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WHITTIER, JOHN GREENLEAF. 



O, dumb be passion's stormy rage, 



When he who might 

 Have lighted up and led his age, 



Falls back in night. 



Scorn ! would the angels laugh, to mark 



A bright soul driven, 

 Fiend-goaded, down the endless dark, 



From hope and heaven ! 



Let not the land once proud of him 



Insult him now. 

 Nor brand with deeper shame his dim, 



Dishonored brow. 



But let its humbled sons, instead, 



From sea to lake, 

 A long lament, as for the dead, 



In sadness make. 



Of all we loved and honored, naught 



Save power remains, 

 A fallen angel's pride of thought, 



Still strong in chains. 



All else is gone ; from those great eyes 



The soul has fled : 

 When faith is lost, when honor dies, 



The man is dead ! 



Then, pay the reverence of old days 



To his dead fame : 

 Walk backward, with averted gaze, 



And hide the shame ! 



In 1854 Mr. Whittier received the gift of a 

 sprig of blooming heather, and the poem sug- 

 gested by it, a song on Robert Burns, tells the 

 true story of Whittier's own transformation from 

 a plow-boy into a poet : 

 % 



No more these simple flowers belong 



To Scottish maid and lover ; 

 Sown in the common soil of song, 

 They bloom the wide world over. 



In smiles and tears, in sun and showers, 

 The minstrel and the heather, 



The deathless singer and the flowers 

 He sang of live together. 



I call to mind the summer day, 



The early harvest, mowing, 

 The sky with sun and clouds at play, 



And flowers with breezes blowing. 



I hear the blackbird in the corn, 



The locust in the haying; 

 And, like the fabled hunter's horn, 



Old tunes my heart is playing. 



How oft that day, with fond delay, 

 I sought the maple's shadow, 



And sang with Burns the hours away, 

 Forgetful of the meadow ! 



Bees hummed, birds twittered, overhead 

 1 heard the squirrels leaping, 



The good dog listened while I read, 

 And wagged his tail in keeping. 



I watched him while in sportive mood 

 I read " The Twa Dogs' " story, 



And half believed he understood 

 The poet's allegory. 



Sweet day, sweet songs ! The golden hours 

 Grew brighter for that singing. 



From brook and bird ard meadow flowers 

 A dearer welcome bringing. 



I saw through all familiar things 



The romance underlying ; 

 The joys and griefs that plume the wings 



Of fancy skyward flying. 



I saw the same blithe day return, 

 The same sweet fall of even, 



That rose on wooded Craigie-burn, 

 And sank on crystal Devon. 



I matched with Scotland's heathery hills 

 The sweet-brier and the clover ; 



With Ayr and Doon, my native rills, 

 Their wood-hymns chanting over. 



O'er rank and pomp, as he had seen, 



I saw the Man uprising ; 

 No longer common or unclean, 



The child of God's baptizing ! 



To quote once more from the last of the noble 

 circle of poets with which the first century of our 

 national existence has been marked, Dr. Holmes 

 says of Whittier : 



Of late years I have been in close sympathy with 

 him not especially as an abolitionist not merely 

 through human sympathies, but as belonging with 

 me to the " Church without a Bishop," which seems 

 the natural complement of a " State without a 

 King." I mean the church which lives by no form- 

 ulae ; which believes in a loving Father, and trusts 

 Him for the final well-being of the whole spiritual 

 universe which He has called into being. All 

 through Whittier's writings the spirit of trust in a 

 beneficent order of things and a loving superintend- 

 ence of the universe shows itself, ever hopeful, ever 

 cheerful, always looking forward to a happier, 

 brighter era when the Kingdom of Heaven shall 

 be established. Nature breeds fanatics, but in due 

 time supplies their correctives. She will not be 

 hurried about it, but they come at last. Thomas 

 Boston, the Scotch Calvinist, was born in 167K. 

 Robert Burns objectionable in many respects, like 

 the royal Psalmist of Israel, but whose singinir pro- 

 test against unwholesome theology was mightier 

 than the voices of a thousand pulpits was born in 

 1759. Jonathan Edwards, whose theological barba- 

 risms reached a lower depth, if possible, than those 

 of his Scotch model, Thomas Boston, was born in 

 1703. John Greenleaf Whittier reached the hearts 

 of his fellow-countrymen, especially of New Eng- 

 landers, paralyzed by the teachings of Edwards, as 

 Burns kindled the souls of Scotchmen palsied by the 

 dogmas of Thomas Boston and his fellow sectaries. 



One of the earliest, as well as one of the most 

 characteristic expressions of this faith is found 

 in "My Psalm" : 



1 mourn no more my vanished years : 



Beneath a tender rain, 

 An April rain of smiles and tears, 



My heart, is young again. 



The west-winds blow, and, singing low, 

 1 hear the glad streams run ; 



The windows of my soul I throw 

 Wide open to the sun. 



No longer forward nor behind 



I look in hope or fear ; 

 But, grateful, take the good I find, 



The best of now and here. 



I plough no more a desert land, 



To harvest weed and tare ; 

 The manna dropping from God's hand 



Rebukes my painful care. 



I break my pilgrim staff, I lay 



Aside the toiling oar ; 

 The angel sought so far away 



I welcome at my door. 



Enough that blessings undeserved 

 Have marked my erring track ; 



That whereso'er my feet have swerved, 

 His chastening turned- me back ; 



