Books: Poet of the Particular

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But in the best classical sense, Lowell is a balanced poet. Good and evil are poised in his poetry. His darkly glowing poem on Florence is a reminder that beauty, art and civilization are purchased at a high price:

Oh Florence, Florence, patroness Of the lovely tyrannicides! Perseus, David and Judith, Lords and Ladies of the Blood, Greek demigods of the Cross, Rise sword in hand above the unshaven, Formless decapitation Of the monsters, tub of guts, Mortifying chunks for the pack. Pity the monsters! Pity the monsters! Perhaps one always took the wrong side— Ah, to have known, to have loved Too many Davids and Judiths! My heart bleeds black blood for the monster.

Lowell is occasionally obscure, and even his most explicit poems contain elusive overtones that tease the mind—sometimes hauntingly, now and then irritatingly. Few poems end in a tidy moral or a neat epigram. But the fact is that the poetry lives—images linger in the mind, the thing described is seen with stunning clarity; Lowell somehow builds emotion with the most mundane words and images. After reading the title poem, who will forget the statue of the gallant colonel at the head of his Negro soldiers, standing defiant amidst the bulldozers of Boston Common, a reproachful reminder of the forgotten fervor of the old Boston abolitionists, while around him "everywhere, giant finned cars nose forward like fish; a savage servility slides by on grease."