men of letters which is only a little lower than that which is
Emerson's and his alone."--_John White Chadwick_.




THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL


Early in 1848 in a letter to his friend Briggs, Lowell speaks of _The
Vision of Sir Launfal_ as "a sort of story, and more likely to be
popular than what I write generally. Maria thinks very highly of it."
And in another letter he calls it "a little narrative poem." In
December, 1848, it was published in a thin volume alone, and at once
justified the poet's expectations of popularity. The poem was an
improvisation, like that of his "musing organist," for it was written,
we are told, almost at a single sitting, entirely within two days. The
theme may have been suggested by Tennyson's _Sir Galahad_, but his
familiarity with the old romances and his love of the mystical and
symbolic sense of these good old-time tales were a quite ample source
for such suggestion. Moreover Lowell in his early years was much given
to seeing visions and dreaming dreams. "During that part of my life,"
he says, "which I lived most alone, I was never a single night
unvisited by visions, and once I thought I had a personal revelation
from God Himself." The _Fairie Queen_ was "the first poem I ever
read," he says, and the bosky glades of Elmwood were often transformed
into an enchanted forest where the Knight of the Red Cross, and Una
and others in medieval costume passed up and down before his wondering
eyes. This medieval romanticism was a perfectly natural accompaniment
of his intense idealism.