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    Delphi Complete Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (Illustrated)
    Delphi Complete Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (Illustrated)
    Delphi Complete Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (Illustrated)
    Ebook3,443 pages49 hours

    Delphi Complete Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (Illustrated)

    By John Greenleaf Whittier

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    About this ebook

    Regarded as one of the Fireside Poets, John Greenleaf Whittier was influenced by the poetry of Robert Burns and his early works reveal a Romantic strain. In later years, Whittier became an eloquent advocate of justice, tolerance, and liberal humanitarianism. The lofty spiritual and moral values he proclaimed earned him the title of “America’s finest religious poet” and many of his poems are still sung as church hymns. Whittier dedicated twenty years of his life to the abolitionist cause and he is chiefly remembered today for his powerful and stirring anti-slavery writings. The Delphi Poets Series offers readers the works of literature’s finest poets, with superior formatting. This volume presents Whittier’s complete works, with rare poems, related illustrations and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1)


    * Beautifully illustrated with images relating to Whittier’s life and works
    * Concise introduction to Whittier’s life and poetry
    * The complete poetry, based on the Houghton Mifflin and Co. 1892 edition
    * Excellent formatting of the poems
    * Special chronological and alphabetical contents tables for the poetry
    * Easily locate the poems you want to read
    * Rare uncollected poems, often missed out of collections
    * Includes Whittier’s prose
    * Features a bonus biography — discover Whittier’s intriguing life
    * Scholarly ordering of texts into chronological order and literary genres


    Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to see our wide range of poet titles


    CONTENTS:


    The Life and Poetry of John Greenleaf Whittier
    Brief Introduction: John Greenleaf Whittier by Edmund Clarence Stedman
    Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier


    The Poems
    List of Poems in Chronological Order
    List of Poems in Alphabetical Order


    The Prose
    Margaret Smith’s Journal
    Tales and Sketches
    Old Portraits and Modern Sketches
    Personal Sketches and Tributes
    Historical Papers
    The Conflict with Slavery
    Politics and Reform
    The Inner Life
    Criticism


    The Biography
    John Greenleaf Whittier: His Life, Genius, and Writings by William Sloane Kennedy


    Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to browse through our range of poetry titles or buy the entire Delphi Poets Series as a Super Set


    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDelphi Classics Ltd
    Release dateJul 18, 2019
    ISBN9781788779630
    Delphi Complete Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (Illustrated)

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      Delphi Complete Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (Illustrated) - John Greenleaf Whittier

      John Greenleaf Whittier

      (1807-1892)

      Contents

      The Life and Poetry of John Greenleaf Whittier

      Brief Introduction: John Greenleaf Whittier by Edmund Clarence Stedman

      Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier

      The Poems

      List of Poems in Chronological Order

      List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

      The Prose

      Margaret Smith’s Journal

      Tales and Sketches

      Old Portraits and Modern Sketches

      Personal Sketches and Tributes

      Historical Papers

      The Conflict with Slavery

      Politics and Reform

      The Inner Life

      Criticism

      The Biography

      John Greenleaf Whittier: His Life, Genius, and Writings by William Sloane Kennedy

      The Delphi Classics Catalogue

      © Delphi Classics 2019

      Version 1

      Browse the entire series…

      John Greenleaf Whittier

      By Delphi Classics, 2019

      COPYRIGHT

      John Greenleaf Whittier - Delphi Poets Series

      First published in the United Kingdom in 2019 by Delphi Classics.

      © Delphi Classics, 2019.

      All rights reserved.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.

      ISBN: 978 1 78877 963 0

      Delphi Classics

      is an imprint of

      Delphi Publishing Ltd

      Hastings, East Sussex

      United Kingdom

      Contact: sales@delphiclassics.com

      www.delphiclassics.com

      NOTE

      When reading poetry on an eReader, it is advisable to use a small font size and landscape mode, which will allow the lines of poetry to display correctly.

      The Life and Poetry of John Greenleaf Whittier

      305 Whittier Road, Haverhill, Massachusetts — the John Greenleaf Whittier Homestead, the birthplace and home of the poet, which currently serves as a museum.

      View of Haverhill, 1850

      View of Haverhill today, across the Merrimack River

      Brief Introduction: John Greenleaf Whittier by Edmund Clarence Stedman

      From ‘1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 28’

      JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER,(1807-1892), America’s Quaker poet of freedom, faith and the sentiment of the common people, was born in a Merrimack Valley farmhouse, Haverhill, Massachusetts, on the 17th of December 1807. The dwelling was built in the 17th century by his ancestor, the sturdy immigrant, Thomas Whittier, notable through his efforts to secure toleration for the disciples of George Fox in New England. Thomas’s son Joseph joined the Society of Friends and bore his share of obloquy. Successive generations obeyed the monitions of the Inner Light. The poet was born in the faith, and adhered to its liberalized tenets, its garb and speech, throughout his lifetime. His father, John, was a farmer of limited means but independent spirit. His mother, Abigail Hussey, whom the poet strongly resembled, was of good stock. The Rev. Stephen Bachiler, an Oxford man and a Churchman, who became a Nonconformist and emigrated to Boston in 1632, was one of her forebears and also an ancestor of Daniel Webster. The poet and the statesman showed their kinship by the dark, deep-set and lustrous eyes that impressed one who met either of these uncommon men. The former’s name of Greenleaf is thought to be derived from the French Feuillevert, and to be of Huguenot origin; and there was Huguenot blood as well in Thomas Whittier, the settler. The poet thus fairly inherited his conscience, religious exaltation and spirit of protest. All the Whittiers were men of stature and bodily strength, John Greenleaf being almost the first exception, a lad of delicate mould, scarcely adapted for the labour required of a Yankee farmer and his household. He bore a fair proportion of it, but throughout his life was frequently brought to a halt by pain and physical debility. In youth he was described as a handsome young man, tall, slight, and very erect, bashful, but never awkward. His shyness was extreme, though covered by a grave and quiet exterior, which could not hide his love of fun and sense of the ludicrous. In age he retained most of these characteristics, refined by a serene expression of peace after contest. His eyes never lost their glow, and were said by a woman to be those of one who had kept innocency all his days.

      Whittier’s early education was restricted to what he could gain from the primitive district school of the neighbourhood. His call as a poet came when a teacher lent to him the poems of Burns. He was then about fifteen, and his taste for writing, bred thus far upon the quaint Journals of Friends, the Bible and The Pilgrim’s Progress, was at once stimulated. There was little art or inspiration in his boyish verse, but in his nineteenth year an older sister thought a specimen of it good enough for submission to the Free Press, a weekly paper which William Lloyd Garrison, the future emancipationist, had started in the town of Newburyport. This initiated Whittier’s literary career. The poem was printed with a eulogy, and the editor sought out his young contributor: their alliance began, and continued until the triumph of the anti-slavery cause thirty-seven years later. Garrison overcame the elder Whittier’s desire for the full services of his son, and gained permission for the latter to attend the Haverhill academy. To meet expenses the youth worked in various ways, even making slippers by hand in after-hours; but when he came of age his text-book days were ended. Meanwhile he had written creditable student verse, and contributed both prose and rhyme to newspapers, thus gaining friends and obtaining a decided if provincial reputation. He soon essayed journalism, first spending a year and a half in the service of a publisher of two Boston newspapers, the Manufacturer, an organ of the Clay protectionists, and the Philanthropist, devoted to humane reform. Whittier edited the former, having a bent for politics, but wrote for the latter also. His father’s last illness recalled him to the homestead, where both farm and family became his pious charge. Money had to be earned, and he now secured an editorial post at Hartford, Connecticut, which he sustained until forced by ill-health, early in his twenty-fifth year, to re-seek the Haverhill farm. There he remained from 1832 to 1836, when the property was sold, and the Whittiers removed to Amesbury in order to be near their meeting-house and to enable the poet to be in touch with affairs. The new home became, as it proved, that of his whole after-life; a dwelling then bought and in time remodelled was the poet’s residence for fifty-six years, and from it, after his death on the 7th of September 1892, his remains were borne to the Amesbury graveyard.

      While in Hartford Whittier issued in prose and verse his first book, Legends of New England (1831), and edited the writings of the poet John Gardiner C. Brainard. Thenceforward he was constantly printing verse, but of the hundred or more pieces composed before his settlement at Amesbury less than fifty are retained in his final collection. Of these none has more significance than the poem to Garrison, which appeared in 1831, and was read (December 1833) at the Philadelphia Convention that formed the Anti-Slavery Society. To that convention, with one-third of its membership composed of Friends, Whittier was a delegate, and was appointed one of the committee that drafted the famous Declaration of Sentiments. Although a Quaker, he had a polemical spirit; men seeing Whittier only in his saintly age knew little of the fire wherewith, setting aside ambition and even love, he maintained his warfare against the national crime, employing action, argument and lyric scorn. A future was open for him among the Protectionists, who formed the Whig party, and doubtless soon would have carried him to the United States Congress. As it was, he got no farther than the legislature of his own state (1835-1836), elected by his neighbours in an anti-slavery town. But if Garrison, Phillips and Sumner and Mrs Stowe were to be the rhapsodists of the long emancipation struggle, Whittier was its foreordained poet-seer. In 1833 he had issued at his own cost a pamphlet, Justice and Expediency, that provoked vehement discussion North and South. Later he shared with the agitators their experience of lawlessness, mob-violence and political odium. His sister Elizabeth, who became his life companion, and whose verse is preserved with his own, was president of the Woman’s Anti-Slavery Society in Amesbury. It is to be noted that the first collection of Whittier’s lyrics was the Poems written during the Progress of the Abolition Question in the United States, issued by a friend in 1837. But Mogg Megone (1836) was his first book, a crude attempt to apply the manner of Scott’s romantic cantos to a native theme. Among his other lyrical volumes, of dates earlier than the Civil War, were Lays of my Home (1843), Voices of Freedom (1846), Songs of Labor (1850), The Chapel of the Hermits (1853), The Panorama (1856), Home Ballads (1860). The titles of In War Time (1863) and National Lyrics (1865) rightly designate the patriotic rather than Tyrtaean contents of these books. The poet was closely affiliated with the Atlantic Monthly from the foundation of that classic magazine in 1857. His repute became national with the welcome awarded to Snow-Bound in 1866, and brought a corresponding material reward. Of his later books of verse may be mentioned The Tent on the Beach (1867), The Pennsylvania Pilgrim (1872), The Vision of Echard (1878), The King’s Missive (1881), At Sundown, his last poems (1890). As early as 1849 an illustrated collection of his poems appeared, and his Poetical Works was issued in London in 1830. During the ensuing forty years no less than ten successive collections of his poems appeared. Meanwhile he did much editing and compiling, and produced, among other works in prose, The Stranger in Lowell (1845), Supernaturalism in New England (1847), Leaves from Margaret Smith’s Journal (1849), a pleasing treatment in old-style English of an early Colonial theme. When he died, in 1892, in New Hampshire, among the hills he loved and sang so well, he had been an active writer for over sixty years, leaving more than that number of publications that bore his name as author or editor. His body was brought to Amesbury for interment; the funeral services were held in the open air, and conducted after the simple rites of the Friends, in the presence of a large concourse, certain of whom spake as they were moved in tribute to the bard. The Amesbury house has been acquired by the Whittier Home Association, so that the building and grounds are guarded as he left them, and form a shrine to which there is a constant pilgrimage. The Haverhill homestead, memorized in Snow-Bound, is also held by trustees to preserve the natural features of the landscape, and to keep the buildings and furniture somewhat as they were in their minstrel’s boyhood.

      It would be unjust to consider Whittier’s genius from an academic point of view. British lovers of poetry — except John Bright and others of like faith or spirit — have been slow to comprehend his distinctive rank. As a poet he was essentially a balladist, with the faults of his qualities; and his ballads, in their freedom, naïveté, even in their undue length, are among the few modern examples of unsophisticated verse. He returned again and again to their production, seldom labouring on sonnets and lyrics of the Victorian mould. His ear for melody was inferior to his sense of time, but that his over-facility and structural defects were due less to lack of taste than to early habit, Georgian models, disassociation from the schools, is indicated by his work as a writer of prose. In Margaret Smith’s Journal an artistic, though suppositive, Colonial style is well maintained. Whittier became very sensible of his shortcomings; and when at leisure to devote himself to his art he greatly bettered it, giving much of his later verse all the polish that it required. In extended composition, as when he followed Longfellow’s Tales of a Wayside Inn with his own Tent on the Beach, he often failed to rival his graceful brother poet. In American balladry he was pre-eminent; such pieces as The Swan Song of Parson Avery, Marguerite, Barclay of Ury, Skipper Ireson’s Ride, In the ‘Old South,’ hold their place in literature. It is necessary above all to consider the relation of a people’s years of growth and ferment to the song which represents them; for in the strains of Whittier, more than in those of any other 19th-century lyrist, the saying of Fletcher of Saltoun as to the ballads and laws of a nation finds a historic illustration. He was the national bard of justice, humanity and reform, whose voice went up as a trumpet until the victory was won. Its lapses resembled those of Mrs Browning, who was of his own breed in her fervour and exaltation. To the last it was uncertain whether a poem by Whittier would turn out a sang, or perhaps turn out a sermon; if the latter, it had deep sincerity and was as close to his soul as the other. He began as a liberator, but various causes employed his pen; his heart was with the people, and he was understanded of them; he loved a worker, and the Songs of Labor convey the zest of the artisan and pioneer. From 1832 to 1863 no occasion escaped him for inspiring the assailants of slavery, or chanting paeans of their martyrdom or triumph. No crusade ever had a truer laureate than the author of The Virginia Slave Mother, The Pastoral Letter one of his stinging ballads against a time-serving Church— A Sabbath Scene, and The Slaves of Martinique. Randolph of Roanoke is one of the most pathetic and most elevated of memorial tributes. Ichabod and The Lost Occasion, both evoked by the attitude of Webster, are Roman in their condemnation and wild with all regret.

      The green rusticity of Whittier’s farm and village life imparted a bucolic charm to such lyrics as In School Days, The Barefoot Boy, Telling the Bees, Maud Muller, and My Schoolmate. His idyllic masterpiece is the sustained transcript of winter scenery and home-life, Snow-Bound, which has had no equal except Longfellow’s Evangeline in American favour, but, in fact, nothing of its class since The Cottar’s Saturday Night can justly be compared with it. Along with the Quaker poet’s homing sense and passion for liberty of body and soul, religion and patriotism are the dominant notes of his song. His conception of a citizen’s prerogative and duty, as set forth in The Eve of Election, certainly is not that of one whose legend is our country, right or wrong. Faith, hope and boundless charity pervade the Questions of Life, Invocation, and The Two Angels, and are exquisitely blended in The Eternal Goodness, perhaps the most enduring of his lyrical poems. We can do without a Church, he wrote in a letter; we cannot do without God, and of Him we are sure. The inward voice was his inspiration, and of all American poets he was the one whose song was most like a prayer. A knightly celibate, his stainless life, his ardour, caused him to be termed a Yankee Galahad; a pure and simple heart was laid bare to those who loved him in My Psalm, My Triumph and An Autograph. The spiritual habit abated no whit of his inborn sagacity, and it is said that in his later years political leaders found no shrewder sage with whom to take counsel. When the question of primacy among American poets was canvassed by a group of the public men of Lincoln’s time, the vote was for Whittier; he was at least one whom they understood, and who expressed their feeling and convictions. Parkman called him the poet of New England, but as the North and West then were charged with the spirit of the New England states, the two verdicts were much the same. The fact remains that no other poet has sounded more native notes, or covered so much of the American legendary, and that Whittier’s name, among the patriotic, clean and true, was one with which to conjure. He was revered by the people cleaving to their altars and their fires, and his birthdays were calendared as festivals, on which greetings were sent to him by young and old.

      In his age the poet revised his works, classifying them for a definitive edition, in seven volumes, published at Boston, 1888. Their metrical portion, annotated by Horace E. Scudder, can be found in the one-volume Cambridge Edition, (Boston, 1894). Whittier’s Life and Letters, prepared by his kinsman and literary executor, Samuel T. Pickard, also appeared in 1894.

      See also G. R. Carpenter, John Greenleaf Whittier (Boston, 1903) in the American Men of Letters series; a life (1907) by Bliss Perry and B. Wendell, Stelligeri (New York, 1893, p-201).

      (E. C. S.)

      The prominent American abolitionist, journalist and suffragist, William Lloyd Garrison, c. 1870, who published Whittier’s first poem in 1826

      Portrait of Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the United States — Whittier was an outspoken critic of the President.

      Broadside publication of Whittier’s ‘Our Countrymen in Chains’

      Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became a national leader of the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York, gaining note for his oratory and incisive antislavery writings.

      Charles Sumner (1811-1874) was an American politician and United States Senator from Massachusetts. Some historians argue that Whittier’s greatest political feat was convincing Charles Sumner to run on the Free-Soil ticket for the U.S. Senate in 1850.

      Whittier as a young man in 1847

      Whittier in 1885

      Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier

      HOUGHTON MIFFLIN AND CO., 1892 EDITION

      CONTENTS

      PROEM

      INTRODUCTION

      NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS

      THE VAUDOIS TEACHER.

      THE FEMALE MARTYR.

      EXTRACT FROM A NEW ENGLAND LEGEND.

      THE DEMON OF THE STUDY.

      THE FOUNTAIN.

      PENTUCKET.

      THE NORSEMEN.

      FUNERAL TREE OF THE SOKOKIS.

      ST. JOHN.

      THE CYPRESS-TREE OF CEYLON.

      THE EXILES.

      THE KNIGHT OF ST. JOHN.

      CASSANDRA SOUTHWICK.

      THE NEW WIFE AND THE OLD.

      THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK.

      I. THE MERRIMAC.

      II. THE BASHABA.

      III. THE DAUGHTER.

      IV. THE WEDDING.

      V. THE NEW HOME.

      VI. AT PENNACOOK.

      VII. THE DEPARTURE.

      VIII. SONG OF INDIAN WOMEN.

      BARCLAY OF URY.

      THE ANGELS OF BUENA VISTA.

      THE LEGEND OF ST. MARK.

      KATHLEEN.

      THE WELL OF LOCH MAREE

      THE CHAPEL OF THE HERMITS.

      TAULER.

      THE HERMIT OF THE THEBAID.

      MAUD MULLER.

      MARY GARVIN.

      THE RANGER.

      THE GARRISON OF CAPE ANN.

      THE GIFT OF TRITEMIUS.

      SKIPPER IRESON’S RIDE.

      THE SYCAMORES.

      THE PIPES AT LUCKNOW.

      TELLING THE BEES.

      THE SWAN SONG OF PARSON AVERY.

      THE DOUBLE-HEADED SNAKE OF NEWBURY.

      MABEL MARTIN.

      PROEM.

      I. THE RIVER VALLEY.

      II. THE HUSKING.

      III. THE CHAMPION.

      IV. IN THE SHADOW.

      V. THE BETROTHAL.

      THE PROPHECY OF SAMUEL SEWALL.

      THE RED RIPER VOYAGEUR.

      THE PREACHER.

      THE TRUCE OF PISCATAQUA.

      MY PLAYMATE.

      COBBLER KEEZAR’S VISION.

      AMY WENTWORTH

      THE COUNTESS.

      AMONG THE HILLS

      THE DOLE OF JARL THORKELL.

      THE TWO RABBINS.

      NOREMBEGA.

      MIRIAM.

      NAUHAUGHT, THE DEACON.

      THE SISTERS.

      MARGUERITE.

      THE ROBIN.

      THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM.

      KING VOLMER AND ELSIE.

      THE THREE BELLS.

      JOHN UNDERHILL.

      CONDUCTOR BRADLEY.

      THE WITCH OF WENHAM.

      KING SOLOMON AND THE ANTS

      IN THE OLD SOUTH.

      THE HENCHMAN.

      THE DEAD FEAST OF THE KOL-FOLK.

      THE KHAN’S DEVIL.

      THE KING’S MISSIVE.

      VALUATION.

      RABBI ISHMAEL.

      THE ROCK-TOMB OF BRADORE.

      THE BAY OF SEVEN ISLANDS.

      THE WISHING BRIDGE.

      HOW THE WOMEN WENT FROM DOVER.

      SAINT GREGORY’S GUEST.

      BIRCHBROOK MILL.

      THE TWO ELIZABETHS.

      REQUITAL.

      THE HOMESTEAD.

      HOW THE ROBIN CAME.

      BANISHED FROM MASSACHUSETTS.

      THE BROWN DWARF OF RUGEN.

      POEMS OF NATURE

      THE FROST SPIRIT

      THE MERRIMAC.

      HAMPTON BEACH

      A DREAM OF SUMMER.

      THE LAKESIDE

      AUTUMN THOUGHTS

      ON RECEIVING AN EAGLE’S QUILL FROM LAKE SUPERIOR.

      APRIL.

      PICTURES

      SUMMER BY THE LAKESIDE

      LAKE WINNIPESAUKEE.

      THE FRUIT-GIFT.

      FLOWERS IN WINTER

      THE MAYFLOWERS

      THE LAST WALK IN AUTUMN.

      THE FIRST FLOWERS

      THE OLD BURYING-GROUND.

      THE PALM-TREE.

      THE RIVER PATH.

      MOUNTAIN PICTURES.

      I. FRANCONIA FROM THE PEMIGEWASSET

      II. MONADNOCK FROM WACHUSET.

      THE VANISHERS.

      THE PAGEANT.

      THE PRESSED GENTIAN.

      A MYSTERY.

      A SEA DREAM.

      HAZEL BLOSSOMS.

      SUNSET ON THE BEARCAMP.

      THE SEEKING OF THE WATERFALL.

      THE TRAILING ARBUTUS

      ST. MARTIN’S SUMMER.

      STORM ON LAKE ASQUAM.

      A SUMMER PILGRIMAGE.

      SWEET FERN.

      THE WOOD GIANT

      A DAY.

      POEMS SUBJECTIVE AND REMINISCENT MEMORIES

      RAPHAEL.

      EGO.

      THE PUMPKIN.

      FORGIVENESS.

      TO MY SISTER, WITH A COPY OF THE SUPERNATURALISM OF NEW ENGLAND.

      MY THANKS, ACCOMPANYING MANUSCRIPTS PRESENTED TO A FRIEND.

      REMEMBRANCE

      MY NAMESAKE.

      A MEMORY

      MY DREAM.

      THE BAREFOOT BOY.

      MY PSALM.

      THE WAITING.

      SNOW-BOUND. A WINTER IDYL.

      MY TRIUMPH.

      IN SCHOOL-DAYS.

      MY BIRTHDAY.

      RED RIDING-HOOD.

      RESPONSE.

      AT EVENTIDE.

      VOYAGE OF THE JETTIE.

      MY TRUST.

      A NAME

      GREETING.

      AN AUTOGRAPH.

      ABRAM MORRISON.

      A LEGACY

      RELIGIOUS POEMS

      THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM

      THE CITIES OF THE PLAIN

      THE CALL OF THE CHRISTIAN

      THE CRUCIFIXION.

      PALESTINE

      HYMNS.

      FROM THE FRENCH OF LAMARTINE

      LE CRI DE L’AME.

      THE FAMILIST’S HYMN.

      EZEKIEL

      WHAT THE VOICE SAID

      THE ANGEL OF PATIENCE.

      THE WIFE OF MANOAH TO HER HUSBAND.

      MY SOUL AND I

      WORSHIP.

      THE HOLY LAND

      THE REWARD

      THE WISH OF TO-DAY.

      ALL’S WELL

      INVOCATION

      QUESTIONS OF LIFE

      FIRST-DAY THOUGHTS.

      TRUST.

      TRINITAS.

      THE SISTERS

      THE ROCK IN EL GHOR.

      THE OVER-HEART.

      THE SHADOW AND THE LIGHT.

      THE CRY OF A LOST SOUL.

      ANDREW RYKMAN’S PRAYER

      THE ANSWER.

      THE ETERNAL GOODNESS.

      THE COMMON QUESTION.

      OUR MASTER.

      THE MEETING.

      THE CLEAR VISION.

      DIVINE COMPASSION.

      THE PRAYER-SEEKER.

      THE BREWING OF SOMA.

      A WOMAN.

      THE PRAYER OF AGASSIZ.

      IN QUEST

      THE FRIEND’S BURIAL.

      A CHRISTMAS CARMEN.

      VESTA.

      CHILD-SONGS.

      THE HEALER. TO A YOUNG PHYSICIAN, WITH DORE’S PICTURE OF CHRIST HEALING THE SICK.

      THE TWO ANGELS.

      OVERRULED.

      HYMN OF THE DUNKERS

      KLOSTER KEDAR, EPHRATA, PENNSYLVANIA (1738)

      GIVING AND TAKING.

      THE VISION OF ECHARD.

      INSCRIPTIONS.

      ON A SUN-DIAL.

      ON A FOUNTAIN.

      THE MINISTER’S DAUGHTER.

      BY THEIR WORKS.

      THE WORD.

      THE BOOK.

      REQUIREMENT.

      HELP.

      UTTERANCE.

      ORIENTAL MAXIMS.

      THE INWARD JUDGE.

      LAYING UP TREASURE

      CONDUCT

      From the Mahabharata.

      AN EASTER FLOWER GIFT.

      THE MYSTIC’S CHRISTMAS.

      AT LAST.

      WHAT THE TRAVELLER SAID AT SUNSET.

      THE STORY OF IDA.

      THE LIGHT THAT IS FELT.

      THE TWO LOVES

      ADJUSTMENT.

      HYMNS OF THE BRAHMO SOMAJ.

      REVELATION.

      ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS

      TO WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON

      TOUSSAINT L’OUVERTURE.

      THE SLAVE-SHIPS.

      EXPOSTULATION.

      HYMN.

      THE YANKEE GIRL.

      THE HUNTERS OF MEN.

      STANZAS FOR THE TIMES.

      CLERICAL OPPRESSORS.

      A SUMMONS

      TO THE MEMORY OF THOMAS SHIPLEY.

      THE MORAL WARFARE.

      RITNER.

      THE PASTORAL LETTER

      HYMN

      HYMN

      THE FAREWELL OF A VIRGINIA SLAVE MOTHER TO HER DAUGHTERS SOLD INTO SOUTHERN BONDAGE.

      PENNSYLVANIA HALL.

      THE NEW YEAR.

      THE RELIC.

      THE WORLD’S CONVENTION OF THE FRIENDS OF EMANCIPATION, HELD IN LONDON IN 1840.

      MASSACHUSETTS TO VIRGINIA.

      THE CHRISTIAN SLAVE.

      THE SENTENCE OF JOHN L. BROWN

      THE SENTENCE OF JOHN L. BROWN.

      TEXAS. VOICE OF NEW ENGLAND.

      TO FANEUIL HALL.

      TO MASSACHUSETTS.

      NEW HAMPSHIRE.

      THE PINE-TREE.

      TO A SOUTHERN STATESMAN.

      AT WASHINGTON.

      THE BRANDED HAND.

      THE FREED ISLANDS.

      A LETTER.

      LINES FROM A LETTER TO A YOUNG CLERICAL FRIEND.

      DANIEL NEALL.

      SONG OF SLAVES IN THE DESERT.

      TO DELAWARE.

      YORKTOWN.

      RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE.

      THE LOST STATESMAN.

      THE SLAVES OF MARTINIQUE.

      THE CURSE OF THE CHARTER-BREAKERS.

      PAEAN.

      THE CRISIS.

      LINES ON THE PORTRAIT OF A CELEBRATED PUBLISHER.

      DERNE.

      A SABBATH SCENE.

      IN THE EVIL DAYS.

      MOLOCH IN STATE STREET.

      OFFICIAL PIETY.

      THE RENDITION.

      ARISEN AT LAST.

      THE HASCHISH.

      FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS’ SAKE.

      THE KANSAS EMIGRANTS.

      LETTER FROM A MISSIONARY OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH SOUTH, IN KANSAS, TO A DISTINGUISHED POLITICIAN.

      BURIAL OF BARBER.

      TO PENNSYLVANIA.

      LE MARAIS DU CYGNE.

      THE PASS OF THE SIERRA.

      A SONG FOR THE TIME.

      WHAT OF THE DAY?

      A SONG, INSCRIBED TO THE FREMONT CLUBS.

      THE PANORAMA.

      ON A PRAYER-BOOK,

      THE SUMMONS.

      TO WILLIAM H. SEWARD.

      IN WAR TIME.

      TO SAMUEL E. SEWALL AND HARRIET W. SEWAll, OF MELROSE.

      THY WILL BE DONE.

      A WORD FOR THE HOUR.

      EIN FESTE BURG IST UNSER GOTT. LUTHER’S HYMN.

      TO JOHN C. FREMONT.

      THE WATCHERS.

      TO ENGLISHMEN.

      MITHRIDATES AT CHIOS.

      AT PORT ROYAL.

      SONG OF THE NEGRO BOATMEN.

      ASTRAEA AT THE CAPITOL.

      THE BATTLE AUTUMN OF 1862.

      HYMN, SUNG AT CHRISTMAS BY THE SCHOLARS OF ST. HELENA’S ISLAND, S. C.

      THE PROCLAMATION.

      ANNIVERSARY POEM.

      BARBARA FRIETCHIE.

      WHAT THE BIRDS SAID.

      THE MANTLE OF ST. JOHN DE MATHA.

      LAUS DEO!

      HYMN FOR THE CELEBRATION OF EMANCIPATION AT NEWBURYPORT.

      AFTER THE WAR.

      THE PEACE AUTUMN.

      TO THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS.

      THE HIVE AT GETTYSBURG.

      HOWARD AT ATLANTA.

      THE EMANCIPATION GROUP.

      THE JUBILEE SINGERS.

      GARRISON.

      SONGS OF LABOR AND REFORM

      THE QUAKER OF THE OLDEN TIME.

      DEMOCRACY.

      THE GALLOWS.

      SEED-TIME AND HARVEST.

      TO THE REFORMERS OF ENGLAND.

      THE HUMAN SACRIFICE.

      SONGS OF LABOR.

      DEDICATION.

      THE SHOEMAKERS.

      THE FISHERMEN.

      THE LUMBERMEN.

      THE SHIP-BUILDERS

      THE DROVERS.

      THE HUSKERS.

      THE CORN-SONG.

      THE REFORMER.

      THE PEACE CONVENTION AT BRUSSELS.

      THE PRISONER FOR DEBT.

      THE CHRISTIAN TOURISTS.

      THE MEN OF OLD.

      TO PIUS IX.

      CALEF IN BOSTON.

      OUR STATE.

      THE PRISONERS OF NAPLES.

      THE PEACE OF EUROPE.

      ASTRAEA.

      THE DISENTHRALLED.

      THE POOR VOTER ON ELECTION DAY.

      THE DREAM OF PIO NONO.

      THE VOICES.

      THE NEW EXODUS.

      THE CONQUEST OF FINLAND.

      THE EVE OF ELECTION.

      FROM PERUGIA.

      ITALY.

      FREEDOM IN BRAZIL.

      AFTER ELECTION.

      DISARMAMENT.

      THE PROBLEM.

      OUR COUNTRY.

      ON THE BIG HORN.

      PERSONAL POEMS

      A LAMENT

      TO THE MEMORY OF CHARLES B. STORRS,

      LINES ON THE DEATH OF S. OLIVER TORREY,

      TO ——  — ,

      LEGGETT’S MONUMENT.

      TO A FRIEND, ON HER RETURN FROM EUROPE.

      LUCY HOOPER.

      FOLLEN. ON READING HIS ESSAY ON THE FUTURE STATE.

      TO J. P.

      CHALKLEY HALL.

      GONE

      TO RONGE.

      CHANNING.

      TO MY FRIEND ON THE DEATH OF HIS SISTER.

      DANIEL WHEELER

      TO FREDRIKA BREMER.

      TO AVIS KEENE ON RECEIVING A BASKET OF SEA-MOSSES.

      THE HILL-TOP

      ELLIOTT.

      ICHABOD

      THE LOST OCCASION.

      WORDSWORTH, WRITTEN ON A BLANK LEAF OF HIS MEMOIRS.

      TO ——  — , LINES WRITTEN AFTER A SUMMER DAY’S EXCURSION.

      IN PEACE.

      BENEDICITE.

      KOSSUTH

      TO MY OLD SCHOOLMASTER.

      THE CROSS.

      THE HERO.

      RANTOUL.

      WILLIAM FORSTER.

      TO CHARLES SUMNER.

      BURNS, ON RECEIVING A SPRIG OF HEATHER IN BLOSSOM.

      TO GEORGE B. CHEEVER

      TO JAMES T. FIELDS

      THE MEMORY OF BURNS.

      IN REMEMBRANCE OF JOSEPH STURGE.

      BROWN OF OSSAWATOMIE

      NAPLES. INSCRIBED TO ROBERT C. WATERSTON, OF BOSTON.

      A MEMORIAL

      BRYANT ON HIS BIRTHDAY

      THOMAS STARR KING

      LINES ON A FLY-LEAF.

      GEORGE L. STEARNS

      GARIBALDI

      TO LYDIA MARIA CHILD,

      THE SINGER.

      HOW MARY GREW.

      SUMNER

      THEIRS

      FITZ-GREENE HALLECK. AT THE UNVEILING OF HIS STATUE.

      WILLIAM FRANCIS BARTLETT.

      BAYARD TAYLOR.

      OUR AUTOCRAT.

      WITHIN THE GATE. L. M. C.

      IN MEMORY. JAMES T. FIELDS.

      WILSON

      THE POET AND THE CHILDREN. LONGFELLOW.

      A WELCOME TO LOWELL

      AN ARTIST OF THE BEAUTIFUL. GEORGE FULLER

      MULFORD.

      TO A CAPE ANN SCHOONER

      SAMUEL J. TILDEN.

      OCCASIONAL POEMS

      EVA

      A LAY OF OLD TIME.

      A SONG OF HARVEST

      KENOZA LAKE.

      FOR AN AUTUMN FESTIVAL

      THE QUAKER ALUMNI.

      OUR RIVER.

      REVISITED.

      THE LAURELS

      JUNE ON THE MERRIMAC.

      HYMN FOR THE OPENING OF THOMAS STARR KING’S HOUSE OF WORSHIP, 1864.

      HYMN FOR THE HOUSE OF WORSHIP AT GEORGETOWN, ERECTED IN MEMORY OF A MOTHER.

      A SPIRITUAL MANIFESTATION.

      CHICAGO

      KINSMAN.

      THE GOLDEN WEDDING OF LONGWOOD.

      HYMN FOR THE OPENING OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH, ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA.

      LEXINGTON 1775.

      THE LIBRARY.

      I WAS A STRANGER, AND YE TOOK ME IN.

      CENTENNIAL HYMN.

      AT SCHOOL-CLOSE. BOWDOIN STREET, BOSTON, 1877.

      HYMN OF THE CHILDREN.

      THE LANDMARKS.

      GARDEN

      A GREETING

      GODSPEED

      WINTER ROSES.

      THE REUNION

      NORUMBEGA HALL.

      THE BARTHOLDI STATUE 1886

      ONE OF THE SIGNERS.

      THE TENT ON THE BEACH

      THE WRECK OF RIVERMOUTH

      THE GRAVE BY THE LAKE

      THE BROTHER OF MERCY.

      THE CHANGELING.

      THE MAIDS OF ATTITASH.

      KALLUNDBORG CHURCH

      THE CABLE HYMN.

      THE DEAD SHIP OF HARPSWELL.

      THE PALATINE.

      ABRAHAM DAVENPORT

      THE WORSHIP OF NATURE.

      AT SUNDOWN

      TO E. C. S.

      THE CHRISTMAS OF 1888.

      THE VOW OF WASHINGTON.

      THE CAPTAIN’S WELL.

      AN OUTDOOR RECEPTION.

      R. S. S., AT DEER ISLAND ON THE MERRIMAC.

      BURNING DRIFT-WOOD

      O. W. HOLMES ON HIS EIGHTIETH BIRTH-DAY.

      JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

      HAVERHILL. 1640-1890.

      TO G. G. AN AUTOGRAPH.

      INSCRIPTION

      LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY.

      MILTON

      THE BIRTHDAY WREATH

      THE WIND OF MARCH.

      BETWEEN THE GATES.

      THE LAST EVE OF SUMMER.

      TO OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

      Appendix I. Early and Uncollected Verses

      The Exile’s Departure

      The Deity

      The Vale of the Merrimac

      Benevolence

      Ocean

      The Sicilian Vespers

      The Spirit of the North

      The Earthquake

      Judith at the Tent of Holofernes

      Metacom

      Mount Agiochook

      The Drunkard to his Bottle

      The Fair Quakeress

      Bolivar

      Isabella of Austria

      The Fratricide

      Isabel

      Stanzas: Bind up thy tresses

      Mogg Megone

      The Past and Coming Year

      The Missionary

      Evening in Burmah

      Massachusetts

      Appendix II. Poems Printed in the ‘Life of Whittier’

      The Home-Coming of the Bride

      The Song of the Vermonters, 1779

      To a Poetical Trio in the City of Gotham

      Album Verses

      What State Street said to South Carolina, and what South Carolina said to State Street

      A Frémont Campaign Song

      The Quakers are Out

      A Legend of the Lake

      Letter to Lucy Larcom

      Lines on Leaving Appledore

      Mrs. Choate’s House-Warming

      An Autograph

      To Lucy Larcom

      A Farewell

      On A Fly-Leaf of Longfellow’s Poems: Hushed now the sweet consoling tongue

      Samuel E. Sewall

      Lines written in an Album: What shall I wish him?

      A Day’s Journey

      A Fragment: The dreadful burden of our sins we feel

      PUBLISHERS’ ADVERTISEMENT

      The Standard Library Edition of Mr. Whittier’s writings comprises his poetical and prose works as re-arranged and thoroughly revised by himself or with his cooperation. Mr. Whittier has supplied such additional information regarding the subject and occasion of certain poems as may be stated in brief head-notes, and this edition has been much enriched by the poet’s personal comment. So far as practicable the dates of publication of the various articles have been given, and since these were originally published soon after composition, the dates of their first appearance have been taken as determining the time at which they were written. At the request of the Publishers, Mr. Whittier has allowed his early poems, discarded from previous collections, to be placed, in the general order of their appearance, in an appendix to the final volume of poems. By this means the present edition is made so complete and retrospective that students of the poet’s career will always find the most abundant material for their purpose. The Publishers congratulate themselves and the public that the careful attention which Mr. Whittier has been able to give to this revision of his works has resulted in so comprehensive and well-adjusted a collection.

      The portraits prefixed to the several volumes have been chosen with a view to illustrating successive periods in the poet’s life. The original sources and dates are indicated in each case.

      NOTE. — The portrait prefixed to this volume was etched by S. A. Schoff, in 1888, after a painting by Bass Otis, a pupil of Gilbert Stuart, made in the winter of 1836-1837.

      PROEM

          I LOVE the old melodious lays

          Which softly melt the ages through,

          The songs of Spenser’s golden days,

          Arcadian Sidney’s silvery phrase,

          Sprinkling our noon of time with freshest morning dew.

          Yet, vainly in my quiet hours

          To breathe their marvellous notes I try;

          I feel them, as the leaves and flowers

          In silence feel the dewy showers,

          And drink with glad, still lips the blessing of the sky.

          The rigor of a frozen clime,

          The harshness of an untaught ear,

          The jarring words of one whose rhyme

          Beat often Labor’s hurried time,

          Or Duty’s rugged march through storm and strife, are here.

          Of mystic beauty, dreamy grace,

          No rounded art the lack supplies;

          Unskilled the subtle lines to trace,

          Or softer shades of Nature’s face,

          I view her common forms with unanointed eyes.

          Nor mine the seer-like power to show

          The secrets of the heart and mind;

          To drop the plummet-line below

          Our common world of joy and woe,

          A more intense despair or brighter hope to find.

          Yet here at least an earnest sense

          Of human right and weal is shown;

          A hate of tyranny intense,

          And hearty in its vehemence,

          As if my brother’s pain and sorrow were my own.

          O Freedom! if to me belong

          Nor mighty Milton’s gift divine,

          Nor Marvell’s wit and graceful song,

          Still with a love as deep and strong

          As theirs, I lay, like them, my best gifts on thy shrine.

          AMESBURY, 11th mo., 1847.

      INTRODUCTION

      The edition of my poems published in 1857 contained the following note by way of preface: —

      "In these volumes, for the first time, a complete collection of my poetical writings has been made. While it is satisfactory to know that these scattered children of my brain have found a home, I cannot but regret that I have been unable, by reason of illness, to give that attention to their revision and arrangement, which respect for the opinions of others and my own afterthought and experience demand.

      "That there are pieces in this collection which I would ‘willingly let die,’ I am free to confess. But it is now too late to disown them, and I must submit to the inevitable penalty of poetical as well as other sins. There are others, intimately connected with the author’s life and times, which owe their tenacity of vitality to the circumstances under which they were written, and the events by which they were suggested.

      The long poem of Mogg Megone was in a great measure composed in early life; and it is scarcely necessary to say that its subject is not such as the writer would have chosen at any subsequent period.

      After a lapse of thirty years since the above was written, I have been requested by my publishers to make some preparation for a new and revised edition of my poems. I cannot flatter myself that I have added much to the interest of the work beyond the correction of my own errors and those of the press, with the addition of a few heretofore unpublished pieces, and occasional notes of explanation which seemed necessary. I have made an attempt to classify the poems under a few general heads, and have transferred the long poem of Mogg Megone to the Appendix, with other specimens of my earlier writings. I have endeavored to affix the dates of composition or publication as far as possible.

      In looking over these poems I have not been unmindful of occasional prosaic lines and verbal infelicities, but at this late day I have neither strength nor patience to undertake their correction.

      Perhaps a word of explanation may be needed in regard to a class of poems written between the years 1832 and 1865. Of their defects from an artistic point of view it is not necessary to speak. They were the earnest and often vehement expression of the writer’s thought and feeling at critical periods in the great conflict between Freedom and Slavery. They were written with no expectation that they would survive the occasions which called them forth: they were protests, alarm signals, trumpet-calls to action, words wrung from the writer’s heart, forged at white heat, and of course lacking the finish and careful word-selection which reflection and patient brooding over them might have given. Such as they are, they belong to the history of the Anti-Slavery movement, and may serve as way-marks of its progress. If their language at times seems severe and harsh, the monstrous wrong of Slavery which provoked it must be its excuse, if any is needed. In attacking it, we did not measure our words. It is, said Garrison, a waste of politeness to be courteous to the devil. But in truth the contest was, in a great measure, an impersonal one, — hatred of slavery and not of slave-masters.

      "No common wrong provoked our zeal,

      The silken gauntlet which is thrown

      In such a quarrel rings like steel."

      Even Thomas Jefferson, in his terrible denunciation of Slavery in the Notes on Virginia, says It is impossible to be temperate and pursue the subject of Slavery. After the great contest was over, no class of the American people were more ready, with kind words and deprecation of harsh retaliation, to welcome back the revolted States than the Abolitionists; and none have since more heartily rejoiced at the fast increasing prosperity of the South.

      Grateful for the measure of favor which has been accorded to my writings, I leave this edition with the public. It contains all that I care to re-publish, and some things which, had the matter of choice been left solely to myself, I should have omitted.

      J. G. W.

      NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS

      THE VAUDOIS TEACHER.

      This poem was suggested by the account given of the manner which the Waldenses disseminated their principles among the Catholic gentry. They gained access to the house through their occupation as peddlers of silks, jewels, and trinkets. Having disposed of some of their goods, it is said by a writer who quotes the inquisitor Rainerus Sacco, they cautiously intimated that they had commodities far more valuable than these, inestimable jewels, which they would show if they could be protected from the clergy. They would then give their purchasers a Bible or Testament; and thereby many were deluded into heresy. The poem, under the title Le Colporteur Vaudois, was translated into French by Professor G. de Felice, of Montauban, and further naturalized by Professor Alexandre Rodolphe Vinet, who quoted it in his lectures on French literature, afterwards published. It became familiar in this form to the Waldenses, who adopted it as a household poem. An American clergyman, J. C. Fletcher, frequently heard it when he was a student, about the year 1850, in the theological seminary at Geneva, Switzerland, but the authorship of the poem was unknown to those who used it. Twenty-five years later, Mr. Fletcher, learning the name of the author, wrote to the moderator of the Waldensian synod at La Tour, giving the information. At the banquet which closed the meeting of the synod, the moderator announced the fact, and was instructed in the name of the Waldensian church to write to me a letter of thanks. My letter, written in reply, was translated into Italian and printed throughout Italy.

          "O LADY fair, these silks of mine

               are beautiful and rare, —

          The richest web of the Indian loom, which beauty’s

               queen might wear;

          And my pearls are pure as thy own fair neck, with whose

               radiant light they vie;

          I have brought them with me a weary way, — will my

               gentle lady buy?"

          The lady smiled on the worn old man through the

               dark and clustering curls

          Which veiled her brow, as she bent to view his

               silks and glittering pearls;

          And she placed their price in the old man’s hand

               and lightly turned away,

          But she paused at the wanderer’s earnest call, —

               "My gentle lady, stay!

          "O lady fair, I have yet a gem which a purer

               lustre flings,

          Than the diamond flash of the jewelled crown on

               the lofty brow of kings;

          A wonderful pearl of exceeding price, whose virtue

               shall not decay,

          Whose light shall be as a spell to thee and a

               blessing on thy way!"

          The lady glanced at the mirroring steel where her

               form of grace was seen,

          Where her eye shone clear, and her dark locks

               waved their clasping pearls between;

          "Bring forth thy pearl of exceeding worth, thou

               traveller gray and old,

          And name the price of thy precious gem, and my

               page shall count thy gold."

          The cloud went off from the pilgrim’s brow, as a

               small and meagre book,

          Unchased with gold or gem of cost, from his

               folding robe he took!

          "Here, lady fair, is the pearl of price, may it prove

               as such to thee

          Nay, keep thy gold — I ask it not, for the word of

               God is free!"

          The hoary traveller went his way, but the gift he

               left behind

          Hath had its pure and perfect work on that high-

               born maiden’s mind,

          And she hath turned from the pride of sin to the

               lowliness of truth,

          And given her human heart to God in its beautiful

               hour of youth

          And she hath left the gray old halls, where an evil

               faith had power,

          The courtly knights of her father’s train, and the

               maidens of her bower;

          And she hath gone to the Vaudois vales by lordly

               feet untrod,

          Where the poor and needy of earth are rich in the

               perfect love of God!

      1830.

      THE FEMALE MARTYR.

      Mary G —— , aged eighteen, a Sister of Charity, died in one of our Atlantic cities, during the prevalence of the Indian cholera, while in voluntary attendance upon the sick.

          BRING out your dead! The midnight street

          Heard and gave back the hoarse, low call;

          Harsh fell the tread of hasty feet,

          Glanced through the dark the coarse white sheet,

          Her coffin and her pall.

          What — only one! the brutal hack-man said,

          As, with an oath, he spurned away the dead.

          How sunk the inmost hearts of all,

          As rolled that dead-cart slowly by,

          With creaking wheel and harsh hoof-fall!

          The dying turned him to the wall,

          To hear it and to die!

          Onward it rolled; while oft its driver stayed,

          And hoarsely clamored, Ho! bring out your dead.

          It paused beside the burial-place;

          Toss in your load! and it was done.

          With quick hand and averted face,

          Hastily to the grave’s embrace

          They cast them, one by one,

          Stranger and friend, the evil and the just,

          Together trodden in the churchyard dust.

          And thou, young martyr! thou wast there;

          No white-robed sisters round thee trod,

          Nor holy hymn, nor funeral prayer

          Rose through the damp and noisome air,

          Giving thee to thy God;

          Nor flower, nor cross, nor hallowed taper gave

          Grace to the dead, and beauty to the grave!

          Yet, gentle sufferer! there shall be,

          In every heart of kindly feeling,

          A rite as holy paid to thee

          As if beneath the convent-tree

          Thy sisterhood were kneeling,

          At vesper hours, like sorrowing angels, keeping

          Their tearful watch around thy place of sleeping.

          For thou wast one in whom the light

          Of Heaven’s own love was kindled well;

          Enduring with a martyr’s might,

          Through weary day and wakeful night,

          Far more than words may tell

          Gentle, and meek, and lowly, and unknown,

          Thy mercies measured by thy God alone!

          Where manly hearts were failing, where

          The throngful street grew foul with death,

          O high-souled martyr! thou wast there,

          Inhaling, from the loathsome air,

          Poison with every breath.

          Yet shrinking not from offices of dread

          For the wrung dying, and the unconscious dead.

          And, where the sickly taper shed

          Its light through vapors, damp, confined,

          Hushed as a seraph’s fell thy tread,

          A new Electra by the bed

          Of suffering human-kind!

          Pointing the spirit, in its dark dismay,

          To that pure hope which fadeth not away.

          Innocent teacher of the high

          And holy mysteries of Heaven!

          How turned to thee each glazing eye,

          In mute and awful sympathy,

          As thy low prayers were given;

          And the o’er-hovering Spoiler wore, the while,

          An angel’s features, a deliverer’s smile!

          A blessed task! and worthy one

          Who, turning from the world, as thou,

          Before life’s pathway had begun

          To leave its spring-time flower and sun,

          Had sealed her early vow;

          Giving to God her beauty and her youth,

          Her pure affections and her guileless truth.

          Earth may not claim thee. Nothing here

          Could be for thee a meet reward;

          Thine is a treasure far more dear

          Eye hath not seen it, nor the ear

          Of living mortal heard

          The joys prepared, the promised bliss above,

          The holy presence of Eternal Love!

          Sleep on in peace. The earth has not

          A nobler name than thine shall be.

          The deeds by martial manhood wrought,

          The lofty energies of thought,

          The fire of poesy,

          These have but frail and fading honors; thine

          Shall Time unto Eternity consign.

          Yea, and when thrones shall crumble down,

          And human pride and grandeur fall,

          The herald’s line of long renown,

          The mitre and the kingly crown, —

          Perishing glories all!

          The pure devotion of thy generous heart

          Shall live in Heaven, of which it was a part.

      1833.

      EXTRACT FROM A NEW ENGLAND LEGEND.

      (Originally a part of the author’s Moll Pitcher.)

          How has New England’s romance fled,

          Even as a vision of the morning!

          Its rites foredone, its guardians dead,

          Its priestesses, bereft of dread,

          Waking the veriest urchin’s scorning!

          Gone like the Indian wizard’s yell

          And fire-dance round the magic rock,

          Forgotten like the Druid’s spell

          At moonrise by his holy oak!

          No more along the shadowy glen

          Glide the dim ghosts of murdered men;

          No more the unquiet churchyard dead

          Glimpse upward from their turfy bed,

          Startling the traveller, late and lone;

          As, on some night of starless weather,

          They silently commune together,

          Each sitting on his own head-stone

          The roofless house, decayed, deserted,

          Its living tenants all departed,

          No longer rings with midnight revel

          Of witch, or ghost, or goblin evil;

          No pale blue flame sends out its flashes

          Through creviced roof and shattered sashes!

          The witch-grass round the hazel spring

          May sharply to the night-air sing,

          But there no more shall withered hags

          Refresh at ease their broomstick nags,

          Or taste those hazel-shadowed waters

          As beverage meet for Satan’s daughters;

          No more their mimic tones be heard,

          The mew of cat, the chirp of bird,

          Shrill blending with the hoarser laughter

          Of the fell demon following after!

          The cautious goodman nails no more

          A horseshoe on his outer door,

          Lest some unseemly hag should fit

          To his own mouth her bridle-bit;

          The goodwife’s churn no more refuses

          Its wonted culinary uses

          Until, with heated needle burned,

          The witch has to her place returned!

          Our witches are no longer old

          And wrinkled beldames, Satan-sold,

          But young and gay and laughing creatures,

          With the heart’s sunshine on their features;

          Their sorcery — the light which dances

          Where the raised lid unveils its glances;

          Or that low-breathed and gentle tone,

          The music of Love’s twilight hours,

          Soft, dream-like, as a fairy’s moan

          Above her nightly closing flowers,

          Sweeter than that which sighed of yore

          Along the charmed Ausonian shore!

          Even she, our own weird heroine,

          Sole Pythoness of ancient Lynn,’

          Sleeps calmly where the living laid her;

          And the wide realm of sorcery,

          Left by its latest mistress free,

          Hath found no gray and skilled invader.

          So — perished Albion’s glammarye,

          With him in Melrose Abbey sleeping,

          His charmed torch beside his knee,

          That even the dead himself might see

          The magic scroll within his keeping.

          And now our modern Yankee sees

          Nor omens, spells, nor mysteries;

          And naught above, below, around,

          Of life or death, of sight or sound,

          Whate’er its nature, form, or look,

          Excites his terror or surprise,

          All seeming to his knowing eyes

          Familiar as his catechise,

          Or Webster’s Spelling-Book.

      1833.

      THE DEMON OF THE STUDY.

          THE Brownie sits in the Scotchman’s room,

          And eats his meat and drinks his ale,

          And beats the maid with her unused broom,

          And the lazy lout with his idle flail;

          But he sweeps the floor and threshes the corn,

          And hies him away ere the break of dawn.

          The shade of Denmark fled from the sun,

          And the Cocklane ghost from the barn-loft cheer,

          The fiend of Faust was a faithful one,

          Agrippa’s demon wrought in fear,

          And the devil of Martin Luther sat

          By the stout monk’s side in social chat.

          The Old Man of the Sea, on the neck of him

          Who seven times crossed the deep,

          Twined closely each lean and withered limb,

          Like the nightmare in one’s sleep.

          But he drank of the wine, and Sindbad cast

          The evil weight from his back at last.

          But the demon that cometh day by day

          To my quiet room and fireside nook,

          Where the casement light falls dim and gray

          On faded painting and ancient book,

          Is a sorrier one than any whose names

          Are chronicled well by good King James.

          No bearer of burdens like Caliban,

          No runner of errands like Ariel,

          He comes in the shape of a fat old man,

          Without rap of knuckle or pull of bell;

          And whence he comes, or whither he goes,

          I know as I do of the wind which blows.

          A stout old man with a greasy hat

          Slouched heavily down to his dark, red nose,

          And two gray eyes enveloped in fat,

          Looking through glasses with iron bows.

          Read ye, and heed ye, and ye who can,

          Guard well your doors from that old man!

          He comes with a careless How d’ ye do?

          And seats himself in my elbow-chair;

          And my morning paper and pamphlet new

          Fall forthwith under his special care,

          And he wipes his glasses and clears his throat,

          And, button by button, unfolds his coat.

          And then he reads from paper and book,

          In a low and husky asthmatic tone,

          With the stolid sameness of posture and look

          Of one who reads to himself alone;

          And hour after hour on my senses come

          That husky wheeze and that dolorous hum.

          The price of stocks, the auction sales,

          The poet’s song and the lover’s glee,

          The horrible murders, the seaboard gales,

          The marriage list, and the jeu d’esprit,

          All reach my ear in the self-same tone, —

          I shudder at each, but the fiend reads on!

          Oh, sweet as the lapse of water at noon

          O’er the mossy roots of some forest tree,

          The sigh of the wind in the woods of June,

          Or sound of flutes o’er a moonlight sea,

          Or the low soft music, perchance, which seems

          To float through the slumbering singer’s dreams,

          So sweet, so dear is the silvery tone,

          Of her in whose features I sometimes look,

          As I sit at eve by her side alone,

          And we read by turns, from the self-same book,

          Some tale perhaps of the olden time,

          Some lover’s romance or quaint old rhyme.

          Then when the story is one of woe, —

          Some prisoner’s plaint through his dungeon-bar,

          Her blue eye glistens with tears, and low

          Her voice sinks down like a moan afar;

          And I seem to hear that prisoner’s wail,

          And his face looks on me worn and pale.

          And when she reads some merrier song,

          Her voice is glad as an April bird’s,

          And when the tale is of war and wrong,

          A trumpet’s summons is in her words,

          And the rush of the hosts I seem to hear,

          And see the tossing of plume and spear!

          Oh, pity me then, when, day by day,

          The stout fiend darkens my parlor door;

          And reads me perchance the self-same lay

          Which melted in music, the night before,

          From lips as the lips of Hylas sweet,

          And moved like twin roses which zephyrs meet!

          I cross my floor with a nervous tread,

          I whistle and laugh and sing and shout,

          I flourish my cane above his head,

          And stir up the fire to roast him out;

          I topple the chairs, and drum on the pane,

          And press my hands on my ears, in vain!

          I’ve studied Glanville and James the wise,

          And wizard black-letter tomes which treat

          Of demons of every name and size

          Which a Christian man is presumed to meet,

          But never a hint and never a line

          Can I find of a reading fiend like mine.

          I’ve crossed the Psalter with Brady and Tate,

          And laid the Primer above them all,

          I’ve nailed a horseshoe over the grate,

          And hung a wig to my parlor wall

          Once worn by a learned Judge, they say,

          At Salem court in the witchcraft day!

          "Conjuro te, sceleratissime,

          Abire ad tuum locum!" — still

          Like a visible nightmare he sits by me, —

          The exorcism has lost its skill;

          And I hear again in my haunted room

          The husky wheeze and the dolorous hum!

          Ah! commend me to Mary Magdalen

          With her sevenfold plagues, to the wandering Jew,

          To the terrors which haunted Orestes when

          The furies his midnight curtains drew,

          But charm him off, ye who charm him can,

          That reading demon, that fat old man!

      1835.

      THE FOUNTAIN.

      On the declivity of a hill in Salisbury, Essex County, is a fountain of clear water, gushing from the very roots of a venerable oak. It is about two miles from the junction of the Powow River with the Merrimac.

          TRAVELLER! on thy journey toiling

          By the swift Powow,

          With the summer sunshine falling

          On thy heated brow,

          Listen, while all else is still,

          To the brooklet from the hill.

          Wild and sweet the flowers are blowing

          By that streamlet’s side,

          And a greener verdure showing

          Where its waters glide,

          Down the hill-slope murmuring on,

          Over root and mossy stone.

          Where yon oak his broad arms flingeth

          O’er the sloping hill,

          Beautiful and freshly springeth

          That soft-flowing rill,

          Through its dark roots wreathed and bare,

          Gushing up to sun and air.

          Brighter waters sparkled never

          In that magic well,

          Of whose gift of life forever

          Ancient legends tell,

          In the lonely desert wasted,

          And by mortal lip untasted.

          Waters which the proud Castilian

          Sought with longing eyes,

          Underneath the bright pavilion

          Of the Indian skies,

          Where his forest pathway lay

          Through the blooms of Florida.

          Years ago a lonely stranger,

          With the dusky brow

          Of the outcast forest-ranger,

          Crossed the swift Powow,

          And betook him to the rill

          And the oak upon the hill.

          O’er his face of moody sadness

          For an instant shone

          Something like a gleam of gladness,

          As he stooped him down

          To the fountain’s grassy side,

          And his eager thirst supplied.

          With the oak its shadow throwing

          O’er his mossy seat,

          And the cool, sweet waters flowing

          Softly at his feet,

          Closely by the fountain’s rim

          That lone Indian seated him.

          Autumn’s earliest frost had given

          To the woods below

          Hues of beauty, such as heaven

          Lendeth to its bow;

          And the soft breeze from the west

          Scarcely broke their dreamy rest.

          Far behind was Ocean striving

          With his chains of sand;

          Southward, sunny glimpses giving,

          ‘Twixt the swells of land,

          Of its calm and silvery track,

          Rolled the tranquil Merrimac.

          Over village, wood, and meadow

          Gazed that stranger man,

          Sadly, till the twilight shadow

          Over all things ran,

          Save where spire and westward pane

          Flashed the sunset back again.

          Gazing thus upon the dwelling

          Of his warrior sires,

          Where no lingering trace was telling

          Of their wigwam fires,

          Who the gloomy thoughts might know

          Of that wandering child of woe?

          Naked lay, in sunshine glowing,

          Hills that once had stood

          Down their sides the shadows throwing

          Of a mighty wood,

          Where the deer his covert kept,

          And the eagle’s pinion swept!

          Where the birch canoe had glided

          Down the swift Powow,

          Dark and gloomy bridges strided

          Those clear waters now;

          And where once the beaver swam,

          Jarred the wheel and frowned the dam.

          For the wood-bird’s merry singing,

          And the hunter’s cheer,

          Iron clang and hammer’s ringing

          Smote upon his ear;

          And the thick and sullen smoke

          From the blackened forges broke.

          Could it be his fathers ever

          Loved to linger here?

          These bare hills, this conquered river, —

          Could they hold them dear,

          With their native loveliness

          Tamed and tortured into this?

          Sadly, as the shades of even

          Gathered o’er the hill,

          While the western half of heaven

          Blushed with sunset still,

          From the fountain’s mossy seat

          Turned the Indian’s weary feet.

          Year on year hath flown forever,

          But he came no more

          To the hillside on the river

          Where he came before.

          But the villager can tell

          Of that strange man’s visit well.

          And the merry children, laden

          With their fruits or flowers,

          Roving boy and laughing maiden,

          In their school-day hours,

          Love the simple tale to tell

          Of the Indian and his well.

      1837

      PENTUCKET.

      The village of Haverhill, on the Merrimac, called by the Indians Pentucket, was for nearly seventeen years a frontier town, and during thirty years endured all the horrors of savage warfare. In the year 1708, a combined body of French and Indians, under the command of De Chaillons, and Hertel de Rouville, the famous and bloody sacker of Deerfield, made an attack upon the village, which at that time contained only thirty houses. Sixteen of the villagers were massacred, and a still larger number made prisoners. About thirty of the enemy also fell, among them Hertel de Rouville. The minister of the place, Benjamin Rolfe, was killed by a shot through his own door. In a paper entitled The Border War of 1708, published in my collection of Recreations and Miscellanies, I have given a prose narrative of the surprise of Haverhill.

          How sweetly on the wood-girt town

          The mellow light of sunset shone!

          Each small, bright lake, whose waters still

          Mirror the forest and the hill,

          Reflected from its waveless breast

          The beauty of a cloudless west,

          Glorious as if a glimpse were given

          Within the western gates of heaven,

          Left, by the spirit of the star

          Of sunset’s holy hour, ajar!

          Beside the river’s tranquil flood

          The dark and low-walled dwellings stood,

          Where many a rood of open land

          Stretched up and down on either hand,

          With corn-leaves waving freshly green

          The thick and blackened stumps between.

          Behind, unbroken, deep and dread,

          The wild, untravelled forest spread,

          Back to those mountains, white and cold,

          Of which the Indian trapper told,

          Upon whose summits never yet

          Was mortal foot in safety set.

          Quiet and calm without a fear,

          Of danger darkly lurking near,

          The weary laborer left his plough,

          The milkmaid carolled by her cow;

          From cottage door and household hearth

          Rose songs of praise, or tones of mirth.

          At length the murmur died away,

          And silence on that village lay.

        — So slept Pompeii, tower and hall,

          Ere the quick earthquake swallowed all,

          Undreaming of the fiery fate

          Which made its dwellings desolate.

          Hours passed away. By moonlight sped

          The Merrimac along his bed.

          Bathed in the pallid lustre, stood

          Dark cottage-wall and rock and wood,

          Silent, beneath that tranquil beam,

          As the hushed grouping of a dream.

          Yet on the still air crept a sound,

          No bark of fox, nor rabbit’s bound,

          Nor stir of wings, nor waters flowing,

          Nor leaves in midnight breezes blowing.

          Was that the tread of many feet,

          Which downward from the hillside beat?

          What forms were those which darkly stood

          Just on the margin of the wood?

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