my northern bower, I, Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom, cast down the hill a pitying glance on poor old Dives, tormented in the purgatory of his piazza to the south.

Properties

description

# My Northern Bower, I, Lazarus in Abraham’s Bosom ## Overview This entity is a section of text from the work "The Piazza Tales," dated to the period of its extraction in 2026. It is part of the larger collection "[Melville Complete Works](arke:01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW)". ## Context This section is contained within the chapter titled "[THE PIAZZA.](arke:01G8AJK1P91S74E5PM1TE53E5)" and was extracted from the file "[the_piazza_tales.txt](arke:01KG89J1F4D8P9BBX9AMGZ7TX7)". It follows the section titled "[THE PIAZZA.](arke:01KG8AK2X9T4N9PGKRRFSPCCYD)" and precedes the section titled "And this recalls my inland voyage to fairy-land." ## Contents The text of this section describes the narrator's perspective from a "northern bower," drawing parallels between his location and biblical references such as Lazarus and Dives. The narrator reflects on the changing seasons and the sensory experiences of his piazza, comparing the landscape to the sea and distant lands. The passage evokes imagery of cold winter winds, frosted beards, and the vastness of the sea, contrasting it with the warmth of summer and the gentle rolling of grain fields. The section concludes with the narrator observing a distant house as if it were an unknown sail on the Barbary coast.

description_generated_at

2026-01-30T20:48:50.399Z

description_model

gemini-2.5-flash-lite

description_title

My Northern Bower, I, Lazarus in Abraham’s Bosom

end_line

159

extracted_at

2026-01-30T20:47:52.603Z

extracted_by

structure-extraction-lambda

source_file

01KG89J1F4D8P9BBX9AMGZ7TX7

start_line

140

text

my northern bower, I, Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom, cast down the hill a pitying glance on poor old Dives, tormented in the purgatory of his piazza to the south. But, even in December, this northern piazza does not repel—nipping cold and gusty though it be, and the north wind, like any miller, bolting by the snow, in finest flour—for then, once more, with frosted beard, I pace the sleety deck, weathering Cape Horn. In summer, too, Canute-like, sitting here, one is often reminded of the sea. For not only do long ground-swells roll the slanting grain, and little wavelets of the grass ripple over upon the low piazza, as their beach, and the blown down of dandelions is wafted like the spray, and the purple of the mountains is just the purple of the billows, and a still August noon broods upon the deep meadows, as a calm upon the Line; but the vastness and the lonesomeness are so oceanic, and the silence and the sameness, too, that the first peep of a strange house, rising beyond the trees, is for all the world like spying, on the Barbary coast, an unknown sail.

title

my northern bower, I, Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom, cast down the hill a pitying glance on poor old Dives, tormented in the purgatory of his piazza to the south.