Lowell sends a poem for publication in Brook Farm’s Harbinger

Sending a poem for publication in for publication to the literary and music editor of The Harbinger at Brook Farm, Lowell writes, “In writing the poem [not present] which I send for the Harbinger I said to myself – J.S.D. would like this …The images are perhaps a little too bold for our close clipped American public who, nevertheless, would be willing to sit quietly once a week under the reading of the book of Job, thinking all the while that, for inspiration, it compares rather unfavorably with Pope …”

Lowell continues at length about having shown botanical drawings by Dwight’s sister to Dr. Gray, and Gray’s appraisal of her talents, and Lowell’s appraisal of Gray. He concludes with a paragraph about the publisher Evert Duyckinck’s lack of enthusiasm about the prospects for publication of some of Dwight’s essays on music, and makes arrangements for subscribing to The Harbinger for himself and another.

Albert Brisbane moved his periodical, The Phalanx, from New York to Brook Farm in 1844, and rechristened it The Harbinger. It began weekly publication on 14 June 1845 as the intellectual successor to The Dial.

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