Read the poem: “Above and Below.”

by James Russell Lowell

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American Literature – American Poetry – James Russell Lowell
< < < A Youthful Experiment in English Hexameters
Absence. > > >

Above and Below.

I

O dwellers in the valley-land,
  Who in deep twilight grope and cower,
Till the slow mountain’s dial-hand
  Shorten to noon’s triumphal hour,
While ye sit idle, do ye think
  The Lord’s great work sits idle too?
That light dare not o’erleap the brink
  Of morn, because ’tis dark with you?

Though yet your valleys skulk in night,
  In God’s ripe fields the day is cried,
And reapers, with their sickles bright,
  Troop, singing, down the mountain-side:
Come up, and feel what health there is
  In the frank Dawn’s delighted eyes,
As, bending with a pitying kiss,
  The night-shed tears of Earth she dries!

The Lord wants reapers: oh, mount up,
  Before night comes, and says, ‘Too late!’
Stay not for taking scrip or cup,
  The Master hungers while ye wait;
‘Tis from these heights alone your eyes
  The advancing spears of day can see,
That o’er the eastern hill-tops rise,
  To break your long captivity.

II

Lone watcher on the mountain-height,
  It is right precious to behold
The first long surf of climbing light
  Flood all the thirsty east with gold;
But we, who in the shadow sit,
  Know also when the day is nigh,
Seeing thy shining forehead lit
  With his inspiring prophecy.

Thou hast thine office; we have ours;
  God lacks not early service here,
But what are thine eleventh hours
  He counts with us for morning cheer;
Our day, for Him, is long enough,
  And when He giveth work to do,
The bruisèd reed is amply tough
  To pierce the shield of error, through.

But not the less do thou aspire
  Light’s earlier messages to preach;
Keep back no syllable of fire,
  Plunge deep the rowels of thy speech.
Yet God deems not thine aeried sight
  More worthy than our twilight dim;
For meek Obedience, too, is Light,
  And following that is finding Him.

< < < A Youthful Experiment in English Hexameters
Absence. > > >

American Literature – American Poetry – James Russell Lowell

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by James Russell Lowell

Above and Below.

I

II

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