AUTOGRAPH QUOTATION SIGNED (AQS)

Deerfoot Farm, 11 January 1886. Manuscript. Minor stains from mounting on verso. Boldly written and attractive. About Fine. On a 4-1/2" x 6-3/4" sheet of paper Lowell has written out the last 8 lines of his long poem “Ode Recited at the Harvard Commemoration, July 21, 1865,” written for and read at the Commemoration Day exercises at Harvard College on that day, an event especially honoring Harvard’s Civil War heroes. Undoubtedly for a special recipient, Harvard alumnus Lowell quotes the concluding lines and SIGNED and dated it below. Inspired by this Civil War Commemoration, Harvard’s famous Memorial Hall, in high Victorian Gothic style, was erected (truncated) to commemorate graduates who died for the Union during the War. Funds raised to build the great hall totaled over $400,000, then equal to one-twelfth of Harvard’s total endowment.

What words divine of lover or of poet
Could tell our love & make Thee know it,
Among the Nations bright beyond compare?
What were our lives without thee?
What all our lives to save thee?
We reck not what we gave thee;
We will not dare to doubt thee,
But, ask whatever else, & we will dare! (Inventory #: 020979)