12.  We Sinais climb, etc.:  Mount Sinai was the mountain in Arabia on which Moses talked with God (Exodus xix, xx).  God’s miracles are taking place about us all the time, if only we can emancipate our souls sufficiently to see them.  From out of our materialized daily lives we may rise at any moment, if we will, to ideal and spiritual things.  In a letter to his nephew Lowell says:  “This same name of God is written all over the world in little phenomena that occur under our eyes every moment, and I confess that I feel very much inclined to hang my head with Pizarro when I cannot translate those hieroglyphics into my own vernacular.” (Letters, I, 164).

Compare the following passage in the poem Bibliolatres: 

    “If thou hast wanderings in the wilderness
    And find’st not Sinai, ’t is thy soul is poor;
    There towers the Mountain of the Voice no less,
    Which whoso seeks shall find, but he who bends,
    Intent on manna still and mortal ends,
    Sees it not, neither hears its thundered lore.”

15.  Prophecies:  Prophecy is not only prediction, but also any inspired discourse or teaching.  Compare the following lines from the poem Freedom, written the same year: 

    “Are we, then, wholly fallen?  Can it be
    That thou, North wind, that from thy mountains bringest
    Their spirit to our plains, and thou, blue sea,
    Who on our rocks thy wreaths of freedom flingest,
    As on an altar,—­can it be that ye
    Have wasted inspiration on dead ears,
    Dulled with the too familiar clank of chains?”

At the end of this poem Lowell gives his view of “fallen and traitor lives.”  He speaks of the “boundless future” of our country—­

                                  “Ours if we be strong;
    Or if we shrink, better remount our ships
    And, fleeing God’s express design, trace back
    The hero-freighted Mayflower’s prophet-track
    To Europe entering her blood-red eclipse.”

While reading Sir Launfal the fact must be kept in mind that Lowell was at the time of writing the poem filled with the spirit of freedom and reform, and was writing fiery articles in prose for the Anti-Slavery Standard, expressing his bitter indignation at the indifference and lukewarmness of the Northern people on the subject of slavery.

17.  Druid wood:  The Druids were the aged priests of the Celts, who performed their religious ceremonies in the forests, especially among oaks, which were peculiarly sacred to them.  Hence the venerable woods, like the aged priests, offer their benediction.  Every power of nature, the winds, the mountain, the wood, the sea, has a symbolic meaning which we should be able to interpret for our inspiration and uplifting.  Read Bryant’s A Forest Hymn.

18.  Benedicite:  An invocation of blessing.  Imperative form of the Latin benedicere, to bless.  Longfellow speaks of the power of songs that—­