." But Lowell asks his critic to observe that this strophe "leads naturally" to the next, and "that I there justify" the sentiment.

265. Roundhead and Cavalier: In a general way, it is said that New England was settled by the Roundheads, or Puritans, of England, and the South by the Cavaliers or Royalists.

272-273. Plantagenets: A line of English kings, founded by Henry II, called also the House of Anjou, from their French origin. The House of Hapsburg is the Imperial family of Austria. The Guelfs were one of the great political parties in Italy in the Middle Ages, at long and bitter enmity with the Ghibelines.

323. With this passage read the last two stanzas of Mr. Hosea Biglow to the Editor of the Atlantic Monthly, beginning:

328. Helm: The helmet, the part of ancient armor for protecting the head, used here as the symbol of war.

343. Upon receiving the news that the war was ended, Lowell wrote to his friend, Charles Eliot Norton: "The news, my dear Charles, is from Heaven. I felt a strange and tender exaltation. I wanted to laugh and I wanted to cry, and ended by holding my peace and feeling devoutly thankful. There is something magnificent in having a country to love."