What the old sensibility of James Russell Lowell says to us

As a bass member of the Brookline Chorus, I sang in our final concert on May 15 at All Saints Parish church in Brookline. Included in our program was a new ten minute choral work by Kirke Mechem, "Once to Every Man and Nation". The text for the piece is from a poem by the 19th century poet and abolitionist James Russell Lowell. The song is tuneful in an old-fashioned way, its melody based on a Welsh folk song. The poem itself expresses a sensibility very different from our time. Lowell wrote poetry to inspire people to fight slavery in America. Though I don't listen much to modern pop music, I think the idea of poetry or music inspiring action now seems odd. The last time that happened was, I think, in the 60s, with Dylan, Peter, Paul and Mary, Pete Seeger, and a bunch of others.

Here's a couple of examples of what I mean. Lowell's poem starts:

Once to every man and nation,
Comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth with false-hood,
For the good or evil side;

Do people nowadays believe that any decision will confront us "once" in a lifetime, in a "moment to decide"? The choice is stark, between truth and false-hood, between the good or evil side (between abolition and slavery). One might use the terms good and evil, especially if one is a religious conservative, but we don't see any decision as an irrevocable between good and evil. Partly, we think of this as realism, a recognition of the world's complexity and ambiguity. And we try hard to see things in shades of gray, so that we can compromise and maintain some benefit from each side. We believe that thinking in stark terms is not very sophisticated. (I struggle with almost every decision I face, like a neurotic in a Woody Allen film.)

The poem is a call to action, a call to be brave. Once you choose the "good", then you must be prepared for sacrifice. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers died in the Civil War, from both sides. Perhaps our modern avoidance of that type of thinking is a way to avoid that type of sacrifice.

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I enjoyed singing the piece, and I know the rest of the chorus did as well. (I'm sorry that Kirke Mechem wasn't able to attend our performance -- he fell ill in the days before the concert and had to return home.)

Here is the rest of the poem:

Some great cause, some great decision,
Offering each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever,
'Twixt that darkness and that light.

Then to side with truth is noble,
When we share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit,
And 'tis prosperous to be just;

Then it is the brave man chooses,
While the coward stands aside,
Till the multitude make virtue,
Of the faith they had denied.

Though the cause of evil prosper,
Yet the truth alone is strong:
Though her portion be the scaffold,
And upon the throne be wrong,

Yet that scaffold sways the future,
AND, BEHIND THE DIM UNKNOWN,
STANDETH GOD WITHIN THE SHADOW,
KEEPING WATCH ABOVE HIS OWN.