JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 377 



" With the memory of tliat morning by the summer sea I blend 

 A wild and wondrous story, by the younger Mather penned, 

 In that quaint Magnalia Chrisli, with all strange and marvellous 



things, 

 Heaped up huge and undigested, like the chaos Ovid sings. 



" Dear to me these far, faint glimpses of the dual life of old, 

 Inward, grand with awe and reverence; outward, mean and coarse and 



cold ; 

 Gleams of mystic beauty playing over dull and vulgar clay. 

 Gulden-threaded fancies weaving in a web of hodden gray."* 



His romantic and legendary narratives of New England, then, 

 have much of the true flavor of the soil. He seems to have 

 been haunted, however, by a lurking Yankee conscience, that 

 constantly suggested doubts as to whether it is quite right to 

 tell a good story just for its own sake. His introduction to the 

 "Tent on the Beach," f the volume which contained on the whole 

 his most effective narrative poems, is distinctly apologetic. 

 Here, at sixty -six, he writes : 



"I would not sin, in this half playful strain, — 



Too light, perhaps, for serious years, though born 



Of the enforced leisure of slow pain, — 

 Against the pure ideal which has drawn 



My feet to follow its far-shining gleam. 



And his narratives of New England tradition generally deal with 

 such phases of it as have perceptible didactic significance. 

 Naturally, he represents the Quakers heroically. A typical 

 stanza is this, from the "King's Missive," t written at seventy- 

 two: 



" ' Off with the knave's hat! ' An angry hand 

 Smote down the offence ; but the wearer said, 

 With a quiet smile, ' By the King's command 



I bear his message and stand in his stead.' 

 In the Governor's hand a missive he laid 

 With the royal arms on its seal displayed ; 

 And the proud man spake as he glanced thereat, 

 Uncovering, ' Give Mr. Shattuck his hat.' " 



* " The Garrison of Cape Ann," Poetical Works, Vol. I. p. 166. 

 t Poetical Works, Vol. IV. p. 227. 



t Ibid., Vol. I. p. :18.3. We must remember that Quaker principles forbade 

 salutation by uncovering the head. 



