1. Preparation

Have you ever seen a fountain? Have you seen pictures of large and beautiful ones? What makes the water flow? How does it look with light shining through it? What becomes of the water when it can no longer move upward?

The poet imagined when he wrote this description that the fountain had life. Perhaps if you do so, it will help you to enjoy this poem.

2. Reading Lesson

The Fountain

Into the sunshine,

Full of the light, Leaping and flashing

From morn till night;

Into the moonlight,

Whiter than snow, Waving so flower-like

When the winds blow;

Into the starlight

Rushing in spray, Happy at midnight,

Happy by day;

Ever in motion,

Blithesome and cheery, Still climbing heavenward,

Never aweary;

Glad of all weathers,

Still seeming best, Upward or downward,

Motion thy rest;

Full of a nature

Nothing can tame, .Changed every moment,

Ever the same;

Ceaseless aspiring,

Ceaseless content, Darkness or sunshine

Thy element;

Glorious fountain,

Let my heart be Fresh, changeful, constant,

Upward, like thee!

- James Russell Lowell.

In the fourth stanza, what sort of nature does the poet say the fountain has? Look in the dictionary for the meanings of blithesome, cheery, and constant, unless you are sure of them. What words in the fifth stanza show that the fountain had these qualities ?

Aspiring means wishing to do better, or get higher. What does cease mean ? What, then, does cease-less mean ? Explain the first two lines of the seventh stanza.

Tell what you think the last stanza means. Show how a person may be constant and changeful.

Do you like the fountain as much as the poet did ?

3. Word Studies

Write some words that rhyme with each of these: flashing fountain.

leaping motion.

Think of words of your own to tell what each line in the fourth stanza means.

4. Memory Work

Copy and learn the first three and the last stanzas. Why are the commas used in the last stanzas?

6. Written Work

Write the poet's reasons for admiring the fountain.