Comparing Fireside Poems

The first poem I read was a poem by James Russell Lowell called War. I assume that this poem was written during the time of the civil war. He mentioned slaves and fighting against different races, "It's a grand gret cemetary Fer the barthrights of our race; They jest want this Californy So's to lug new slave-states in To abuse ye, an' scorn ye, An' to plunder ye like sin." (Lowell) He thought war was stupid and he did not want it going on. He said, "EZ fer war, I call it murder,-- There you hev it plain an' flat; I don't want to go no furder." (Lowell) That sentence is how he starts off the poem. He has really strong feelings about war and lets them show. This is a characteristic of the romanticism period, feelings over intuition. This poem pretty much focused only on the negative side of things and was pretty sad. I think this is a characteristic of the romanticism period. A characteristic of the romanticism period was innocence. Killing and being in war doesn't seem very innocent to me. The second poem I real was by Oliver Wendell Holmes called Departed Days. This poem was also a sad poem. I think it was about old times that Holmes wants back. He goes on to describe how much farther and farther away the past becomes and how he will never get it back, "We strive against the stream, Each moment farther from the shore Where life's young fountains gleam; Each moment fainter wave the fields, And wider rolls the sea; The mist grows dark, -- the sun goes down, -- Day breaks, -- and where are we?" (Holmes) It is really quite depressing. I think this poem shows the romanticism characteristics by using the ocean to explain what was going on. Holmes incorporated the waves of the ocean to prove how hard it would be to get back into the same spot again. Another characteristic of this period is looking in the past for wisdom and distrusting progress. I think this is what the poem is all about. Holmes is yearning for the past and does not want to move forward. This is a perfect example of the romanticism period. These two poems are very alike but very different at the same time. They both were about a sad story. Both of the authors wanted things to return back to "normal" or go back to the way things used to be. Lowell didn't want the war to go on and Holmes just straight up wanted the past back. So I think these poems are very alike. But, they have very different stories and incorporate different characteristics of the romanticism period. Lowell was described as, " are ardent abolitionists, may not have seemed so conservative in the nineteenth century." (Howard) I can see why Howard said this about Lowell. He went against what his country was doing and wasn't afraid to voice his opinion. I think that made him an individual.

Lowell, James Russell. War. The Early Poems Including the Biglow Papers.New York.web.

Holmes, Oliver Wendell. Departed Days. Boston. 1861. Web

Howard, Leon. "James Russell Lowell." A Study of Early Literary Careers. Web.