WIIITTIKK, .KHIN <;UI:KNI.K\|\ 



801 





For near her stood the little boy 



Her ehilli<h favor singled : 

 Hi* cap pulled low iiiiuii a face 

 \Vlu-re pride and shame were mingled. 



1'iishing with restless feet the snow 

 To right. :iud left, he lingered; 



As rcstle*sly her tiny hands 

 The blue-checked upron fingered. 



He saw her lift her eyes ; he felt 

 The soft hand's light caressing, 



And heard i lie tremble of her voice, 

 As if a fault confessing. 



" I'm sorry that I spelt the word : 



I hate to go above you, 

 Because," the brown eyes lower fell, 



" Because, you see, I love you ! " 



Still memory to a gray-haired man 

 That sweet child-face is showing. 



Dear girl ! the grasses on her grave 

 Have forty years been growing ! 



lie. lives to learn, in life's hard school, 



How few who pass above him 

 Lament their triumph and his loss, 



Like her, because they love him. 



The library in his home was large for the 

 time ; it contained twenty volumes, mostly relig- 

 ious. This was supplemented by that of the 

 neighborhood 

 physician. Dr. 

 Elias Weld, 

 and many 

 other friends, 

 so that, when 

 NVhittier ca- 

 tered Haver- 

 hill Academy, 

 ho had read 

 far more than 

 was usual for 

 boys of his 

 ago and class, 

 lie was thir- 

 teen years old 



when one of the itinerant merchants that long 

 supplied the New England housewife with 

 everything, from a skein of yarn to a Sunday 

 dress, came to the farm to display his wares. 

 At the hospitable hearth ho sang the songs of 

 Hobert Burns, a name unknown to Quaker ears. 

 It was years before a printed line of the orig- 

 inal came into Whittier's hand?, but meantime 

 the impression that molded his future had been 

 formed. 



Whittier had been taught shoemaking, as was 

 the custom, and with the results of his home 

 work on winter evenings he paid for six months' 

 schooling in the Academy. He was then con- 

 sidered competent to take a district school him- 

 self, and with the proceeds of that he obtained 

 another course of study, covering six months, 

 which ended his school training. 



Two years later, at the age of twenty-two, hi- 

 edited for a few months, in Boston, " The Amer- 

 ican Manufacturer." In 1830 ho became editor 

 of the " Haverhill Gazette," and six months 

 later he succeeded George D. Prentice as editor 

 of "The New England Weekly Keview,"at Hart- 

 ford, Conn. His first published volume, ' Le- 

 gends of New England, in Prose and Verse" 

 VOL. xxxn. 51 A 



WII1TTIKU S IIOMK. 



(1831), was made up of matter that had been 

 printed in his papers, much of which had com- 

 manded attention. One of these, " The Front 

 Spirit," early found its way into school readers. 

 find was a favorite poem for recitation on Friday 

 afternoons : 



He comes, he comes, the Frost Spirit comes! 



You may trace his footsteps now 

 On the naked woods and the blasted fields and the 



brown hill's withered brow. 

 He has smitten the leaves of the gray old trees 



where their pleasant green came forth, 

 And the winds, which follow wherever he goes, 



have shaken them down to earth. 



He comes, he comes, the Frost Spirit comes! 

 from the frozen Labrador. 



From the icy bridge of the Northern seas, which 

 the white bear wanders o'er. 



Where the fisherman's sail is stiff with ice, and the 

 luckless forms below 



In the sunless cold of the lingering night into mar- 

 ble statues grow ! 



He comes, he comes, the Frost Spirit comes ! 



on the rushing Northern blast, 

 And the dark Norwegian pines have bowed as his 



fearful breath went past. 

 With an unscorched wing he has hurried on, where 



the fires of Hecla glow 

 On the darkly beautiful sky above and the ancient 



ice below. 



He comes, he comes, the Frost Spirit comes ! 

 and the quiet lake shall feel 



The torpid touch of his glazing breath, and ring to 

 the skater's heel ; 



And the streams which danced on the broken rocks, 

 or sang to the leaning grass, 



Shall bow again to their winter chain, and in mourn- 

 ful silence pass. 



He comes, he comes, the Frost Spirit comes ! 

 let us meet him as we may, 



And turn with the light of the parlor-fire his evil 

 power away ; 



And gather closer the circle round, when that fire- 

 light dances high, 



And laugh at the shriek of the baffled Fiend as 

 his sounding wing goes by ! 



Whittier was compelled, by the death of his 

 father, to retire from editorial work, and take 

 charge of the farm and the family. To that 

 household then consisting of mother, two sis- 

 ters, one brother, and an aunt his devotion was 

 absolute. " Snow- Bound," his longest and most 

 sustained poem, is at once a record of the New 

 England that is fast becoming only a tradition, 

 of the household band, and of his undying affec- 

 tion for them. It is also a production that goes 

 far toward placing him in the front rank of our 

 poets. The following passages are from it : 



What matter how the night behaved? 



What matter how the north-wind raved ? 



Blow high, blow low, not all its snow 



Could quench our hearth-fire's ruddy glow. 



O Time and Change ! with hair as gray 



As was my sire's that winter day, 



Mow strange it seems, with so much gone 



Of life and love, to still live on ! 



Ah, brother ! only I and thou 



Are left of all that circle now, 



The dear home faces whereupon 



That fitful firelight paled and shone. 



Henceforward, listen as we will, 



The voices of that hearth are still ; 



