The Bridge by James Russell Lowell

Lowell did this intentionally. The Biglow Papers served as political satire, and using Yankee dialect allowed him to represent the voices of everyday New Englanders instead of just the educated elites. This approach helped make the moral arguments feel more relatable and genuine rather than condescending.

They are the spirits of British soldiers who died in the battles of the American Revolution — Lexington, Concord, Bunker Hill — fought near Boston starting in 1775. The speaker notes that they haven't moved in almost fifty years, suggesting the poem is set around the 1820s or, considering the Civil War backdrop of the Biglow Papers, uses that timeframe as a dramatic element.

A reveille is the bugle or drum call that the military uses to wake soldiers at dawn. When Lowell mentions a ghost beating one with his own crossbones, he suggests that the dead are literally sounding an alarm — urging the living to recognize a national danger.

Lowell doesn't mention it explicitly in this excerpt, which is intentional. The speaker is still in the dark—he's asking questions. Considering the context of the Biglow Papers, the crisis is almost certainly the Civil War and the looming threat of disunion, which Lowell viewed as a betrayal of the ideals of the Revolution.

It means "since 1775," the year the Revolutionary War kicked off. The speaker is indicating that he hasn't seen these faces since the war — suggesting he's old enough to have experienced it, making him a direct connection between the founding generation and today's crisis.

It’s straightforward yet heartbreaking logic. Good news is celebrated with enthusiasm. The lack of celebration — along with the eerie disturbances in the graveyards — reveals everything the speaker needs to understand before a word is uttered. This is the reasoning of someone who has been around long enough to understand the meaning of silence.

The Biglow Papers overall express anti-war and anti-slavery sentiments, but this excerpt leans more towards a feeling of dread and foreboding rather than presenting a direct argument. In these lines, Lowell focuses on creating an atmosphere that suggests something terrible is approaching, rather than laying out a clear political stance.

Bees swarm when their hive is in danger. By likening the dead emerging from graveyards to a swarming hive, Lowell implies that the Revolutionary dead are reacting to a threat against the republic they established. This comparison makes the ghostly uprising seem more instinctual and communal instead of just random.