Life, love and literature

I taught American literature for more years than I have counted. I had always thought that I loved the literature of England or the UK better until I actually taught it. I finally realized just how much we had contributed to good literature! Some of the early poets were very influential in their day; they have declined in popularity somewhat, but that is a shame. James Russell Lowell was one such poet. He was a part of the Cambridge group of writers alongside Longfellow! My grandson goes to a private academy and he is reading and memorizing Longfellow and political masterpieces like our constitution! I love the fact that he is being educated somewhat the way I was. Lowell wrote a poem called “The First Snowfall“ which describes the first snow of the season falling on the earth as he and his young daughter watch through the window. He describes a mound in sweet auburn, a burial site for a daughter that had died earlier. I always read it aloud to my classes on the day we studied several selections by Lowell. Every year when I read the last stanza where he kissed his little Mable, my voice would invariably break at the part where he said that Mable would never know that the kiss he gave her on this day of the snow covering the ground was for his lost daughter under the deepening snow. I could have chosen to omit that particular poem because the textbook had several Lowell poems, but he described life. A life that he lived well in spite of loss- he lost 3 children and 2 wives to death, but he continued to write essays and poems and to engage in writing about causes that thinking men were championing- like abolishing slavery! He was a force at the time who is often largely forgotten today and we lose a little by not knowing the man !