Summer's long siege at last is o'er: The return to this figure
James Russell Lowell
rounds out the story and serves to give unity to the plan of the poem.
The siege is successful, summer has conquered and entered the castle,
warming and lighting its cold, cheerless interior.
342, 343. Is Lowell expressing here his own convictions about ideal
democracy?
_THE SHEPHERD OF KING ADMETUS_
Apollo, the god of music, having given offense to Zeus, was condemned
to serve for the space of one year as a shepherd under Admetus, King
of Thessaly. This is one of the most charming of the myths of Apollo,
and has been often used by the poets. Remarking upon this poem, and
others of its period, Scudder says that it shows "how persistently in
Lowell's mind was present this aspect of the poet which makes him a
seer," a recognition of an "all-embracing, all-penetrating power which
through the poet transmutes nature into something finer and more
eternal, and gives him a vantage ground from which to perceive more
truly the realities of life." Compare with this poem _An Incident in a
Railroad Car_.