374 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 



Creaks slowly, with its driver fast asleep 

 On the load's top. Against the neighboring hill, 

 Huddled along the stone wall"s shady side, 

 The sheep show white, as if a snowdrift still 

 Defied the dog-star. Through the open door 

 A drowsy smell of flowers — gray heliotrope, 

 And white sweet clover, and shy mignonette — 

 Comes faintly in, and silent chorus lends 

 To the pervading symphony of peace." * 



Everywhere in Whittier's work one may find such pictures. 

 Quite to appreciate them, perhaps, one must know the country 

 they deal with. The regions of New England that Whittier 

 knew have a character peculiarly their own. The rocky coast 

 between Cape Ann and the Piscataqua, broken by long stretches 

 of beach; the marshes, dotted with great stacks of salt hay, 

 stretching back to the woods or the farms of the solid land; 

 the rolling country, with its elms and pines, its gnarled apple 

 orchards, its gray wooden farmhouses ; and almost within sight 

 the lower spurs of the New Hampshire hills, bristling with a 

 stubble of young woods, are unlike any other country I have 

 known. Such subtle impressions as mark the individuality of a 

 region are unmistakable, but almost beyond the power of words 

 to phrase. Perhaps the trait which most distinguishes this 

 country that Whittier so knew and loved is a nearer approach to 

 the suggestion of a romantic past than is common in North 

 America. Ear as the eye can reach or the foot travel, this region 

 has been the home of our own race for above two centuries. It 

 has its own traditions, its own legends. It is humanized in a 

 way almost European. Yet its legends belong to a past not of 

 civilized or mediaeval grandeur, but of savage wildness. And 

 its actual prosperity is past or passing, — but for great factories, 

 swarming with foreign operatives, or for summer visitors, who 

 come 'to idle in regions where the toil of the past generations 

 bred the race that has tamed a savage continent. 



In these regions, it was Whittier's lot to know the last days 

 of the olden time and the first of the new. He loved the old 

 days for their hardy virtues ; his faith in human nature, always 

 guided by the inner light, allowed him no misgivings for the 

 future. In " Cobbler Keezar's Vision," f the German wizard finds 



* " Among the Hills," Poetical Works, Vol. I. p. 260. To be sure, this 

 extract is from the Prelude. 



t Poetical Works, Vol. I. p. 241. 



