18 THE FOUNTAIN

Into the sunshine,

Full of the light,

Leaping and flashing

From morn till night!

Into the moonlight.

Whiter than snow.

Waving so flower-like

When the winds blow!

Into the starlight,

Rushing in spray,

Happy in midnight,

Happy by day!

Ever in motion,

Blithesome and cheery;

Still climbing heavenward,

Never aweary.

Glad of all weathers,

Still seeming best,

Upward or downward,

Motion thy rest.

Full of a nature

Nothing can tame;

Changed every moment,

Ever the same.

Ceaseless aspiring,

Ceaseless content;

Darkness or sunshine

Thy element.

Glorious fountain!

Let my heart be

Fresh, changeful, constant,

Upward, like thee!

( James Russell Lowell )

Biography

James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) came from a line of lawyers, his family having been distinguished in that profession in every generation since their coming to America. His mother was a fine musician, and it was from her that Lowell inherited his taste for poetry. As a boy he had the free use of his father’s library, one of the oldest and best private libraries of that time. He had every opportunity for education that wealth and leisure afforded, but at college he says he “read nearly everything except the books prescribed by the faculty.” After he was graduated from Harvard College he studied law and opened an office in Boston, but he son decided that this was not the business for him. He published some poems, edited a magazine, and in 1855 succeeded Longfellow as Professor of Modern Languages at Harvard, and like him spent some years in study abroad. He was one of the founders of the Atlantic Monthly, and its first editor. Lowell was considered one of the finest scholars in America in his time. He was of a sunnier disposition than Bryant and is called the Poet of June, as Bryant has been called the Poet of Autumn.

Word list

element : nature home

constant : unchanging, one after another

upward : looking up

You Practice

Answer the following questions.

1) Which picture does the first stanza give you

2) How could the fountain change every moment and still be the same?

3) What’s addressed in the last stanza?