Note 59 — Chapter XIII · POLITICS 1874-1877
Reading edition
The verse in “Agassiz” which cut deepest was that containing the lines
“And all the unwholesomeness The Land of Broken Promise serves of late To teach the Old World how to wait.”
When he reprinted in the poem in Heartsease and Rue, Lowell made some verbal changes, and in this passage substituted “the Land of Honest Abraham” for the “Land of Broken Promise.” One may ponder over the change and settle it with himself which stings more, irony or sarcasm.