802 



WHITTIER, JOHN GREENLEAF. 



Look where we may, the wide earth o'er, 



Those lighted faces smile no more. 



We tread the paths their feet have worn, 



We sit beneath their orchard-trees, 



We hear, like them, the hum of bees 

 And rustle of the bladed corn ; 

 We turn the pages that they read, 



Their written words we "linger o'er, 

 But in the sun they cast no shade, 

 No voice is heard, no sign is made, 



No step is on the conscious floor ! 

 Yet Love will dream, and Faith will trust, 

 (Since He who knows our need is just,) 

 That somehow, somewhere, meet we must. 

 Alas for him who never sees 

 The stars shine through his cypress-trees ! 

 Who, hopeless, lays his dead away, 

 Nor looks to see the breaking day 

 Across the mournful marbles play ! 

 Who hath not learned, in hours of faith, 



The truth to flesh and sense unknown, 

 That Life is ever lord of Death, 



And love can never lose its own ! 

 As one who held hei-self a part 

 Of all she saw, and let her heart 



Against the household bosom lean, 

 Upon the motley- braided mat 

 Our youngest and our dearest sat, 

 Lifting her large, sweet, asking eyes, 



Now bathed within the fadeless green 

 And holy peace of Paradise. 

 O, looking from some heavenly hill, 



Or from the shade of saintly palms, 



Or silver reach of river calms, 

 Do those large eyes behold me still ? 

 With me one little year ago : 

 The chill weight of the winter snow 



For months upon her grave has lain ; 

 And now, when summer south-winds blow 



And brier and harebell bloom again, 

 I tread the pleasant paths we trod, 

 I see the violet-sprinkled sod 

 Whereon she leaned, too frail and weak, 

 The hillside flowers she loved to seek, 

 Yet following me where'er I went 

 With dark eyes full of love's content. 

 The birds are glad ; the brier-rose fills 

 The air with sweetness ; all the hills 

 Stretch green to June's unclouded sky ; 

 But still I wait with ear and eye 

 For something gone which should be nigh, 

 A loss in all familiar things, 

 In flower that blooms, and bird that sings. 

 And yet, dear heart ! remembering thee, 



Am I not richer than of old ? 

 Safe in thy immortality, 



What change can reach the wealth I hold ? 



What chance can mar the pearl and gold 

 Thy love hath left in trust with me ? 

 And while in life's late afternoon, 



Where cool and long the shadows grow, 

 I walk to meet the night that soon 



Shall shape and shadow overflow, 

 I cannot feel that thou art far, 

 Since near at need the angels are ; 

 And when the sunset gates unbar, 



Shall I not see thee waiting stand, 

 And, white against the evening star, 



The welcome of thy beckoning hand ? 



In 1836 Mr. Whittier became secretary of the 

 American Anti-Slavery Society, and went to 

 Philadelphia, where he edited the " Pennsyl- 

 vania Freeman." His office was sacked and 

 burned, and he was exposed to the violence of a 

 mob. The cause of the slave had been espoused 

 in no careless moment. Unlike the Puritans, he 

 learned sympathy with the persecuted from the 

 experiences of his own sect. While bis writings 



were impassioned, he was never a fanatic, and 

 he refused to follow Garrison, his first inspirer, in 

 his political vagaries. Peace-loving and shrink- 

 ing as he was, Whittier was ready to suffer for 

 his opinions, and was more than once subjected 

 to public fury. In Concord, N. H., with George 

 Thompson, he was obliged to flee before a mob. 

 In 1835-6 he was Member of the Massachusetts 

 Legislature from Haverhill. In 1840 he took 

 up his residence in Amesbury, Mass., where he 

 spent his days, except for a brief sojourn in Low- 

 ell, where he edited the ''Middlesex Standard." 

 From 1847-1859 he contributed editorially to the 

 ' National Era," in which " Uncle Tom's Cabin" 

 first appeared, which was published in Washing- 

 ton, D. C. All this while he was devoting much 

 time to writing verse. His beautiful and famil- 

 iar hymn, beginning : 



Blest land of Judea, thrice hallowed in song, 

 Where the holiest of memories, pilgrim -like, 

 throng, 



was written in 1837, and several of the legend- 

 ary and descriptive ballads that came to be dis- 

 tinctive of him appeared in that year. 



One thing to be taken into consideration, in 

 reviewing the poetry of Whittier, is the difficulty 

 of the task, from a poetical view-point, which 

 he consciously set himself to be true at once to 

 the spirit of fancy and the reality of fact. The 

 ease with which he blended them is as marked 

 as it is exceptional. In the nature of the case, 

 such work is limited, genius or no genius ; but, 

 by delicacy of feeling mingled with fervor, he 

 was enabled to make such choice of words as 

 to produce poetic effect, and still detail historic 

 fact with due order and precision. A fine ex- 

 ample of this was the legendary poem entitled 

 "Cassandra Southwick," which is also the first 

 instance of his use of the swinging ballad 

 measure that Macaulay used with so much effect. 



The poem entitled "Massachusetts to Vir- 

 ginia," written in the same year, 1843, shows again 

 the force that a fine measure can add to a moving 

 theme, and names and facts are woven in with 

 grace and dignity : 



The blast from Freedom's Northern hills, upon its 

 Southern way, 



Bears greeting to Virginia from Massachusetts Bay: 



No word of haughty challenging, nor battle bugle's 

 peal, 



Nor steady tread of marching files, nor clang of 

 horsemen's steel. 



No trains of deep-mouthed cannon along our high- 

 ways go, 



Around our silent arsenals untrodden lies the snow ; 



And to the land-breeze of our ports, upon their 

 errands far, 



A thousand sails of commerce swell, but none are 

 spread for war. 



We hear thy threats, Virginia! thy stormy words 



and high, 

 Swell harshly on the Southern winds which melt 



along our sky ; 

 Yet, not one brown, hard hand foregoes its honest 



labor here, 

 No hewer of our mountain oaks suspends his axe in 



fear. 



A voice from lips whereon the coal from Freedom's 



shrine hath been, 

 Thrilled, as but yesterday, the hearts of Berkshire's 



mountain men : 



