Glass _l^^S__ A a^^9_4r Book__fc±_SL+____ JOHN G. WHITTIER RA MBLES WHITTIER LAND $y MARTIN W. HOYT ?!«*•. fe % M A X CHE S T E R. X. H. GRANITE STATE PUBLISHING COMPANY 1 9 1 2 4%, sfc KENOZA LAKE O'e/ no sweetei lake Shall morning break not noon-cloua sail; A r o fairer face than thine shall take The sunset's golden vail. — Whittier If « 6 • c • EVELINA BRAY THE HAUNTED BRIDGE - ■ : ; : " •, WINTER SCENE ON COUNTRY BROOK • -m w #*" m Jtamtiles! in l©t)tttter=llanti By Martin W. Hoyt "To him who in the love of nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language." — William Cullen Bryant. LL great poets have been pre-eminently lovers of na- ture from the days of "Scio's blind old bard" down to the present age, and the infallible guage of each one's greatness has ever been the exactness and vividness with which he has depicted nature's constantly varying phases. Every real lover of nature, with the ability to put him- self in touch with her inner teachings, and her veiled in- spirations, is, in a way, a poet, albeit he may never, in a lifetime, have even so much as conceived the idea of framing a single line of metered language. All persons of poetic temperament have the faculty of perception, but all are not alike expressive. Very few are they upon whom the "silver tongue" has been bestowed with anything like un- stinted lavishness. Bryant was notedly able to come at' the spirit of nature, insomuch as to be frequently, nay even commonly, spoken of as Nature's poet, and not many degrees behind him in this respect we meet with John G. Whittier, "Poet of the Merrimack, and of the People." It is often said that his environments make the individ- ual, but I do not think this can be true; but environments certainly do always act as a powerful agent in developing the innate and characteristic genius which nature has stamped upon each and every man of note. , The environments of Whittier were most admirably 9 10 RAMBLES IN WHITTIER-LAND fitted to make him the child of nature and the brother of his fellow-man. Cradled in a rustic glen somewhat remote from any thickly settled centre, passing his childhood and early boyhood with little but the unmarred voices of nature to fall upon his attentive ear, Whittier advanced through the stages of life up to early manhood in an unrestricted round of delicious absorption of all those essential elements which later on enabled him to pour out upon the world grand and noble ideas with so much of zeal and fervor. If solitude was essential to his development it is cer- tain that this feature was not lacking in his surroundings; for in the time of his boyhood no neighbor's dwelling was to be seen from his home, and the same may said of it to- day. Nestled among the hills nearby the spot where, four generations previous to the poet's birth, the first sturdy Whittier had choosen to carve out with his axe a home in the primeval wilderness, it lies now as it lay then, saving that the vast forest has vanished, while grass grown fields and open grazing grounds have taken its place. Little though there may have been in the immediate neighborhood of young Whittier's home likely to arouse into action his poetic instinct, yet it was not a great dis- tance to that far-famed gem of the valley, that beauteous sylvan dream, the Merrimack River. Herein lay all that was needful to call forth the best that was in the poet. Here were the Pierian springs of his genius, and here be- side this silver ribbon lying in the lap of the green mead- ows were the oft-frequented haunts where he dreamed and communed with nature until the music latent within him burst into audible song. Some of his dreams he has be- queathed to us clothed in the garb of verse immortal. Whittier loved the Merrimack. He drank deeply of the inspiration it offered him, and in return for what it gave him he has rendered it celebrated down to the last syllable of recorded time. How much he loved it may be inferred when he sings: RAMBLES IN WHITTIER-LAND 11 "Home of my fathers! — I have stood Where Hudson rolled his lordly flood; Seen sunrise rest and sunset fade Along his frowning Palisade; Looked down the Apalachian peak On Juniata's silver streak; Have seen along his valley gleam The Mohawk's softly winding stream; The level light of sunset shine Through broad Potomac's hem of pine; And autumn's rainbow-tinted banner Hang lightly o'er the Susquehanna; Yet, wheresoe'er his step might be Thy wandering child looked back to thee! Heard in his dreams thy river's sound Of murmuring on his pebbly bound." — The Merrimack. How deeply he regretted the marring of its pristine beauty and the sacrifice of its poetry to modern industrial demands is voiced in a few lines from "The Bridal of Pen- nacook:" "O Stream of the Mountains! if answer of thine Could rise from thy waters to question of mine, Methinks through the din of thy thronged banks a moan Of sorrow would swell for the days which have gone. "Not for thee the dull jar of the loom and the wheel, The gliding of shuttles, the ringing of steel; But that old voice of waters, of bird and of breeze, The dip of the wild-fowl, the rustling of trees." To-day it is given us to wander where he wandered, for he has left the wherewith to guide our footsteps, and if we cannot dream his dreams we can at least read of them that which he has left to us. This we shall do if we love nature and nature's true children — the poets. If we love Whittier what keener delight can there be than, with our treasured volume of his poems in hand, to trace out his favorite walks by the river side or through the "remembered groves" or beside the lakelet with sunlight glinting o'er its waters, try- ing in our poor way to enter into his thoughts? 12 RAMBLES IN WHITTIER-LAND Let us give our attention for a brief time to Rocks Village, the scene of some of his best loved poems. "Over the wooded northern ridge, Between the houses brown, To the dark tunnel of the bridge The street comes straggling down. "You catch a glimpse through birch and pine, Of gable, roof and porch, The tavern with its swinging sign, The sharp horn of the church. "The river's steel-blue crescent curves To meet in ebb and flow, The single broken wharf that serves For sloop and gundelow. "You hear the pier's low undertone Of waves that chafe and gnaw; You start — a skipper's horn is blown To raise a creaking draw. "A place for idle eyes and ears, A cobwebbed nook of dreams; Left by the stream whose waves are years The stranded village seems." — The Countess. How many, many times, have I passed over that ridge and between the houses brown! Unhappily the growth of wood has now largely disappeared, and the poetry well- nigh gone out of the "dark tunnel of the bridge," for one- half the old wooden structure has been removed, and a graceful iron fabric has taken its place. The West New- bury portion is still standing as in days of yore, but time will eventually demand its removal, too. No longer can one "Hear the pier's low undertone Of waves that chafe and gnaw." The rippling of the current above the stone work is audible enough, but it is not now that peculiar, low, pensive moan which formerly the long reverberating tunnel bore to the ear. The river's "steel-blue crescent" still curves as in RAMBLES IN WHITTIER-LAND 13 the poet's time, but no longer "meets, in ebb and flow, the single broken wharf that serves for sloop and gundelow." At low tide a few blackened and mouldering timbers pro- truding from the river bed serve to mark the former site of this wharf, and nothing more of it now remains. This bridge spanning the stream at "Rocks Village" serves as a species of pleasure resort for the villagers. Here, upon its broad deck, they love to linger, and saunter and watch the steamer Merrimack, laden with her human freight, as she glides easily through the draw on her way from the city to the sea, or from the sea to the city. Here the younger element of the community sometimes gathers to ride upon the draw as it slowly turns on its massive foundation to admit the passing of the plying craft. At the sunset hour the river here is liberally dotted with mo- tor boats, a numerous fleet of which has rendezvous at Haverhill city. Some miles below this, and nearer the vicinity of Ames- bury, there is a riverside scene of remarkable beauty to be enjoyed when one can be so fortunate as to catch nature in the proper mood. Whittier makes mention of it in his poem, "The River Path." "No bird-song floated down the hill, The tangled bank below was still; "No rustle from the birchen stem, No ripple from the water's hem. "The dusk of twilight round us grew, We felt the falling of the dew; "For, from us, ere the day was done, The wooded hills shut out the sun. "But on the river's further side We saw the hill-tops glorified. "A tender glow, exceeding fair, A dream of day without its glare. "With us the damp, the chill, the gloom: With them the sunset's rosy bloom; 14 RAMBLES IN WHITTIER-LANB "While dark, through willowy vistas seen, The river rolled in shade between. "Sudden our pathway turned from night; The hills sprang open to the light; •'Through their green gates the sunshine showed, A long, slant splendor downward flowed. "Down glade and glen and bank it rolled; It bridged the shaded-stream with gold; "And, borne on piers of mist, allied The shadowy with the sunlit side!" It is a scene of indescribable beauty to see the rising slopes of Newbury thus suddenly flooded with all the glories of a golden summer sunset while the enthralled spec- tator stands immersed in the shadow of the heights on the Amesbury side of the stream. Even Whittier himself has not been able adequately to depict its charms in his word picture. This river path is easy to find and follow, and there is no difficulty in picking out the identical spot where the poet must have been to conceive his verse, while row- ing near the sunset hour. The Merrimack river is, indeed, a veritable dream in itself — a thing of beauty all the way from Haverhill city down to the sea. At times, when the air is quiet, and the tide, having reached the limit of its flow, pauses for a brief period ere it begins to recede, the water's surface becomes a vast and glittering sheen, a flawless reflector, mirroring back with perfect fidelity the green, grassy fields sloping down to the river's very brink on either bank, as well as the blue vault of overarching sky flecked with here and there a fleecy cloud. There are many places of interest to the student of Whit- tier in East Haverhill, that section of the township now for- ever celebrated as the envied birthplace of the "Quaker Poet." Here may be seen the old home of the gentle, beauti- ful village maiden who married the exiled Gascon Count, to be in few short months borne by sorrowing friends to Green- RAMBLES IN WHITTIER-LAND 15 wood Cemetery, where now for a century she has been sleeping away the last, long sleep on a beautiful river ter- race. A protecting iron grating guards the slab marking her resting place from the depredations of vandal hands, for the poet has immortalized the home of the living and that of the dead girl until many curious visitors visit both each year, all anxious to bear away with them some souve- nir of the spot. "Her rest is quiet on the hill, Beneath the locust bloom: Far off her lover sleeps as still Within his scutcheoned tomb. "The Gascon lord, the village maid, In love still clasp their hands; The love that levels rank and grade Unites their severed lands. "What matter whose the hillside grave Or whose the blazoned stone? Forever to her western wave Shall whisper blue Garonne! "And while ancestral pride shall twine The Gascon's tomb with flowers, Fall sweetly here, O song of mine, With summer's bloom and showers." — The Countess. To those who may care to read it, the poem, "The Countess," will tell the tale. On a little plain, something like half a mile from the river, stands the Old Garrison House, a grim and forbid- ding structure, relic of that former perilous period when the "painted demons" of the forest were wont to make nights a terror with their slaughters and burnings. To-day it stands in very much the same condition as when it afforded shelter to the helpless women and frightened children driven from their homes by the ruthless savage. Whether it was ever the scene of a midnight attack by the Indians, I have been unable to learn. I have often 16 RAMBLES IN WHITTIER-LAND wondered why Whittier has made no mention of the place. He may have done so, but there is nothing extant, so far as I know. On a calm and peaceful evening it is sometimes a pleasure to stroll around the old structure and try to pic- ture the scene when the wild wilderness was all about on every hand, and no one knew at what moment the red fiends might fall upon him out of its depths. Speaking of those times of the early settlements, the poet says: "Behind, unbroken, deep and dread, The wild, untraveled 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," meaning, of course, the White Mountains. Though he has given us nothing about the Garrison House, he has sketched a vivid picture of a midnight massa- cre, occurring only a few miles away from it, when the set- tlement at Pentucket lay one night buried in peaceful and unsuspecting sleep. "What forms were those which darkly stood Just on the margin of the wood? — Charred tree-stumps in the moonlight dim, Or paling rude, or leafless limb? No — through the trees fierce eyeballs glowed Dark human forms in moonshine showed, Wild from their native wilderness, With painted limbs and battle dress! "The morning sun looked brightly through The river willows, wet with dew. No sound of combat filled the air, — No shout was heard, — nor gunshot there: Yet still the thick and sullen smoke From smouldering ruins slowly broke; And on the greensward many a stain, And here and there, the mangled slain, Told how that midnight bolt had sped. Pentucket, on thy fated head." — Pentucket. OLD ROCKS BRIDGE BIRTHPLACE OF THE COUNTESS Part II. CO him who enjoys reading from the great book of nature an occasional chapter on the geological history of this little planet of ours, East Haver- hill offers a field filled to the brim with features of interest. First of all he will be struck by the appearance of the in- numerable "drumlins" all around him, with their smoothed and rounded sides and oft-times oval summits, rising from a few to frequently many feet above the general level of the country. They are smooth and grass-grown to their very tops, to the casual observer appearing as if rocks were a nearly unknown quantity in their make-up. But let one chance to find where some excavation or cut has been made into one of them, he will at once discover that they are but a mere medley of worn, rounded, and striated rocks thrown together in a promiscuous fashion, and imbedded in earth which is nothing more, after all, than the remains of thor- oughly disintegrated rock which has gradually accumulated over and around them during the untold ages that have elapsed since they were deposited in their present situa- tions. Much of eastern Massachusetts is noted for the great quantities of drift scattered broadcast over its surface during that distant geological epoch denominated as the glacial age. Lift but a spadeful of earth from almost any spot be- side the highway and one finds it full of these rounded and water-worn rocks, eloquent witnesses of that far-away time when the great ice plow of the north forced its way down across New England, turning up and displacing the earth for hundreds of feet in depth, and sometimes to the very un- derlying bed-rock, pushing before it and grinding beneath 17 18 RAMBLES IN WHITTIER-LAND its mighty mass, huge accumulations of detritus, borne along from the higher latitudes of the continent. Again we may find high banks of finest sand, it may be of the purest white, or it may be of varied colors, with an occasional stratum of gravel, or possibly a layer of small pebbles, sorted and placed as if by some designing hand — all showing the agency of water in motion or water at rest in their arrangement. There is scarcely ever an angular fragment among these stones, large or small, but all are well-worn and rounded by their long and rough journey from the northern clime. From the summit of one of the highest of these drum- lins, known as Job's Hill, one may distinguish the moun- tain peaks of northern Rockingham county, N. H., particu- larly of Pawtuckaway in Nottingham. When the great glacier came down in the ice age and made of New England a veritable Greenland, with its thous- ands of feet of ice-cap over the entire section, it nearly ob- literated all the old surface features of the land, and left it but a wild waste of rocky detritus, as it, after many ages, slowly wasted away under the influence of a returning warmer climate. The beds of former lakes had been filled up, and new ones chiseled out in other places. The courses of streams were obstructed and often completely obliter- ated, and as the ice gradually turned again to water and the water sought its way to the sea, it was compelled to sweep clear the obstructions from the former river beds or to seek new channels elsewhere. Thus it was that the Merrimack, whose course previ- ous to the ice age seems to have been southward along the site of the old Boston and Lowell canal, found it much easier to find a new road to the sea by turning eastward from Lowell, than to remove the accumulations from its old-time bed. All the little lakes of this section are simply hollows dug out by the moving ice, which filled up as the glacier turned into water again. Lake Kenoza, the most beautiful RAMBLES IN WHITTIER-LAND 19 of them all, has such an origin. In traveling from Haver- hill city to Merrimac on the Haverhill and Amesbury Street R. R., one rounds a small portion of its shore and catches a brief glimpse of a charming picture. The clear waters of the lake, together with the high drumlins at its southern bank densely wooded to their summits with dark-hued evergreens, offer a tempting morsel to the artist's pencil. Kenoza, too, was a cherished spot to Whittier. Here, as a "barefoot boy," he lured the pickerel from his haunts to his fate, and beneath the trees lining its shore he gath- ered the glossy brown nuts of autumn-time. Listen to what he says of the little sheet: "Kenoza! o'er no sweeter lake Shall morning break or noon-cloud sail, No fairer face than thine shall take The sunset's golden veil. Long be it ere the tide of trade Shall break with harsh-resounding din The quiet of thy banks of shade, And hills that fold thee in. Still let thy woodlands hide the hare, The shy loon sound his trumpet-note ; Wing-weary from his fields of air, The wild goose on thee float. Thy peace rebuke our feverish stir, Thy beauty our deforming strife ; Thy woods and waters minister The healing of their life." — Kenoza Lake The laws of the city now protect this lake from con- tamination, and it will always be kept as Whittier loved it. All through his busy life Whittier seems to have kept warm an affectionate remembrance of the delights of his earlier years. He often speaks of the halcyon, golden days of his boyhood. "Crowding years in one brief moon, When all things I heard or saw, Me, their master, waited for." 20 RAMBLES IN WHITTIER-LAND Oftentimes there is felt an undertone of regret that these days have all passed by never to return. "O for boyhood's painless play, Sleep that wakes in laughing day, Health that mocks the doctor's rules, Knowledge never learned of schools ! O for festal dainties spread, Like my bowl of milk and bread, — Pewter spoon and bowl of wood, On the door-stone, gray and rude ! O'er me, like a regal tent, Cloudy-ribbed, the sunset bent, Purple-curtained, fringtid with gold, Looped in many a wind-swung fold; While for music came the play Of the pied frogs' orchestra; And, to light the noisy choir, Lit the fly his lamp of fire." — The Barefoot Boy. Human nature is pretty much the same the world over, and all of us who are hastening on to the "sere and yellow leaf" of life's autumn are capable of looking back upon fondly-remembered days, and of realizing the tenderness with which the poet must have struck his lyre as he here and there touches upon the themes connected with bygone and youthful years. Whittier's work is fairly crowded with little pictures of rural life that come easily home to each one of us who has been so fortunate as to pass his youth amid country scenes in close contact with "old mother na- ture." Hardly is it possible to open to a descriptive poem of his without being confronted by some familiar token of one's boyhood period. He lures us on, stanza by stanza, with mention of whispering winds and murmuring stream- lets, with tossing branches of trees and fern-clad and mossy dells, until we fairly forget ourselves for a time, and be- come boys and girls again happily roaming once more the gladsome country side. RAMBLES IN WHITTIEK-LAND 21 Now, perhaps, he says to us: 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. •The Fountain. Again it is a harvest scene: "The summer grains were harvested; the stubble field lay dry, Where June winds rolled, in light and shade, the pale green waves of rye, But still, on gentle hill-slopes, in valleys fringed with wood, Ungathered, bleaching in the sun, the hea-vy corn crop stood. Bent low, by autumn's wind and rain, through husks that, dry and sere, Unfolded from their ripened charge, shone out the yellow ear; Beneath, the turnip lay concealed, in many a verdant fold, And glistening in the slanting light the pumpkin's sphere of gold." And this takes us to ''The Pumpkin," that exquisite bit dear to the heart of every boy who ever read it: "O, — fruit loved of boyhood ! the old days recalling, When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts were falling! When wild, ugly faces we carved in its skin, Glaring out through the dark with a candle within ! 22 RAMBLES IN WHITTIER-LAND When we laughed round the corn-heap, with hearts all in tune r Our chair a broad pumpkin, — our lantern the moon, Telling tales of the fairy who traveled like steam, In a pumpkin-shell coach, with two rats for her team." And close upon it comes the old-fashioned husking party of note among our grandfathers. "From many a brown old farm-house, and hamlet without name, Their milking and their home-tasks done, the merry huskers came. Swung o'er the heaped-up harvest, from pitch-forks in the mow, Shone dimly down the lanterns on the pleasant scene below ; The growing pile of husks behind, the golden ears before, And laughing eyes and busy hands and brown cheeks glimmering o'er. Half hidden in a quiet nook, serene of look and heart, Talking their old times over, the old men sat apart; While, up and down the unhusked pile, or nestling in its shade, At hide-and-seek, with laugh and shout, the happy children played." Reader, do you not recognize these pictures? have you not lived these scenes of happy days? If not you have missed much of life's keenest enjoyment. Who of us would willingly forget the time when we, too, fashioned the rude Jack o' Lantern from the pumpkin's golden globe, and danced in childish glee adown the long pile of unstripped ears waiting for the huskers, while lanterns suspended on pitchfork handles cast their uncertain light over the scene? Whittier was a dreamer. He, as a boy, was always glad when it came his turn to stay at home from "First Day" services at Amesbury, so that he could wander away to the summit of some near-by hill, and there, reclining in~ the shade of a towering forest tree, spend the hours in quiet thought. Nothing was more delightful to him than to lie beside the little brook running past the old homestead and listen to its musical ripple. Many an allusion has he made to this stream so dear to his boyhood. "Laughed the brook for my delight Through the day and through the night, Whispering at the garden wall, Talked with me from fall to fall." RAMBLES IN WHITTIER-LAND 23 The following picture from "Snow-Bound," is one which none of us who are country-bred, and upon whose locks lie the drifted snows of sixty and odd years, can fail to recognize. "Within our beds awhile we heard The wind that round the gables roared, With now and then a ruder shock, Which made our very bedsteads rock. We heard the loosened clapboards tost, The board-nails snapping in the frost ; And on us, through the unplastered wall, Felt the light sifted snow-flakes fall." One could not well take leave of this period of the poet's life without some mention of the old schoolhouse wherein his schooldays, necessarily few, were mostly spent. This building, unfortunately, no longer exists, but its site is now marked by a tablet for the better guidance of those who would desire to visit the spot, associated as it is with a poem that will be read as long as the English tongue shall endure. One of America's most distinguished liter- ary persons has pronounced it "the finest school poem ever written in the English language." It was written nearly half a century after the incident which inspired it occurred. To quote from it is impossible; it must be given entire, for every stanza, line, and word, even, is essential to the whole. One should be New England born, and familiar with the "little brown schoolhouse" of the last century for the proper appreciation of this poem. It is a living, moving scene, which no artist with brush or pencil could produce. "IN SCHOOL DAYS" "Still sits the schoolhouse by the road, A ragged beggar sunning; Round it still the sumachs grow, And blackberry vines are running. Within, the master's desk is seen, Deep-scarred by raps official ; The warping floor, the battered seats, The jack-knife's carved initial; 24 RAMBLES IN WHITTIER-LANT> The charcoal frescoes on the wall ; The door's worn sill, betraying The feet that, creeping slow to school, Went storming out to playing. Long years ago a winter sun Shone over it at setting ; Lit up its western window-panes, And low eaves' icy fretting. It touched the tangled golden curls r And brown eyes full of grieving, Of one who still her steps delay'd When all the school were leaving. For near her stood the little boy Her childish favor singled, His cap pull'd low upon a face Where pride and shame were mingled. Pushing with restless feet the snow To right and left, he linger'd As restlessly her tiny hands The blue-check'd apron finger'd. He saw her lift her eyes, he felt The soft hand's light caressing. And heard the trembling 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 grey-hair'd man That sweet child-face is showing. Dear girl! the grasses on her grave Have forty years been growing. He 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." MUb w Part III. HITTIER was eminently retrospective, rie very frequently breaks out into an apostrophe to his earlier days. Here are the opening lines of a striking example of this trait, which lines are taken from an unpublished poem selected by S. T. Pickard from a pri- vate collection, and first printed in "Whittier-Land," where the entire poem may be found. O visions of my boyhood ! shades of rhymes ! Vain dreams and longings of my early times ! The work of intervals, a ploughboy's lore, Oft conned by hearthlight when day's toil was o'er ; Or when through roof-cracks could at night behold Bright stars in circle with patterns of gold ; Or stretched at noon while oaken branches cast A restful shade, where rippling waters passed. Here is a sentiment which is universal, and therefore must be true always and everywhere; the poet is address- ing the "barefoot boy," and in his apostrophe he says: "From my heart I give thee joy, — 1 was once a barefoot boy! Prince thou art, — the grown-up man Only is republican. Let the million-dollared ridel Barefoot, trudging at his side, Thou hast more than he can buy In the reach to ear and eye, — Outward sunshine, inward joy: Blessings on thee, barefoot boy!" In the year 1647, Thomas, the pioneer Whittier of Haverhill, at the age of twenty-seven, built his first house in this town, close by Country Bridge, so called, which 25 26 RAMBLES IN WHITTIER-LAND bridge had somehow come to be considered a haunted structure by the superstitious. It is stated that in the poet's boyhood no one would venture to cross this bridge after dark if it could be avoided. Mention is made of this in a fragment of a poem entitled "The Home-Coming of the Bride :" "They passed the dam and the gray gristmill, Whose walls with the jar of grinding shook, And crossed, for the moment awed and still, The haunted bridge of the Country Brook." For forty-one years Thomas Whittier remained in his log house and reared a family of ten children, five of them being boys, not one of whom was under six feet in stature. At the age of sixty-eight he set about erecting the building now known as the Whittier House. Five generations of this family have called this secluded spot home. It is no longer in the name, but has become the property of a board of trustees, who are to hold it perpetually as a shrine consecrated to the poet, Whittier, and to his memory. To- day it is the Mecca to thousands of people in the land. After all, to the physical eye, there is nothing remark- able or especially attractive about this old homestead. It does not differ essentially from a hundred other Massachu- setts farmhouses of the same epoch. But the farmer poet, the "Wood-thrush of Essex," has so hallowed the locality that to the mental eye no fairer or more fascinating picture exists than the Whittier place offers. The air of quiet seclusion brooding over this spot where the old brown house nestles dreamily among the hills, is likely to be the first feature that strikes the new visitor, and he will no longer wonder how a poet could have sprung from this rus- tic, but honest and industrious family of Quakers. He will question, rather, why it needed the lapse of four genera- tions before this phenomenon could occur. The old farmhouse is not to-day just as it was origi- nally constructed. In conformity to the building custom of that time, Thomas Whittier — or "Whittle," as the name RAMBLES IN WHITTIER-LAND 27 was spelt in England — made his dwelling two stories in front and but one in the rear. Later, the roof of the back side was raised to an equal height with that of the front, thus giving it a more modern appearance than other struct- ures of its kind. The enormous kitchen fireplace of early days has been reduced in size, and the original large kitchen has been partitioned off and made smaller. But such as it was when the poet began to court his muse so it is to-day, and so it is designed that it shall be preserved from hence, forth perpetually. The little brook, so often and fondly alluded to in his poems, still comes foaming down the ravine over its rocky bed, and the hills continue to lift aloft their rounded summits as in days of yore, only shorn now of the ancient forest they once boasted. Time is well spent in rambling over the Whittier prem- ises and trying to get into touch with the spirit that seems to hover around the sacred spot like some protecting gen- ius. One needs to clamber up the steep sides of Job's Hill and stretch himself at full length upon its summit, to lie beneath the shady oaks beside the "garden brook," to roam over the meadows of Country Brook and ramble among the eastern, thicket-covered ridges beyond, in order to fully realize that he is really treading the haunts of the ''bare- foot boy" — places hallowed by his impassioned songs. Then, too, one owes a brief time and a quiet thought to those occasional scenes in which some small procession of relatives and neighbors would issue from this saddened old homestead to wend its slow and silent way along the dusty road toward the distant hillside enclosure set apart as a final resting-place for those of the family for whom "life's fevered dream had ended." To this sacred spot had been borne the mortal remains of Thomas, the pioneer Whittier, the great -great grandfather; and in their turn came his descendants one by one, until four genera- tions of this sturdy race were gathered in this little yard beneath the forest trees. However, they sleep there no longer, for their poet son had their dust exhumed and 28 RAMBLES IN WH1TTIER-LAND re-interred in the Whittier cemetery-lot at Amesbury, Mass. There they all now are sleeping quietly beside their illustrious descendant. There still remains in the old buri- al ground at East Haverhill a granite cube inscribed with the names of those once interred there, an inscription cut upon each of its ateral faces: THOMAS WHITTIER. 1620-1696. RUTH GREEN 1710. JOSEPH WHITTIER 1669-1739. MARY PEASLEY 1676. JOSEPH WHITTIER 2nd 1717-1796. SARAH GREENLEAF. 1721-1807. JOHN WHITTIER. 1760-1830. ABIGAIL HUSSEY. 1780-1857. "Wherefore ask me to forget How we loved and how we met ? — Fare thee well since others now Clothe in smiles thy winning brow. Smile on them, but thou shalt know Yet the deeper stings of woe." What means this ? What can have befallen our poet that he should take up this doleful strain ? Can he have been reading Byron, to find in him some mutually sympa- thetic theme which has started him off on this tangent of pessimism ? That is just what has taken place. The ' 'blind god" has managed to lodge an arrow deep within RAMBLES IN WHITTIER-LAND 29 his vulnerable heart, usually so cheery and hopeful, and, Byron like, because the course of true love has encountered obstacles, he forthwith must needs begin to sing the woes of unrequitted affection. Yes, even Whittier, the diffident and retiring youth, has shown himself to be highly susceptible to the charms of ''flowing tresses and dimpled cheeks," a susceptibility which is the universal weakness of our stronger sex. In accordance to the common lot of all, he must experience the "pangs and joys" of youthful love. For evidence that this fate overtook him we need only to examine some of his verses. The lyric nature is of neces- sity autobiographical, and one may confidently expect to find here, if anywhere, some allusion to such experiences. We are very frequently told that Whittier began to manifest this tendency at an extremely early age, and that exquisite little poem, "In School Days," is cited in proof of the claim. W. S. Kennedy, in his volume on Whittier, is of this opinion. He quotes the poem mentioned, with the exception of the last two stanzas, and then proceeds to say: "It is probable that 'My Playmate' is in memory of this same sweet little lady." Three stanzas of this poem follow, after which he adds: "Elsewhere in the poem we are told that the little maiden went away forever to the South, where with jeweled hands she smooths her silken raiment." Also he thinks "Memories" alludes to the same person. It pleases me best to imagine that "In School Days" may have reference rather to some transient preference of two very young school children for each other, innocent and pleasing, yet commonly as brief and evanescent as a dream. One of the stanzas omitted by the author men- tioned runs : ''Dear girl ! the grasses on her grave Have forty years been growing." 30 RAMBLES IN WHITTIER-LAND It seems that she must have died at an early age. There could have been but scant time for her to have gone South to become a matron with jeweled fingers and silken gowns, and then have been in the grave forty years when this poem was written. May not "My Playmate" equally well have referred to some later and more serious an affaire du coeur f Carpenter, in "American Men of Letters/' says : "As a bachelor, he (Whittier) naturally found his fancies straying back to the might-have-beens of his youth, to his boyish affections for country lasses, of whom we may guess there were two, one a more cora- stant companion, recalled in 'Memories' and 'Benedicite,' and one less familiarly known, but more beloved, whose miniature and whose memory he always cherished." It will be seen that Carpenter and Kennedy do not quite agree. Let all these poems mentioned refer to whom- soever they may, all readers will admit that they are very beautiful, and highly deserving of the prominence given them in quotations. "My Playmate" is especially sweet : "The pines were dark on Ramoth hill, Their song was soft and low ; The blossoms in the sweet May wind Were falling like the snow. The blossoms drifted at out feet, The orchard birds sang clear The sweetest and the saddest day It seemed of all the year. For, more to me than birds or flowers, My playmate left her home, And took with her the laughing spring, The music and the bloom. She kissed the lips of kith and kin, She laid her hand in mine; What more could ask the bashful boy . Who fed her father's kine. She lives where all the golden year Her summer roses blow ; The dusky children of the sun Before her com* and go. GAMBLES IN WHITTIER-LAND 31 There haply with her jeweled hands She smooths her silken gown, — No more the homespun lap wherein I shook the walnuts down. The wild grapes wait us by the brook, The brown nuts on the hill, And still the May-day flowers make sweet The woods of Follymiil. The lilies blossom in the pond, The bird builds in the tree, The dark pines sing on Ramoth hili The slow song of the sea. I wonder if she thinks of them, And how the old time seems, — If ever the pines of Ramoth wood, Are sounding in her dreams. I see her face, I hear her voice ; Does she remember mine ? And what to her is now the boy Who fed her father's kine. And still the pines of Ramoth wood Are moaning like the sea, — The moaning of the sea of change Between myself and thee." That Whittier cherished a strong affection for this girl no one would be bold enough to deny ; yet he had to con- tent himself without her for a life companion, owing, it would seem, largely to the difference in worldly circum- stances between the two. How well he succeeded in yield- ing gracefully to the inevitable may easily be gathered from the following lines : "God's love and peace be with thee, where Soe'er this soft autumnal air Lifts the dark tresses of thy hair. Whether through city casements comes Its kiss to thee, in crowded rooms Or, out among the woodland blooms 32 RAMBLES IN WHITTIER-LAND It freshens o'er thy thoughtful face, Imparting, in its glad embrace, Beauty to beauty, grace to grace ! Fair Nature's book together read, The old wood-paths that knew our tread, The maple shadows overhead, — The hills we climbed, the river seen By gleams along its deep ravine, — All keep thy memory fresh and green. Where'er I look, where'er I stray, Thy thought goes with me on my way, And hence the prayer I breathe to-day." In the year 1826 young Whittier began attending the Academy at Haverhill. Continuing here for two terms, he met a girl, Evelina Bray, in whom he very soon became much interested, and the interest was apparently mutual. But again disappointment lay in wait for him. It mattered little how strong the attachment between them might have become, marriage was not to be considered. In the first place Whittier's pecuniary affairs were not in proper con- dition to warrant such a step, and that old ogre, difference in religious views, raised up its ugly head and forbade the bans. No loyal Quaker would marry outside the sect, and no loyal member of the prevailing churches of the time would espouse a Quaker. So once again two lives, that oth- erwise might have flowed along the same channel were held asunder for ever. "And wider yet in thought and deed Diverge our pathways, one in youth ; Thine the Genevan's sternest creed, While answers to my spirit's need, The Derby dalesman's simple truth. For thee, the priestly rite and prayer, And holy day and solemn psalm ; For me the silent reverence where My brethren gather, slow and calm." — Memories. Drawn by Howard Pyle DIGGING THE WELL "And the well I promised by Oman's Sea, I am digging for him in Amesbury. ' ' Part IV NE June morning the young poet editor walked all the way from Salem to Marblehead, Mass., to meet Evelina Bray for a last greeting. She could not ask him in, so they sauntered down towards the shore where, by an old and partially dismantled fort, they bade each other good-bye, never to meet again for a long and weary half a century. Whittier makes the following mention of this meeting in "Sea Dreams:" "The waves are glad in breeze and sun ; The rocks are fringed with foam ; I walk once more a haunted shore, A stranger, yet at home, A land of dreams I roam. "Is this the wind, the soft sea-wind That stirred thy locks of brown ? Are these the rocks whose mosses knew The trail of thy light gown, Where boy and girl sat down ? "I see the gray fort's broken wall, The boats that rock below ; And, out at sea, the passing sails We saw so long ago Rose-red in morning's glow." Here is a pen-picture of the maiden : A beautiful and happy girl, With step as light as summer air, Eyes glad with smiles, and brow of pearl, Shadowed by many a careless curl Of unconfined and flowing hair ; A seeming child in everything, Save thoughtful brow and ripening charms, As Nature wears the smile of Spring When sinking into summer's arms. 33 34 RAMBLES IN WHITTIER-LAND Frank Preston Stearns in "Sketches from Concord and Appledore" remarks : "Whittier's verses are always sensible, healthy and ele- vating. Complaint has been made that they are too much haunted by the spectre of his schoolmate ; but without say- ing this, we could wish that such an immature affection had been replaced afterwards by a deeper and more manly attachment." And Carpenter, in summing up the entire affair, expressed himself after this fashion : "And thus this country girl with the brown hair, un- seen for fifty years, became to the dear old man his Bea- trice, a transfigured being, the image of all that might have been, the type of joys unknown, the pure guide of his spirit, the memory of a meeting with whom at Marblehead, by the "gray fort's broken wall," was woven into what is to me the most musical and most lovely poem : "Thou art not here, thou art not there, Thy place I cannot see ; I only know that where thou art The blessed angels be And heaven is glad for thee, "Forgive me if the evil years Have left on me their sign ; Wash out, O soul so beautiful, The many stains of mine In tears of love divine. "I could not look on thee and live, If thou wert by my side ; The vision of a shining one, The white and heavenly bride, Is well to me denied. "But turn to me thy dear girl-face Without the angel's crown, The wedded roses of thy lips, Thy loose hair rippling down In waves of golden brown. RAMBLES IN WHITTIER-LAND 35 ""Look forth once more through space and time, And let thy sweet shade fall In tenderest grace of soul and form On memory's frescoed wall, A shadow and yet all i "Draw near, more near, forever dear J Where'er I rest or roam, Or in the city's crowded streets, Or by the blown sea foam, The thought of thee is homel" Whittier made very few allusions to literature either in his prose or verse. Indeed, as compared with most of his compeers in the art, he seems to have cared very little about pure literature. He was eager to learn and know the wide world, and how it was progressing and what men of activity were achieving or attempting. Matters of fact held for him an interest, but those of pure fancy, like fic- tion and a great part of poetry, had only a slight attraction for him. Spun-out theories about life he never offered to the public gaze, nor did he venture privately to philoso- phize along this line. So he differed much from the auth- ors of his time, because, in this way, his field was greatly narrowed in its scope. Beside the brilliant prose essays of Emerson and Lowell those of Whittier appear cast in a more sober form, yet, despite this fact, charming the reader none the less effectively. Carpenter observes of him : "He was not a learned reader, like Lowell, nor a phil- osophic reader like Longfellow. But his essays, his corre- spondence, the testimonies of his friends, the books on his shelves, show him to have been a man of considerable in- formation and capable- of sound judgment on good litera- ture." Whittier was a person of peculiar reserve. His heart and his life were open to but a very few. He was not many degrees removed from a recluse. Among his brother literati he mingled only slightly. He had almost no ac- quaintance with Holmes, and with Longfellow he was on 36 RAMBLES IN WHITTIER-LAND terms of the merest formality. Emerson he knew a lit- tle better, yet far from well, while Hawthorne he knew not at all. Anti-slavery interests had brought him into con- tact with Lowell, but beyond this no intimacy extended. At this point it becomes proper to introduce a compari- son of these two poets, taken from "American Men of Letters :" Whittier, the barefooted farmer's lad who milked cows and hoed potatoes, who until he grew up had lived on a lonely farm, Whittier the "peasant" used the language he had always heard and spoken, a pure English speech, with a few dialectic peculiarities. Lowell, brought up in the outskirts of the city and in the company of scholars and gentlemen, built up for himself a literary rustic dialect which no countryman, if he used it at all, would have used when dealing with matters of importance. Whittier, a rus- tic himself and writing for rustics in the usual literary forms, was read widely by them, and became a power throughout the North. Lowell, by adopting the artificial rustic form, cut himself off very largely from a rustic audi- ence and influenced only city or literary folk. But, strange paradox again, Whittier's literary verses, though more ef- fective, were less lasting, and Lowell's rustic verses have passed into literature. His life was one of loneliness and retirement, a neces- sary consequence of his Quaker emotional inheritances, his boyhood's surroundings, his native diffidence and, ad- ded to these, the embittering influences of an early disap- pointment in love. Yet out of this singular combination sprang his fine poetic power. Could he have been free to indulge his muse, he must have eventually developed into the most potent master of lyric verse the world has ever seen, but the anti-slavery cause, to which he devoted time, effort and means unsparingly, absorbed the most valuable part of his existence, and poetry has had to endure the loss- Finally the long and wearying anti-slavery struggle ended, and Whittier emerged from the contest triumphant, but overworked and tired. He wrote : RAMBLES IN WHITTIER-LAND 61 "I want mental rest. I have lived a long life, if thought and action constitute it. I have crowded into a few years what should have been given to many." After the conflict comes rest, and now, while yet in the summer of life, he found himself free to turn back to his boyish ideals, to achieve in maturer years what he had as- pired to and striven after in younger days. About the year 1860 public demand for Whittier's poetry was rapidly increasing, his royalties constantly growing larger, and publishers were competing for his work, now commanding additional compensation. From this time on literary and financial success appeared to smile upon him more and more. It has been said of him : "Of American poets he appeals, with Longfellow, to the plain people, to the major part of the inhabitants of the land. Both were, in spite of great differences in edu- cation and experience, singularly simple-minded men. * * * * Life was to both an infinitely simple matter. Longfellow had the greater breadth of mind ; Whittier the greater intensity. Longfellow had more richness and va- riety of tone ; Whittier, more sincerity. Both were by nature singers, and for the nation at large none of their contemporaries can compare with either." — American Men of Letters." Whittier is especially remarkable for his perspicuity. There is no mistaking his meaning. His thought ever runs as clear as a crystal rill from the mountain side. There is no need to found Whittier clubs and spend weary hours of study and discussion in the attempt to juggle a sane idea into some perplexing jumble of his words. It is much as if he had, at the outset, laid down two cardinal maxims for his guidance — the one, to have something to say ; and the other, to say it after such a manner as to be readily comprehended. No exegetical volumes are indis- pensible aids to one's readings of Whittier. Every expres- sion with him is clearcut to the finish. Born and reared in the sylvan solitude of this obscure 38 RAMBLES IN WHITTIER-LAND inland valley, he seems to have been destined by nature to become the poet of the people, the heart and the home. How well he has fulfilled this mission any one may learn who will study his poems. Prof. C. F. Richardson of Dartmouth College, in "American Literature, Vol. II," says of him : "Whittier, on the whole, has lived nearer the homely heart and life of his northern countrymen than any other American poet, save Longfellow. * * * * Unvexed by literary envy, and oblivious to mere fame, he became the laureate of the ocean beach, the inland lake, the little wood-flower, and the divine sky." That famous "Winter Idyl," "Snow-Bound," the great- est of all his latest and best work, has forever stamped him as the inapproachable poet of the fireside and the home. It has been well characterized as "An inspiration of his own heart and life." Another critic pronounces it "A little idyl as delicate, spontaneous and true to na- ture in its limnings as a minute frost-picture on a pane of glass, or the fairy landscape richly mirrored in the film of a water bubble." "In "Snow-Bound" we have the best picture of rural life as it was in the country a century ago that pen ever traced. Those of us whose memory can span the abyss of even sixty years agone, are all the better able to conceive it from hearing the many descriptions given by people who were elderly while we were yet young. To us who have spent half a century or more amid the scenes of rustic New England life there are many touches in the poem calcu- lated to awaken mental visions of our youthful years, and start us out on a retrospective tour of thought. What gray-haired man of seventy winters cannot hearken back to his boyhood time and recognize again the clatter of the loosened clapboards dashed about by the midnight temp- est, and the booming of the nails as they gave way under the strain of intense cold ? Who is there among us that RAMBLES IN WHITTIER-LAND 39 has not sometime enjoyed the luxury of sleeping in some unfinished attic to be lulled to repose by the patter of rain- drops upon the roof or rocked by the storm-wind dashing against his shelter ? Many of us have realized even the comforts of the burning backlog, flanked by the "fore and top-sticks," though perhaps on a smaller scale than that of the Whittier homestead. Sitting by the leaping flames, we, too, might have exclaimed with the poet : "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." Of the eight members of that household gathered about the fireside on that stormy night only two remained living at the time "Snow-Bound" was penned — the poet and a brother. Little wonder the sadness with which he glances back over the lapse of years and notes the changes. "O Time and Change — with hair as gray As was my sire's that winter day, How 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 ; 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!" However all was not utter darkness to him. A gleam of hope filtered through the gloom : 40 RAMBLES IN WHITTIER-LAND "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 sttirs 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 !" 'Twere useless to multiply words about "Snow-Bound." It is acknowledged to be an immortal poem, and is familiar to every lover of English verse ; it should be such to every one who speaks the English tongue. Had Whittier never written another line his lasting fame could have rested se- curely on this alone. It is not uncommon to hear people say that the author of "Snow-Bound" was stiff, distant and unapproachable. Some of these were certainly among his traits, and yet often more in appearance than in reality. Of a retiring nature, he always felt ill at ease in any considerable gather- ing of people, which tended to give him such an air. Among his friends he could and did unbend to become as mirthful as they. At times he seemed fairly bubbling over with merriment. Those fortunate enough to read the many unpublished poems written for special occasions and the delectation of his intimate friends, cannot fail to notice how his genial side crops out boldly in nearly every line. He has been known, even, in a sly way, to hint covertly at his ill success in securing a sharer of his fortunes. For in- stance he once wrote in a lady's autograph album: "Ah, ladies, you love to levy a tax On my poor little paper parcel of fame ; Yet strange it seems that among you all No one is willing to take my name — To write and rewrite till the angels pity her, The weariful words, Thine truly, Whittier." Drawn by Howard Pyle THE CAPTAIN'S WELL "He would drink and rest, and go home to tell That God's best gift is the wayside well! " RAMBLES IN WHITTIER-LAND 41 On occasion he could make a telling retort, but he was always careful to do it in such a half earnest, half jesting way that no one's self-love could be wounded. Here is an example : "AN UNFAMILIAR POEM OF WH1TTIER" This poem first appeared in the columns of the Exeter News-Letter, handed in by a local correspondent, who sub- joins this statement : "A certain Mrs. Nulcena, when at a Boston boarding house where Whittier was stopping, got a habit of poking fun at the then awkward youth. On the eve of her departure, she handed him her album, request- ing a line from his pen. Had she known how successful he was destined to become as a poet, no doubt she would have given him less cause for one poem." Thou are going hence — God bless thee ! Thou art going hence — farewell ! May the devil ne'er distress thee, May the wide world use thee well. Thou art going hence forever, And thou sheddest not a tear; 'Tis well, for tears shall never Lament thy leaving here. Yet some will not forget thee, A torment as thou art; And some will e'en regret thee Who do not weep to part. They will miss thy merry laughter, As the schoolboy does the rod, And the jokes which follow after Thy visitings abroad. Farewell, the Lord be near thee In thy future goings on, And the pious shun and fear thee As thy Quaker friend hath done. Thy life — may nothing vex it — Thy years be not a few, And at thy final exit May the devil miss his due. John G. Whittier, 1830. 42 RAMBLES IN WHITTIER-LAND As a man Whittier was modest, sincere and conscien- tious. He cherished a simple, yet sublime and abiding trust and faith in the "Eternal Goodness." "I know not where His islands lift Their f ronded palms in air ; I only know I cannot drift Beyond His love and care." He was loyal, loving and tolerant, with a ready greet- ing for every one laboring for the right, regardless of his religious creed. Towards the erring he was sympathetic and charitable, compassionate and hopeful. If not a pro- found philosopher, none other than he has sounded more thoroughly the depths of sentiment and devotion. At the close of a long and useful life he passed peace- fully on to "where His islands lift Their fronded palms in air," lamented by the world at large, In conclusion I may be allowed to repeat the words of John Wright Buckham : "A life of wondrous purity, gentleness and beneficence was that of the beloved Quaker poet. It was like the beau- tiful September day on which he was laid at rest in Ames- bury Cemetery — clear, peaceful golden. Much he saw for which he had sung and striven so manfully, completely triumphant. He had left the joy of large and immortal accomplishment. He had received the tribute of world- wide love and sympathy, " 'Like the odors blown From unseen meadows newly mown." And he went forth, laden with love and blessing, with the words of his own beautiful and trustful "At Last" in his ears, into " 'The calm assurance of transcendant spheres And the Eternal Years.' " His was "A lifelong record closed without a stain, A blameless memory shrined in deathless song." — Holmes