^■^'^ .0 "-* '>^^^.' .K^ o„ '.^Z«<* „0 ' '^^ ■.^- -m^t" ^./ ":A\ %.^' '- V 146. Longfellow's Giles Corey. at..lj is. II (See also hack covers.^ tEPtie Utturgise iltcerature ^ttite SNOW-BOUND AMONG THE HILLS SONGS OF LABOR AND OTHER POEMS BT JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER NEW EDITION WITH SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS AN INTRODUCTION, AND NOTES AND QUESTIONS BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY Houghton Mifflin Company are the only authorized publisher n of the tvorks of Longfellow, Whittiee, Lowell, Holmes, Emeb- SON, Thorbau, and Hawthorne. All editions which lack the imprint or authorization of Houghton 3fifflin Company are issued without the consent and contrary to the wishes of the authors or their heirs. COPYRIGHT, 1878, BY JOHN G. WHITTIER COPYRIGHT, 1883, 1894, AND 189S, BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN St CO. COPYRIGHT, I916, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED AUG -7 J9)6 ©CU437127 Wit 3atber<{be l$KtM CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS U . S . A I CONTENTS Suggestions to the Teacher v \.N Introduction to John Greenleaf Whittier . xiii ?ROEM 1 5NOW-Bound: a Winter Idyl 3 iMONG THE Hills . 23 5oNGS OF Labor — 38 Dedication 38 The Shoemakers . -40 The Fishermen 42 The Lumbermen 44 The Ship-Builders 49 The Drovers ^1 TheHuskers 54 The Corn-Song 57 The Barefoot Boy 58 My Playmate ^1 Telling the Bees 63 The Poet and the Children 65 Burns 66 A.BRAHAM Davenport 70 The Poor Voter on Election Day .... 72 The Gift of Tritemius 73 King Solomon and the Ants 74 How THE Robin came . 76 April "^^ The Mayflowers 79 For an Autumn Festival 80 The Frost Spirit ^2 The Last Walk in Autumn . . . . • -83 The Eternal Goodness 91 Notes and Questions ^^ ILLUSTRATIONS John Greenleaf Whittier . . . . . Frontispiea Whittier's Birthplace in Winter ^! The Kitchen in Whittier' s Home ^' Map of the Region celebrated in Whittier's Poems 105 SUGGESTIONS TO THE TEACHERS Right and wrong methods. There are two ways to get the piost out of a classic; in one, the teacher brings out the mean- ing for the class by continual explanation; in the other, he puts his wits to work to induce the students themselves to find what is in it. A working basis. This partial outline of what pupils should learn to do in studying Snow-Bound will be found helpful to teachers in planning and guiding the study of a poem: — 1. To know the writer and the times; i.e., to develop breadth of view. 2. To like the classic; i.e., to develop appreciation. 3. To master details; i.e., to develop full understanding, scholarship. 4. To develop initiative; i.e., by individual work described below. 5. To get a wealth of ideas; i.e., by poring over the poem, and by memorizing. 6. To arouse other ideas; i.e., by connotation. 7. To train judgment; i.e., by comparison of characters, other poems; analysis. 8. To visualize, to develop imagination; i.e., by the study of pictures. 9. To deepen the emotional nature; i.e., by arousing feeling. The laboratory method in English. The old-fashioned plan in teaching literature was to cram into the mind of the child a bulk of information about the author and the poem. The old-time method taught all about a classic, but not once de- manded that teacher and pupil together go straight to the classic and ask the poet what he meant. The better method in English work is the laboratory method; it implies (1) ac- 1 Based upon a portion of Chapter IV of Bolenius's Teaching Literature in the Grammar Grades and High School. (Riverside Text- books in Education. Houghton Mifflin Company, publishers.) vi SUGGESTIONS TO THE TEACHER tual contact with the subject studied, and (2) conclusions based on personal investigation. Pupils ought to do considerable individual work of this sort. Hold them responsible for certain definite preparation, like looking up unusual words in the dictionary, keeping an outline of the story, and noting the characters. Let them make reports on (1) the poet's introduction of local color; (2) on the opinions expressed by the poet; (3) on the connotation of the poet's words and phrases. (Training [ in connotation will do much to develop appreciation.) Whittier's life and surroundings. A Whittier atmosphere should be created. This can be done, first of all, by the use of pictures. Then, in taking up the Ufe of the poet, have the students outline the facts from a history of American litera- ture, and give the main points in " one-minute talks." Or, draw out by questions the most dramatic or the most vitally important moments of his life. There is much in the biog- raphy of Whittier to encourage the country boy. The sketch of Whittier on pages xiii-xviii of this book is intended to be read by the pupils themselves. It is written especially for this use. Subjects of Whittier's poems. The question, "What- would such a man be most likely to write about? " will bring a quick response. Before beginning the poem, invite the pupils to prove their , statements. Some of the replies will probably be much as ; follows: — Whittier^s subjects Illustrative poems Country life. The Barefoot Boy; The Corn Song. Nature. April, The Mayflowers. Childhood. My Playmate. Working people. Songs of Labor. New England traditions. Abraham Davenport. Religion. The Eternal Goodness. , Death. Telling the Bees. Reading Snow-Bound. Snow-Bound should be studied by paragraphs. A paragraph should be read through and a title given to it before the detailed study is begun. The giving of titles to the paragraphs is an important feature of the work, SUGGESTIONS TO THE TEACHER vii or it teaches pupils to look at the paragraph in the large, as I whole. The titles to the first three paragraphs, for exam- ple, may be: — I. Omens of the storm (lines 1-18); H. The evening ihores (Unes 19-30) and the coming of the snow (lines 31- 10); III. The transformation in the morning (lines 41-65). kiteT the title has been assigned, the detailed study of the meaning of the lines is to be taken up, and after this the oral reading. Oral reading should never precede but always follow the interpretation. During the reading, a few details about the characters in the Snow-Bound farmhouse add to the zest of the poem. The father died when Whittier was twenty-three ; the mother lived long. Uncle Moses Whittier, the father's younger brother (unmarried), and the unmarried aunt lived with them. The brother is Matthew. The elder sister is Mary, who sent off Whittier's first poem; the younger sister later kept house. The district schoolmaster boarded with them. Harriet Liver- more, daughter of Judge Livermore, of New Hampshire, boarded at Rocks Village, two miles away. In the poem she is the " half-welcome guest." The lesson should consist of study of the poem, not study about it. From the outline or synopsis, that the pupils make for themselves, it is easy for them to pick out the purely narrative portions; the purely descriptive; and the lyrical, which voice personal opinion and feeling. The narrative- lyric nature of the poem is readily seen. The meaning of the word idyl is better understood. Over four hundred words should be discussed and thoroughly ground into the vocabu- lary of the pupil. Allusions must be explained. Draw the meanings from the class, if possible, instead of telling them yourself. Poetry is meant, primarily, to be read aloud; therefore, read it yourself — and have pupils read it —with full expression. Call for explanation, as you proceed. Let pupils memorize the parts that appeal to them. Let them discover the quaUties of style for themselves. Lead them to visualize the portraits and the scenes, and to understand the other passages. Since they have taught themselves largely viii SUGGESTIONS TO THE TEACHER I by investigation and thought in class, they will lay aside the book with understanding and respect. Such a combinar tion makes for the best appreciation. SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN EXERCISES 1. Winter Evening Occupations and Amusements in Whittier's Childhood. 2. Whittier's Parents and their Fireside Stories. 3. Whittier's Sisters. 4. Character Sketch of Whittier's Uncle. 5. A Comparison between the Nature of Whittier's Aunt and of his Uncle. 6. The Country Schoolmaster. These sketches should be of from one hundred to three hundred words. The outlines for them should be made or reviewed in the class before the sketches are written, in order that the teacher may see that they are complete. A sketch of ' Whittier's mother, for example, should answer all of the fol- lowing questions: — What sort of woman was Whittier's mother? How was she occupied while telling her fireside stories? How does Whittier express his appreciation of her stories? Where did she find the inspu-ation for the tales she told? What different kinds of tales could she produce for her children's entertainment? How did she show her spirit of helpfulness to every one? MATERIAL FOR VITALIZING CLASS WORK Biographical material. The following books furnish excel- lent biographical material: Carpenter: John Greenleaf Whit- tier (American Men of Letters Series); Claflin: Personal Recollections of John Greenleaf Whittier; Fields: Whittier: Notes on his Life and his Friendships; Pickard: Life and Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier (2 vols.). SUGGESTIONS TO THE TEACHER ix Illustrative material. To illustrate Whittier's life, pictures like the following are good: Perry Pictures: numbers 25, 26, 27, 27b, 28, 29. Critical material. For a criticism of the poet's work, the following books will prove stimulating: Lowell: A Fable for Critics (lines 242-303, elementary); Pattee: A History of American Literature (pp. 333-44); Richardson: American Literature (pp. 173-86); Stedman: Poets of America (pp. 95- 133); Trent: A History of American Literature (pp. 408-19); Wendell: A Literary History of America (pp. 358-70); Hig- ginson and Boynton: Reader's History of American Litera- ture (pp. 146-53). ADDITIONAL READING The following poems are not included in this collection. References are given to other R.L.S. issues which contain any of these. I. Narrative and Legendary Poems. The Vaudois Teacher — Barclay of Ury (R.L.S. 5) — The Angels of Buena Vista (R.L.S. 5, 239) — Maud MuUer (R.L.S. 5, 175, 239, G) — Skipper Ireson's Ride (R.L.S. 5, 175, G)— The Pipes at Lucknow (R.L.S. 5, 239) — Marguerite (R.L.S. 239) — The Swan Song of Parson Avery (R.L.S. 41) — Amy Went- worth — The Wreck of Rivermouth (R.L.S. 41). II. Poems of Nature. Sunset on the Bearcamp — Summer by the Lakeside — The River Path (R.L.S. G)— The Trailing Arbutus. HI. Subjective and Reminiscent Poems. In School Days (R.L.S. 5, 175, 239) — Memories — The New Year (R.L.S. T). IV. Religious Poems. Our Master — My Psalm (R.L.S. 175) —At Last (R.L.S. 175). V. Personal Poems. Bryant on his Birthday (R.L.S. G) — Our Autocrat [Holmes] — 0. W. Holmes on his Eightieth Birthday — James Russell Lowell — To William Lloyd Garrison. VI. Anti-slavery Poems. Randolph of Roanoke (R.L.S. X SUGGESTIONS TO THE TEACHER 175) — Massachusetts to Virginia (R.L.S. 175) Ichabod {R.L.S. 175) —The Lost Occasion {R.L.S. 175). VII. Poems of The Civil War. Waiting — The Watchers — Barbara Frietchie {R.L.S. 5, 175, G) — Laus Deo {R.L.S. 5, 175). EDITIONS FOR SCHOOL USE Complete Poetical Works. Student's Cambridge Edition. With a biographical sketch, notes, and indexes to titles and first lines. $1.50. In the Riverside Literature Series A Sketch of Whittier's Life. No. 175. By Bliss Perry, Pro- fessor of English Literature in Harvard University. With twenty autobiographical and other poems by Whittier. With two portraits. Paper .15. Cloth .25. Whittier Leaflets. No. G. Forty complete poems and se- lected prose passages from the works of John Greenleaf Whittier. With an introduction, a biographical sketch, and illustrations. Paper .30. Cloth .40. Mabel Martin, and Other Poems. No. 5. A collection of eighteen poems. With a biographical sketch, and intro- ductory and explanatory notes. Paper .15. Snow-Bound, Among the Hills, Songs of Labor and Other Poems. No. 4. A collection of twenty-seven poems. With suggestions to teachers, an introduction, notes and ques- tions, illustrations and a map. Paper .15. Cloth .25. The Tent on the Beach, and Associated Poems. No. 41. A collection of nineteen poems. With introductory and explanatory notes, and map. Paper .15. CHRONOLOGY OF WHITTIER'S LIFE AND WORKS 1807. Whittier born, December 17. 1829-32. Newspaper editor in Boston, Haverhill, and Hartford. 1831. Legends of New England. (Prose and Verse.) 1832. Moll Pitcher. SUGGESTIONS TO THE TEACHER xi 1833. Delegate to the anti-slavery convention in Philadelphia. Justice and Expediency. (Prose.) 1835-36. Member of the Massachusetts Legislature. 1836. Settled in Amesbury. 1837. Poems written during the Progress of the Abolition Ques- tion in the United States, between the years 1830 and 1836. 1838. Poems. 1838-40. Edited The Pennsylvania Freeman. 1843. Lays of My Home, and Other Poems. 1844. Miscellaneous Poems. 1845. The Stranger in Lowell. (Prose.) 1846. Voices of Freedom. 1847. The Supernaturalism of New England. (Prose.) 1847-59. Leading writer for the National Era, of Washington, D.C. 1849. Poems. (A collection of Whittier's poems against Slavery.) Leaves from Margaret Smith's Journal. (Prose.) 1850. Songs of Labor, and Other Poems. Old Portraits and Modern Sketches. (Prose.) 1853. The Chapel of the Hermits, and Other Poems. A Sabbath Scene: A Sketch of Slavery in Verse. 1854. Literary Recreations and Miscellanies. (Prose.) 1856. The Panorama, and Other Poems. 1857. The Sycamores. Atlantic Monthly established. Whittier a frequent con- tributor. 1860. Presidential Elector for Massachusetts. Home Ballads, Poems, and Lyrics. 1863. In War Time, and Other Poems. 1864, Presidential Elector for Massachusetts. 1866. Snow-Bound. Prose Works. (Collected.) 1867. National Lyrics. The Tent on the Beach, and Other Poems. 1869. Among the Hills, and Other Poems. 1870. Ballads of New England. Two Letters on the Present Aspect of the Society of Friends. 1871. Miriam, and Other Poems. 1872. The Pennsylvania Pilgrim, and Other Poems. 1874. Mabel Martin, and Other Poems. xii SUGGESTIONS TO THE TEACHER 1875. Hazel Blossoms. 1878. Vision of Echard, and Other Poems. 1881. The King's Missive, and Other Poems. 1883. The Bay of Seven Islands, and Other Poems. 1886. Poems of Natm*e. Saint Gregory's Guest, and Recent Poems. 1892. At Smidown. Whittier died, September 7. AN INTRODUCTION TO JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER It stands there still, the old homestead, just as it stood " that brief December day." There is the long, low house with slanting roof and huge stone chimney up the ^^^ ^^^^_ middle. There is the round well-curb beneath its stead and looming sweep. The bridle-post, a big stone with projecting step, still keeps its seat at the garden gate. And over the way still stands the barn — the big new barn that held the treasures of the Whittier farm. It is a lonely spot, as lonely still as can be found, perhaps, in any busy county of New England. It lies in what is called the East Parish of Haverhill, in the valley of the Merrimac. Planted here, with not a neighbor roof in sight, where no social smoke Curled over woods of snow-hung oak, five generations of Whittiers had taken up, each in its turn, the work of the farm; and each in its turn, on long winter evenings, had sat around the homestead hearth. In John Greenleaf Whittier's boyhood, there were, besides hig father and mother, his aunt Mercy and uncle Moses, and his own young brother Matthew and two sisters — Mary, older than himself, and Elizabeth, the youngest of them all. The Whittiers were strict Quakers, as had been every Whittier beneath that roof. They used the gentle "thee" and "thy" of Quaker speech, eschewed all vanities, and dressed in homespun of sober Quaker gray. Every "First day " they drove to the meeting of the Society of Friends at Amesbury, and that was about as much of the wide wide world as John Greenleaf knew up to his fifteenth year. Then something happened that ever after he looked back upon as one of the greatest events of his life. xiv INTRODUCTION That was the coming of a poet into the house — not a poet, flesh and blood, in coat and breeches, but the mind and the soul of a poet alive forever in his book. And Burn^s°^* that poet was a Scotch farmer named Robert Burns. He was very properly introduced, too, being brought in by the schoolmaster himself. Joshua Coffin, teacher of the district school, fresh from Dartmouth College and full of Ufe and fun, used often to come around of an evening, bringing a book to read aloud — a book of travel and adventure, usually; but this particular night, the poems. And he sat down and read page after page, explaining the Scottish dialect as he went. Greenleaf Whittier sat spell- bound, listening. He was finding out, that night, another world, or another way of looking at this one, which is quite the same thing, after all. He was still rapt in his vision when the reading stopped and the master, rising, offered to leave the book, if he liked it. Did he like it? He took it out into the hayfield in the morning, he carried it with him all that day and the next, he read it to himself, he read it aloud, he read it to the dog and the brook and the birds; and if the mows in the new barn waited longer that summer for the yield of the early mowing, the fault must be laid to Robert Burns. But the work of the farm had to go on, and his hand was needed with the rest; for only by " all hands to" could the stubborn soil be made to yield a livehhood. But he thought of Burns, the Scottish farmer, and the songs he made behind the plough. And daily life and duty seemed No longer poor and common. I saw through all familiar things The romance underlying; The joys and griefs that plume the wings Of Fancy skyward flying. In short, John Greenleaf Whittier, with an inborn love of rhyming, was beginning to find that he himself was some- thing of a poet, too. One day, five years later, Whittier was standing by the roadside, helping his father mend a stone wall, when the INTRODUCTION xv postman, riding by on horseback, tossed over to them the weekly paper. What was Whittier's surprise when he opened it, to find in its " Poet's Corner " some verses „^.,,. , of his own, signed W." — his sister Mary had first poem filched the poem and sent it off. The paper was a ^^ ^^"^ ^ small sheet edited at Newburyport by William Lloyd Garri- son, who was only two years older than Whittier. And the sequel of the story was that the young editor drove out him- self to hunt up the young poet (and found the young poet flat on his stomach hunting up a hen's nest under the barn), and that Friend Whittier was urged to release his son from the farmwork and send him to an academy. " Sir," he sternly re- phed, "poetry will not give him bread!" But as Whittier was not very strong, he had permission to go, if he could pay his own way. And this he did, by making slippers, and book- keeping, and teaching in vacation time. There is a good old Eastern proverb that says, "Square thyself for use. The stone that will fit in the wall is not left in the way." By the end of Whittier's school days it was time for him to choose what he would do. He had written many verses, and many of them had been pubHshed; but verses were not paid for. He might make a good cobbler, for whom surely there is always much use in the world. But he had "squared" himself for yet a better use, and fate picked him up to mend the understanding of his fellows in yet a better way. If we were to follow Whittier through the next twelve years, we should find ourselves in first one New England town and then another, or going by stagecoach -^^^ttjgj |,e. and boat to New York or Philadelphia; for Whit- comes an tier was in demand as a newspaper editor. He was, in fact, becoming a public man. At one time he was nominated for Congress, but his health was so poor that he had to withdraw his name before the election. There were three things that, true to his Quaker principles, he used all the weight of his influence against. These were intemper- ance, war, and slavery. He wrote a great deal in both prose and verse on these three subjects, but particularly the last. xvi INTRODUCTION . On this only a very small party of his countrymen at that' time agreed with him; and more than once his office was at- tacked, his papers were bm-ned, mobs followed him when he went to pubhc anti-slavery meetings, and he narrowly es- caped stones and fists, despite his Quaker garb. But he was not to be daunted in anything that he believed to be right; and it was one very beautiful trait of his character, — and one all too rare in this world, — that he could firmly disagree with another man's opinion without in the least quarrefing with the man. That is probably one reason why he had al- ways warm friends in all parts of the country, whether they were of his way of thinking or not. Every day was adding to his reputation as "the Quaker poet"; but it was not until after ill-health had forced him to settle down quietly at home, that he wrote the greater num- ber of those poems that we still delight to read. Meanwhile, the family had sold the Old farm and bought a little cottage in Amesbury, and this was the poet's home for the remaining fifty-six years of his life. If we look at the "Table of Contents" of Whittier's Poems, — and that is a pretty good way, too, to get some idea of the extent of an author's work, — we will JJ^^®^'^ find a large group of poems called "legendary." Here, then, is a poet who loved old tales, and, most of all, if we may judge by the titles, tales of the land where he was born. "Telling the Bees," "Abraham Daven- port," and "How the Robin Came" are examples of this. Recollections of his own boyhood appear not alone in "Snow- Bound" but also in "The Barefoot Boy" and in "My Play- mate." In fact, Whittier put so much of his own heart into his poems that if we were to read them all in the order in which they were written, we could hardly have a better biography. Such poems as the ringing Corn-Song in "The Huskers" or the sympathetic stanzas of "The Poor Voter on Election Day" tell us that this poet was, in the very best sense, a man of the world, — one who respected toil, who hated in- justice and who loved his country and helped his fellow men. INTRODUCTION xvii You may notice in reading Whittier's poems, how often he speaks of the golden hue of sunset or of autumn or of the fruit of the harvest, and how seldom he mentions other colors. He once said, "I have always thought the rainbow beautiful, but they tell me I have never seen it. Its only color to me is yel- low." In other words, Whittier was color-blind. He wrote of scarlet maples," but he only called them so because others did, for red and green both to him were yellow. Neverthe- less, this defect did not at all lessen the poet's love for nature, or his descriptive powers — as you will see when you read "Among the Hills," "April," "The Mayflowers," and "The Last Walk in Autumn." When Whittier wrote "Snow-Bound," only one was left of all that circle that used to gather round the homestead hearth: and to this one, his brother, he dedicated Wliittier's the poem. He outlived his brother, too, by many friends years; outUved Longfellow and Hawthorne and Bayard Taylor and Garrison and Lowell, and almost all the other poets and story-teUers and public men who had been the fellow-workers and the friends of his life. The year be- fore his death, when he was nearly eighty-four, he wrote this letter to Oliver Wendell Holmes: — Newburtpobt, 8th mo., 18, 1891. Ever since I heard the sad news of Lowell's death, I have been thinking of thee, and longing to see thee, for we are now standing alone. The bright, beautiful ones who began life with us have all passed into the great shadow of silence, or rather, let us hope, in the language of Henry Vaughan, "They have gone into the world of hght, and we alone are Ungering here! " Well, I at least shall soon follow them, and I wait the call with a calm trust in the Eternal Goodness. I have been ill all summer, but the world is still fair to me; my friends are very dear to me; I love and am loved. And it is a great joy to me that I can think of thee as well, and in the full enjoy- ment of all thy gifts and powers, surrounded still with friends who love and honor thee. xviii INTRODUCTION 1 The following stanzas from a poem by Holmes beautifully express Whittier's character both as a man and as a poet: — s For thee, dear friend, there needs no high-wrought lay, 1 To shed its aureole round thy cherished name, — ] Thou whose plain, home-born speech of Yea and Nay \ Thy truthful nature ever best became. ] i Death reaches not a spirit such as thine, — It can but steal the robe that hid thy wings; Though thy warm breathing presence we resign, Still in our hearts its loving semblance clings. Peaceful thy message, yet for struggling right, — When Slavery's gauntlet in our face was flung, — While timid weaklings watched the dubious fight No herald's challenge more defiant rung. Yet was thy spirit tuned to gentle themes Sought in the haunts thy humble youth had known. Our stem New England's hills and vales and streams, Thy tuneful idyls made them all their own. The wild flowers springing from thy native sod Lent all their charms thy new-world song to fill, — Gave thee the mayflower and the golden-rod To match the daisy and the daffodil. In the brave records of our earlier time A hero's deed thy generous soul inspired. And many a legend, told in ringing rhyme. The youthful soul with high resolve has fired. Not thine to lean on priesthood's broken reed; No barriers caged thee in a bigot's fold; Did zealots ask to syllable thy creed, Thou saidst "Our Father," and thy creed was told. Best loved and saintliest of our singing train. Earth's noblest tributes to thy name belong. A lifelong record closed without a stain, A blameless memory shrined in deathless song. POEMS BY WHITTIER 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. 5 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. 10 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. 15 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. 20 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. 25 2 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 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. 30^ 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 34 As theirs, I lay, like them, my best gifts on thy shrine ! A) SNOW-BOUND: A WINTER IDYL To THE Memory of the Household it Describes, THIS Poem is Dedicated by the Author ••As the Spirits of Darkness be stronger in the dark, so good Spirits which be Angels of Light are augmented not only by the Divine light of the Sun, but also by our common Wood Fire : and as the Celestial Fire drives away dark spirits, so also this our Fire of Wood doth the same." (Cok. Agrippa, Occult Philosophy, book i, chap, v.) "Announced by all the trumpets of the sky. Arrives the snow; and, driving o'er the fields, Seems nowhere to alight; the whited air Hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven, And veils the farm-house at the garden's end. The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit Around the radiant fireplace, inclosed In a tumultuous privacy of storm." (Emerson, The SnoW'Storm.) The sun that brief December day Rose cheerless over hills of gray, And, darkly circled, gave at noon A sadder light than waning moon. Slow tracing down the thickening sky 6 Its mute and ominous prophecy, A portent seeming less than threat. It sank from sight before it set. A chill no coat, however stout, Of homespun stuff could quite shut out, 10 A hard, dull bitterness of cold, That checked, mid-vein, the circling race • Of life-blood in the sharpened face. The coming of the snow-storm told. The wind blew east ; we heard the roar 15 Of Ocean on his wintry shore, And felt the strong pulse throbbing there Beat with low rhythm our inland air. 4 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER Meanwhile we did our nightly chores, — Brought in the wood from out of doors, Littered the stalls, and from the mows ' Raked down the herd's-grass for the cows: Heard the horse whinnying for his corn ; And, sharply clashing horn on horn, Impatient down the stanchion rows The cattle shake their walnut bows ; While, peering from his early perch' Upon the scaffold's pole of birch. The cock his crested helmet bent And down his querulous challenge sent. TJnwarmed by any sunset light The gray day darkened into night, A night made hoary with the swarm And whirl-dance of the blinding storm. As zigzag wavering to and fro Crossed and recrossed the winged snow: And ere the early bedtime came The white drift piled the window-frame. And through the glass the clothes-line posts Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts. So all night long the storm roared on: The morning broke without a sun ; In tiny spherule traced with lines Of Nature's geometric signs. In starry flake and pellicle All day the hoary meteor fell ; And, when the second morning shone. We looked upon a world unknown, On nothing we could call our own. Around the glistening wonder bent 50 The blue walls of the firmament. No cloud above, no earth below, — A universe of sky and snow! The old famihar sights of ours Took marvellous shapes ; strange domes and towers 55 Rose up where sty or corn-crib stood. Or garden- wall or belt of wood; 35 40 45 SNOW-BOUND: A WINTER IDYL 5 A smooth white mound the brush-pile showed, A fenceless drift what once was road ; The bridle-post an old man sat 60 With loose-flung coat and high cocked hat; The well-curb had a Chinese roof ; And even the long sweep, high aloof. In its slant splendor, seemed to tell Of Pisa's leaning miracle. 65 A prompt, decisive man, no breath Our father wasted : " Boys, a path ! " Well pleased, (for when did farmer boy Count such a summons less than joy?) Our buskins on our feet we drew ; 70 With mittened hands, and caps drawn low, To guard our necks and ears from snow. We cut the solid whiteness through ; And, where the drift was deepest, made A tunnel walled and overlaid 75 With dazzling crystal : we had read Of rare Aladdin's wondrous cave. And to our own his name we gave, With many a wish the luck were ours To test his lamp's supernal powers. 80 We reached the barn with merry din. And roused the prisoned brutes within. The old horse thrust his long head out. And grave with wonder gazed about ; The cock his lusty greeting said, 85 And forth his speckled harem led ; The oxen lashed their tails, and hooked. And mild reproach of hunger looked ; The horned patriarch of the sheep. Like Egypt's Amun roused from sleep, 90 Shook his sage head with gesture mute. And emphasized with stamp of foot. All day the gusty north-wind bore The loosening drift its breath before ; JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER Low circling round its southern zone, 95 The sun through dazzling snow-mist shone. No church-bell lent its Christian tone To the savage air, no social smoke Curled over woods of snow-hung oak. A solitude made more intense 100 By dreary- voiced elements, The shrieking of the mindless wind, The moaning tree-boughs swaying blind. And on the glass the unmeaning beat Of ghostly finger-tips of sleet. 105 Beyond the circle of our hearth No welcome sound of toil or mirth Unbound the spell, and testified Of human life and thought outside. We minded that the sharpest ear no The buried brooklet could not hear. The music of whose liquid lip Had been to us companionship. And, in our lonely life, had grown To have an almost human tone. 115 As night drew on, and, from the crest Of wooded knolls that ridged the west. The sun, a snow-blown traveller, sank From sight beneath the smothering bank. We piled with care our nightly stack 120 Of wood against the chimney-back, — The oaken log, green, huge, and thick, And on its top the stout back-stick j The knotty forestick laid apart, And filled between with curious art 125 The ragged brush ; then, hovering near. We watched the first red blaze appear, Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam On whitewashed wall and sagging beam. Until the old, rude-furnished room 130 Burst, flower- like, into rosy bloom ; While radiant with a mimic flame Outside the sparkling drift became, M SNOW-BOUND: A WINTER IDYL 7 And through the bare-boughed hlac-tree Our own warm hearth seemed blazing free. 135 The crane and pendent trammels showed, The Turks' heads on the andirons glowed ; While childish fancy, prompt to tell The meaning of the miracle. Whispered the old rhyme : " Under the tree 140 When fire outdoors burns merrily^ There the witches are making tea.'''* The moon above the eastern wood Shone at its full; the hill-range stood Transfigured in the silver flood, 145 Its blown snows flashing cold and keen. Dead white, save where some sharp ravine Took shadow, or the sombre green Of hemlocks turned to pitchy black Against the whiteness of their back. 150 For such a world and such a night Most fltting that unwarming light, Which only seemed where'er it fell To make the coldness visible. Shut in from all the world without, 155 We sat the clean- winged hearth about, Content to let the north- wind roar In bafiled rage at pane and door. While the red logs before us beat The frost-line back with tropic heat ; 160 And ever, when a louder blast Shook beam and rafter as it passed. The merrier up its roaring draught The great throat of the chimney laughed. The house-dog on his paws outspread 165 Laid to the fire his drowsy head. The cat's dark silhouette on the wall A couchant tiger's seemed to fall ; And, for the winter fireside meet, Between the andirons' straddling feet, 170 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER The mug of cider simmered slow, The apples sputtered in a row, And, close at hand, the basket stood With nuts from brown October's wood. What matter how the night behaved? 175 What matter how the north-wind raved ? Blow high, blow low, not all its snow Could quench our hearth-fire's ruddy glow. O Time and Change! — with hair as gray- As was my sire's that winter day, I8O 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 185 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. 190 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, 195 Their written words we linger o'er, But in the sun they cast no shade, No voice is heard, no sign is made, No step is on the conscious floor ! Yet Love will dream and Faith will trust 200 (Since He who knows our need is just) That somehow, somewhere, meet we must. Alas for him who never sees The stars shine through his cypress-treea ! Who, hopeless, lays his dead away, 205 Nor looks to see the breaking day Across the mournful marbles play I Who hath not learned, in hours of faith, The truth to flesh and sense unknown, SNOW-BOUND: A WINTER IDYL 9 That Life is ever lord of Death, 210 And Love can never lose its own ! We sped the time with stories old, Wrought puzzles out, and riddles told, Or stammered from our school-book lore " The chief of Gambia's golden shore." 215 How often since, when all the land Was clay in Slavery's shaping hand. As if a far-blown trumpet stirred The languorous, sin-sick air, I heard " Does not the voice of reason cry^ 220 Claim the first right which Nature gave. From the red scourge of bondage fly Nor deign to live a burdened slave I " Our father rode again his ride On Memphremagog's wooded side ; 225 Sat down again to moose and samp In trapper's hut and Indian camp ; Lived o'er the old idyllic ease Beneath St. Francois' hemlock trees ; Again for him the moonlight shone 230 On Norman cap and bodiced zone ; Again he heard the violin play Which led the village dance away. And mingled in its merry whirl The grandam and the laughing girl. 235 Or, nearer home, our steps he led Where Salisbury's level marshes spread Mile- wide as flies the laden bee ; Where merry mowers, hale and strong. Swept, scythe on scythe, their swaths along 240 The low green prairies of the sea. We shared the fishing off Boar's Head, And round the rocky Isles of Shoals The hake-broil on the driftwood coals; The chowder on the sand-beach made, 245 Dipped by the hungry, steaming hot. With spoons of clam-shell from the pot. 10 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER j We heard the tales of witchcraft old, ' And dream and sign and marvel told To sleepy listeners as they lay 250 ' Stretched idly on the salted hay, Adrift along the winding shores, When favoring breezes deigned to blow The square sail of the gundalow. And idle lay the useless oars. 255 Our mother, while she turned her wheel Or run the new-knit stocking-heel. Told how the Indian hordes came down At midnight on Cochecho town, And how her own great-uncle bore 260 His cruel scalp-mark to fourscore. Recalling, in her fitting phrase. So rich and picturesque and free (The common unrhymed poetry Of simple life and country ways), 265 The story of her early days, — She made us welcome to her home ; Old hearths grew wide to give us room« We stole with her a frightened look At the gray wizard's conjuring-book, 270 The fame whereof went far and wide Through all the simple country-side ; We heard the hawks at twilight play, The boat-horn on Piscataqua, The loon's weird laughter far away ; 275 We fished her little trout-brook, knew What flowers in wood and meadow grew, What sunny hillsides autumn-brown She climbed to shake the ripe nuts down, Saw where in sheltered cove and bay 280 The ducks' black squadron anchored lay, And heard the wild geese calling loud Beneath the gray November cloud. Then, haply, with a look more grave, And soberer tone, some tale she gave 285 SNOW-BOUND: A WINTER IDYL 11 From painful Sewel's ancient tome, Beloved in every Quaker home, Of faith fire- winged by martyrdom, Or Chalkley's Journal, old and quaint, — Gentlest of skippers, rare sea- saint ! — 290 Who, when the dreary calms prevailed, Arid water-butt and bread-cask failed. And cruel, hungry eyes pursued His portly presence, mad for food. With dark hints muttered under breath 295 Of casting lots for life or death. Offered, if Heaven withheld supplies, To be himself the sacrifice. Then, suddenly, as if to save The good man from his living grave, 300 A ripple on the water, grew, A school of porpoise flashed in view. " Take, eat," he said, " and be content ; These fishes in my stead are sent By Him who gave the tangled ram 305 To spare the child of Abraham." Our uncle, innocent of books. Was rich in lore of fields and brooks. The ancient teachers never dumb Of Nature's unhoused lyceum. 310 In moons and tides and weather wise, He read the clouds as prophecies. And foul or fair could well divine. By many an occult hint and sign. Holding the cunning-warded keys 315 To all the woodcraft mysteries ; Himself to Nature's heart so near That all her voices in his ear Of beast or bird had meanings clear. Like Apollonius of old, 320 Who knew the tales the sparrows told, Or Hermes, who interpreted What the sage cranes of Nilus said ; n JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER A simple, guileless, childlike man, Content to live where life began ,* 325 Strong only on his native grounds, The httle world of sights and sounds Whose girdle was the parish bounds. Whereof his fondly partial pride The common features magnified, 330 As Surrey hills to mountains grew In White of Selborne's loving view, — He told how teal and loon he shot, And how the eagle's eggs he got, The feats on pond and river done, 335 1 The prodigies of rod and gun ; Till, warming with the tales he told, Forgotten was the outside cold, , The bitter wind unheeded blew, ' From ripening corn the pigeons flew, 340 The partridge drummed i' the wood, the mink Went fishing down the river-brink. In fields with bean or clover gay, The woodchuck, like a hermit gray, Peered from the doorway of his cell ; 345 The muskrat plied the mason's trade. And tier by tier his mud- walls laid ; And from the shagbark overhead The grizzled squirrel dropped his shell. Next, the dear aunt, whose smile of cheer 350 And voice in dreams I see and hear, — The sweetest woman ever Fate Perverse denied a household mate. Who, lonely, homeless, not the less Found peace in love's unselfishness, 355 And welcome whereso'er she went, A calm and gracious element, Whose presence seemed the sweet income And womanly atmosphere of home, — Called up her girlhood memories, 360 The huskings and the apple-bees. SNOW-BOUND: A WINTER IDYL 13 The sleigh-rides and the summer sails, Weaving through all the poor details And homespun warp of circumstance A golden woof -thread of romance. 365 For well she kept her genial mood And simple faith of maidenhood ; Before her still a cloud-land lay, The mirage loomed across her way ; The morning dew, that dried so soon 370 With others, glistened at her noon ; Through years of toil and soil and care, From glossy tress to thin gray hair. All unprofaned she held apart The virgin fancies of the heart. 375 Be shame to him of woman born Who had for such but thought of scorn. There, too, our elder sister plied Her evening task the stand beside ; A full, rich nature, free to trust, 380 Truthful and almost sternly just. Impulsive, earnest, prompt to act. And make her generous thought a fact. Keeping with many a light disguise The secret of self-sacrifice. 385 O heart sore- tried ! thou hast the best That Heaven itself could give thee, — rest. Rest from all bitter thoughts and things! How many a poor one's blessing went With thee beneath the low green tent 390 Whose curtain never outward swings ! As one who held herself a part Of all she saw, and let her heart Against the household bosom lean, Upon the motley-braided mat 395 Our youngest and our dearest sat. Lifting her large, sweet, asking eyes. Now bathed within the fadeless green And holy peace of Paradise. 14 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER Oh, looking from some heavenly hill, 400 Or from the shade of saintly palms, Or silver reach of river calms, Do those large eyes behold me still ? With me one little year ago : — The chill weight of the winter snow 40^ For months upon her grave has lain ; And now, when summer south- winds blow And brier and harebell bloom again, I tread the pleasant paths we trod, I see the violet- sprinkled sod, 410 Whereon she leaned, too frail and weak The hillside flowers she loved to seek. Yet following me where'er I went With dark eyes full of love's content. The birds are glad ; the brier-rose fills 415 The air with sweetness ; all the hills Stretch green to June's unclouded sky ; But still I wait with ear and eye For something gone which should be nigh, A loss in all familiar things, 420 In flower that blooms, and bird that sings. And yet, dear heart ! remembering thee. Am I not richer than of old ? Safe in thy immortality. What change can reach the wealth I hold ? 425 What chance can mar the pearl and gold Thy love hath left in trust with me ? And while in life's late afternoon. Where cool and long the shadows grow, I walk to meet the night that soon 430 Shall shape and shadow overflow, I cannot feel that thou art far. Since near at need the angels are ; And when the sunset gates unbar. Shall I not see thee waiting stand, 435 And, white against the evening star, The welcome of thy beckoning hand ? SNOW-BOUND: A WINTER IDYL 15 Brisk wielder of the birch and rule, The master of the district school Held at the fire his favored place ; 440 Its warm glow lit a laughing face Fresh-hued and fair, where scarce appeared The uncertain prophecy of beard. He teased the mitten-blinded cat, Played cross-pins on my uncle's hat, 445 Sang songs, and told us what befalls In classic Dartmouth's college halls. Born the wild Northern hills among. From whence his yeoman father wrung By patient toil subsistence scant, 450 Not competence and yet not want, He early gained the power to pay His cheerful, self-reliant way ; Could doff at ease his scholar's gown To peddle wares from town to town ; 455 Or through the long vacation's reach In lonely lowland districts teach, Where all the droll experience found At stranger hearths in boarding round, The moonlit skater's keen delight, 460 The sleigh-drive through the frosty night. The rustic party, with its rough Accompaniment of blind-man's-buff. And whirling plate, and forfeits paid. His winter task a pastime made. 465 Happy the snow-locked homes wherein He tuned his merry violin. Or played the athlete in the barn. Or held the good dame's winding yarn. Or mirth-provoking versions told 470 Of classic legends rare and old. Wherein the scenes of Greece and Rome Had all the commonplace of home. And little seemed at best the odds 'Twixt Yankee pedlers and old gods ; 475 Where Pindus-born Arachthus took The guise of any grist-mill brook, 16 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER And dread Olympus at his will Became a huckleberry hill. A careless boy that night he seemed ; 480 But at his desk he had the look And air of one who wisely schemed, And hostage from the future took In trained thought and lore of book. Large-brained, clear-eyed, — of such as he 485 ShaU Freedom's young apostles be, Who, following in War's bloody trail, Shall every lingering wrong assail ; All chains from limb and spirit strike, Uplift the black and white alike ; 490 Scatter before their swift advance The darkness and the ignorance, The pride, the lust, the squalid sloth. Which nurtured Treason's monstrous growth, Made murder pastime, and the hell 495 Of prison-torture possible ; The cruel lie of caste refute. Old forms remould, and substitute For Slavery's lash the freeman's will. For blind routine, wise-handed skill ; 500 A school-house plant on every hill. Stretching in radiate nerve-lines thence The quick wires of intelligence ; Till North and South together brought Shall own the same electric thought, 505 In peace a common flag salute. And, side by side in labor's free And unresentful rivalry. Harvest the fields wherein they fought. Another guest that winter night 510 Flashed back from lustrous eyes the light. Unmarked by time, and yet not young. The honeyed music of her tongue And words of meekness scarcely told A nature passionate and bold, 615 Strong, self-concentred, spurning guide, SNOW-BOUND: A WINTER IDYL 17 Its milder features dwarfed beside Her unbent will's majestic pride. She sat among us, at the best, A not unf eared, half -welcome guest, 520 Rebuking with her cultured phrase Our homeliness of words and ways. A certain pard-like, treacherous grace Swayed the lithe limbs and dropped the lash. Lent the white teeth their dazzling flash ; 525 And under low brows, black with night, Rayed out at times a dangerous light ; The sharp heat-lightnings of her face Presaging ill to him whom Fate Condemned to share her love or hate. 630 A woman tropical, intense In thought and act, in soul and sense, She blended in a like degree The vixen and the devotee. Revealing with each freak or feint 535 The temper of Petruchio's Kate, The raptures of Siena's saint. Her tapering hand and rounded wrist Had facile power to form a fist ; The warm, dark languish of her eyes 540 Was never safe from wrath's surprise. Brows saintly calm and lips devout Knew every change of scowl and pout ; And the sweet voice had notes more high And shrill for social battle-cry. 545 Since then what old cathedral town Has missed her pilgrim staff and gown, What convent-gate has held its lock Against the challenge of her knock ! Through Smyrna's plague-hushed thoroughfares, 550 Up sea-set Malta's rocky stairs, Gray olive slopes of hills that hem Thy tombs and shrines, Jerusalem, Or startling on her desert throne The crazy Queen of Lebanon 555 With claims fantastic as her own. 18 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER Her tireless feet have held their way ; And still, unrestful, bowed, and gray, She watches under Eastern skies. With hope each day renewed and fresh, 560 The Lord's quick coming in the flesh, Whereof she dreams and prophesies ! Where'er her troubled path maj^ be. The Lord's sweet pity with her go ! The outward wayward life we see, 565 The hidden springs we may not know. Nor is it given us to discern What threads the fatal sisters spun. Through what ancestral years has run The sorrow with the woman born, 570 What forged her cruel chain of moods, What set her feet in solitudes. And held the love within her mute, What mingled madness in the blood, A lifelong discord and annoy, 675 Water of tears with oil of joy. And hid within the folded bud Perversities of flower and fruit. It is not ours to separate The tangled skein of will and fate, 580 To show what metes and bounds should stand Upon the soul's debatable land. And between choice and Providence Divide the circle of events ; But He who knows our frame is just, 585 Merciful and compassionate. And full of sweet assurances And hope for all the language is. That He remembereth we are dust ! At last the great logs, crumbling low, 590 Sent out a dull and duller glow. The bull's-eye watch that hung in view. Ticking its weary circuit through, Pointed with mutely- warning sign Its black hand to the hour of nine. 595 SNOW-BOUND: A WINTER IDYL 19 That sign the pleasant circle broke : My uncle ceased his pipe to smoke, Knocked from its bowl the refuse gray, And laid it tenderly away. Then roused himself to safely cover 600 The dull red brand with ashes over. And while, with care, our mother laid The work aside, her steps she stayed One moment, seeking to express Her grateful sense of happiness 605 For food and shelter, warmth and health, And love's contentment more than wealth, With simple wishes (not the weak. Vain prayers which no fulfilment seek. But such as warm the generous heart, 610 O'er-prompt to do with Heaven its part) That none might lack, that bitter night. For bread and clothing, warmth and light. Within our beds awhile we heard The wind that round the gables roared, 615 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, 620 Felt the lightsifted snow-flakes fall ; But sleep stole on, as sleep will do When hearts are light and life is new ; Faint and more faint the murmurs grew, Till in the summer-land of dreams 625 They softened to the sound of streams, Low stir of leaves, and dip of oars, And lapsing waves on quiet shores. Next morn we wakened with the shout Of merry voices high and clear ; 630 And saw the teamsters drawing near To break the drifted highways out. so JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER Down the long hillside treading slow We saw the half-buried oxen go, Shaking the snow from heads uptost, 635 Their straining nostrils white with frost. Before our door the straggling train Drew up, an added team to gain. The elders threshed their hands a-cold, Passed, with the cider-mug, their jokes 640 From lip to lip ; the younger folks Down the loose snow-banks, wrestling, rolled, Then toiled again the cavalcade O'er windy hill, through clogged ravine, And woodland paths that wound between 645 Low droopiiig-pine-boughs winter- weighed. From every barn a team afoot. At every house a new recruit. Where, drawn by Nature's subtlest law, Haply the watchful young men saw 650 Sweet doorway pictures of the curls And curious eyes of merry girls, Lifting their hands in mock defence Against the snow-balls' compliments, And reading in each missive tost 655 The charm which Eden never lost. We heard once more the sleigh-bells' sound ; And, following where the teamsters led. The wise old Doctor went his round. Just pausing at our door to say 660 In the brief autocratic way Of one who, prompt at Duty's call, Was free to urge her claim on all. That some poor neighbor sick abed At night our mother's aid would need. 665 For, one in generous thought and deed. What mattered in the sufferer's sight The Quaker matron's inward light, The Doctor's mail of Calvin's creed? All hearts confess the saints elect 670 Who, twain in faith, in love agree, SNOW-BOUND: A WINTER IDYL 21 And melt not in an acid sect The Christian pearl of charity ! So days went on : a week had passed Since the great world was heard from last. 675 The Almanac we studied o'er, Read and reread our little store Of books and pamphlets, scarce a score ; One harmless novel, mostly hid From younger eyes, a book forbid, 680 And poetry, (or good or bad, A single book was all we had,) Where Ell wood's meek, drab- skirted Muse, A stranger to the heathen Nine, Sang, with a somewhat nasal whine, 685 The wars of David and the Jews. At last the floundering carrier bore The village paper to our door. Lo ! broadening outward as we read, To warmer zones the horizon spread ; 690 In panoramic length unrolled We saw the marvel that it told. Before us passed the painted Creeks, And daft McGregor on his raids In Costa Rica's everglades. 695 And up Taygetus winding slow Rode Ypsilanti's Mainote Greeks, A Turk's head at each saddle bow ! Welcome to us its week-old news. Its corner for the rustic Muse, 700 Its monthly gauge of snow and rain. Its record, mingling in a breath The wedding bell and dirge of death : Jest, anecdote, and love-lorn tale, The latest culprit sent to jail; 705 Its hue and cry of stolen and lost. Its vendue sales and goods at cost. And traffic calling loud for gain. We felt the stir of hall and street, The pulse of life that round us beat ; 710 22 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER The chill embargo of the snow Was melted in the genial glow ; Wide swung again our ice-locked door. And all the world was ours once more ! Clasp, Angel of the backward look 716 And folded wings of ashen gray And voice of echoes far away, The brazen covers of thy book ; The weird palimpsest old and vast, Wherein thou hid'st the spectral past ; 720 Where, closely mingling, pale and glow The characters of joy and woe ; The monographs of outlived years. Or smile-illumed or dim with tears, Green hills of life that slope to death, 725 And haunts of home, whose vistaed trees Shade off to mournful cypresses With the white amaranths underneath. Even while I look, I can but heed The restless sands' incessant fall, 730 Importunate hours that hours succeed. Each clamorous with its own sharp need. And duty keeping pace with all. Shut down and clasp the heavy lids ; I hear again the voice that bids 735 The dreamer leave his dream midway For larger hopes and graver fears : Life greatens in these later years. The century's aloe flowers to-day ! Yet, haply, in some lull of life, 740 Some Truce of God which breaks the strife. The worldling's eyes shall gather dew. Dreaming in throngful city ways Of winter joys his boyhood knew; And dear and early friends — the few 745 Who yet remain — shall pause to view These Flemish pictures of old days ; Sit with me by the homestead hearth. AMONG THE HILLS 23 And stretch the hands of memory forth To warm them at the wood-fire's blaze ! 750 And thanks untraced to lips unknown Shall greet me like the odors blown From unseen meadows newly mown, Or lilies floating in some pond, Wood-fringed, the wayside gaze beyond ; 755 The traveller owns the grateful sense Of sweetness near, he knows not whence. And, pausing, takes with forehead bare The benediction of the air. AMONG THE HILLS PRELUDE Along the roadside, like the flowers of gold That tawny Incas for their gardens wrought. Heavy with sunshine droops the golden- rod. And the red pennons of the cardinal-flowers Hang motionless upon their upright staves. 5 The sky is hot and hazy, and the wind. Wing- weary with its long flight from the south, Unf elt ; yet, closely scanned, yon maple leaf With faintest motion, as one stirs in dreams, Confesses it. The locust by the wall 10 Stabs the noon- silence with his sharp alarm. A single hay-cart down the dusty road Creaks slowly, with its driver fast asleep On the load's top. Against the neighboring hill. Huddled along the stone wall's shady side, 15 The sheep show white, as if a snowdrift still Defied the dog-star. Through the open door A drowsy smell of flowers — gray heliotrope. And white sweet clover, and shy mignonette — Comes faintly in, and silent chorus lends 20 To the pervading symphony of peace. £4 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER No time is this for hands long over-worn To task their strength : and (unto Him be praise Who giveth quietness !) the stress and strain Of years that did the work of centuries 25 Have ceased, and we can draw our breath once more Freely and full. So, as yon harvesters Make glad their nooning underneath the elms With tale and riddle and old snatch of song, I lay aside grave themes, and idly turn 30 The leaves of memory's sketch-book, dreaming o'er Old summer pictures of the quiet hills, And human life, as quiet, at their feet. And yet not idly all. A farmer's son, Proud of field-lore and harvest craft ; and feeling 35 All their fine possibilities, how rich And restful even poverty and toil Become when beauty, harmony, and love Sit at their humble hearth as angels sat At evening in the patriarch's tent, when man 40 Makes labor noble, and his farmer's frock The symbol of a Christian chivalry. Tender and just and generous to her Who clothes with grace all duty ; still, I know Too well the picture has another side. 45 How wearily the grind of toil goes on Where love is wanting, how the eye and ear And heart are starved amidst the plenitude Of nature, and how hard and colorless Is life without an atmosphere. I look 50 Across the lapse of half a century. And a call to mind old homesteads, where no flower Told that the spring had come, but evil weeds, Nightshade and rough-leaved burdock, in the place Of the sweet doorway greeting of the rose 55 And honeysuckle, where the house walls seemed Blistering in sun, without a tree or vine To cast the tremulous shadow of its leaves AMONG THE HILLS 25 Across the curtainless windows from whose panes Fluttered the signal rags of shiftlessness ; 60 Within, the cluttered kitchen floor, unwashed (Broom-clean I think they called it) ; the best room Stifling with cellar damp, shut from the air In hot midsummer, bookless, pictureless Save the inevitable sampler hung 65 Over the fireplace, or a mourning piece, A green-haired woman, peony-cheeked, beneath Impossible willows ; the wide-throated hearth Bristling with faded pine-boughs half concealing The piled-up rubbish at the chimney's back ; 70 And, in sad keeping with all things about them. Shrill, querulous women, sour and sullen men, Untidy, loveless, old before their time. With scarce a human interest save their own Monotonous round of small economies, 75 Or the poor scandal of the neighborhood ; Blind to the beauty everywhere revealed, Treading the May-flowers with regardless feet ; For them the song-sparrow and the bobolink Sang not, nor winds made music in the leaves ; 80 For them in vain October's holocaust Burned, gold and crimson, over all the hills. The sacramental mystery of the woods. Church-goers, fearful of the unseen Powers, But grumbling over pulpit- tax and pew-rent, 85 Saving, as shrewd economists, their souls And winter pork with the least possible outlay Of salt and sanctity ; in daily life Showing as little actual comprehension Of Christian charity and love and duty, 90 As if the Sermon on the Mount had been Outdated like a last year's almanac : Rich in broad woodlands and in half-tilled fields, And yet so pinched and bare and comfortless, The veriest straggler limping on his rounds, 95 The sun and air his sole inheritance, Laughed at poverty that paid its taxes. And hugged his rags in self-complacency I 26 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER Not such should be the homesteads of a land Where whoso wisely wills and acts may dwell lOO As king and lawgiver, in broad-acred state, With beauty, art, taste, culture, books, to make His hour of leisure richer than a life Of fourscore to the barons of old time ; Our yeoman should be equal to his home, 105 Set in the fair, green valleys, purple walled, A man to match his mountains, not to creep Dwarfed and abased below them. I would fain In this light way (of which I needs must own With the knife-grinder of whom Canning sings, no " Story, God bless you ! I have none to tell you ! ") Invite the eye to see and heart to feel The beauty and the joy within their reach, — Home, and home loves, and the beatitudes Of nature free to all. Haply in years 115 That wait to take the places of our own. Heard where some breezy balcony looks down On happy homes, or where the lake in the moon Sleeps dreaming of the mountains, fair as Ruth, In the old Hebrew pastoral, at the feet 120 Of Boaz, even this simple lay of mine May seem the burden of a prophecy. Finding its late fulfilment in a change Slow as the oak's growth, lifting manhood up Through broader culture, finer manners, love, 125 And reverence, to the level of the hills. O Golden Age, whose light is of the dawn, And not of sunset, forward, not behind, Flood the new heavens and earth, and with thee bring All the old virtues, whatsoever things 130 Are pure and honest and of good repute, But add thereto whatever bard has sung Or seer has told of when in trance or dream They sfe,w the Happy Isles of prophecy ! Let Justice hold her scale, and Truth divide 135 Between the right and wrong ; but give the heart AMONG THE HILLS 27 The freedom of its fair inheritance; Let the poor prisoner, cramped and starved so long, At Nature's table feast his ear and eye With joy and wonder; let all harmonies 140 Of sound, form, color, motion, wait upon The princely guest, whether in soft attire Of leisure clad, or the coarse frock of toil, And, lending life to the dead form of faith, Give human nature reverence for the sake 145 Of One who bore it, making it divine With the ineffable tenderness of God ; Let common need, the brotherhood of prayer, The heirship of an unknown destiny. The unsolved mystery round about us, make 150 A man more precious than the gold of Ophir. Sacred, inviolate, unto whom all things Should minister, as outward types and signs Of the eternal beauty which fulfils The one great purpose of creation. Love, 155 The sole necessity of Earth and Heaven ! AMONG THE HILLS For vreeks the clouds had raked the hills And vexed the vales with raining. And all the woods were sad with mist, And all the brooks complaining. 160 At last, a sudden night-storm tore The mountain veils asunder. And swept the valleys clean before The besom of the thunder. Through Sandwich Notch the west- wind sang 165 Good morrow to the cotter ; And once again Chocorua's horn Of shadow pierced the water. 28 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER Above his broad lake Ossipee, Once more the. sunshine wearing, 170 Stooped, tracing on that silver shield His grim armorial bearing. Clear drawn against the hard blue sky The peaks had winter's keenness ; And, close on autumn's frost, the vales 175 Had more than June's fresh greenness. Again the sodden forest floors With golden lights were checkered, Once more rejoicing leaves in wind And sunshine danced and flickered. I8O It was as if the summer's late Atoning for its sadness Had borrowed every season's charm To end its days in gladness. I call to mind those banded vales 185 Of shadow and of shining. Through which, my hostess at my side, I drove in day's declining. We held our sideling way above The river's whitening shallows, 190 By homesteads old, with wide-flung barns Swept through and through by swallows, — By maple orchards, belts of pine And larches climbing darkly The mountain slopes, and, over all, 195 The great peaks rising starkly. You should have seen that long hill-range With gaps of brightness riven, — How through each pass and hollow streamed The purpling lights of heaven, — 200 AMONG THE HILLS 29 Rivers of gold-mist flowing down From far celestial fountains, — The great sun flaming through the rifts Beyond the wall of mountains ! We paused at last where home-bound cows 205 Brought down the pasture's treasure, And in the barn the rhythmic flails Beat out a harvest measure. We heard the night hawk's sullen plunge, The crow his tree-mates calling : 210 The shadows lengthening down the slopes About our feet were falHng, And through them smote the level sun In broken lines of splendor. Touched the gray rocks and made the green 215 Of the shorn grass more tender. The maples bending o'er the gate, Their arch of leaves just tinted With yellow warmth, the golden glow Of coming autumn hinted. 220 Keen white between the farm-house showed. And smiled on porch and trellis The fair democracy of flowers That equals cot and palace. And weaving garlands for her dog, 225 'Twixt chidings and caresses, A human flower of childhood shook The sunshine from her tresses. On either hand we saw the signs Of fancy and of shrewdness, 230 Where taste had wound its arms of vines Round thrift's uncomely rudeness. 30 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER The sun-brown farmer in his frock Shook hands, and called to Mary : Bare-armed, as Juno might, she came, 235 White-aproned from her dairy. Her air, her smile, her motions, told Of womanly completeness ; ■ A music as of household songs Was in her voice of sweetness. 240 Not beautiful in curve and line But something more and better. The secret charm eluding art, Its spirit, not its letter ; — An inborn grace that nothing lacked 245 Of culture or appliance, — The warmth of genial courtesy, The calm of self-reliance. Before her queenly womanhood How dared our hostess utter 250 The paltry errand of her need To buy her fresh-churned butter ? She led the way with housewife pride» Her goodly store disclosing. Full tenderly the golden balls 255 With practised hands disposing. Then, while along the western hills We watched the changeful glory Of sunset, on our homeward way, I heard her simple story. 260 The early crickets sang ; the stream Plashed through my friend's narration : Her rustic patois of the hills Lost in my free translation. AMONG THE HILLS 31 " More wise," she said, " than those who swarm 265 Our hills in middle summer, She came, when June's first roses blow, To greet the early comer. " From school and ball and rout she came. The city's fair, pale daughter, 270 To drink the wine of mountain air Beside the Bearcamp Water. " Her step grew firmer on the hills That watch our homesteads over ; On cheek and lip, from summer fields, 275 She caught the bloom of clover. " For health comes sparkling in the streams From cool Chocorua stealing; There 's iron in our Northern winds ; Our pines are trees of healing. 280 " She sat beneath the broad-armed elms That skirt the mowing-meadow. And watched the gentle west- wind weave The grass with shine and shadow. " Beside her, from the summer heat 285 To share her grateful screening. With forehead bared, the farmer stood, Upon his pitchfork leaning. " Framed in its damp, dark locks, his face Had nothing mean or common, — 290 Strong, manly, true, the tenderness And pride beloved of woman. " She looked up, glowing with the health The country air had brought her. And, laughing, said : ' You lack a wife, 295 Your mother lacks a daughter. 32 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER " ' To mend your frock and bake your bread You do not need a lady : Be sure among these brown old homes Is some one waiting ready, — 300 Some fair, sweet girl, with skilful hand And cheerful heart for treasure, Who never played with ivory keys, Or danced the polka's measure.' " He bent his black brows to a frown, 305 He set his white teeth tightly. * 'T is well,' he said, * for one like you To choose for me so lightly. " ' You think, because my life is rude, I take no note of sweetness : 310 I tell you love has naught to do With meetness or unmeetness. " * Itself its best excuse, it asks No leave of pride or fashion When silken zone or homespun frock 315 It stirs with throbs of passion. You think me deaf and blind ; you bring Your winning graces hither As free as if from cradle-time We two had played together. 320 You tempt me with your laughing eyes. Your cheek of sundown's blushes, A motion as of waving grain, A music as of thrushes. The plaything of your summer sport, 325 The spells you weave around me You cannot at your will undo, Nor leave me as you found me. AMONG THE HILLS 33 You go as lightly as you came, Your life is well without me ; 330 What care you that these hills will close Like prison walls about me ? No mood is mine to seek a wife. Or daughter for my mother : Who loves you loses in that love 335 All power to love another ! " ' I dare your pity or your scorn. With pride your own exceeding ; I fling my heart into your lap Without a word of pleading.' 340 " She looked up in his face of pain. So archly, yet so tender : ' And if I lend you mine,' she said, ' Will you forgive the lender ? Nor frock nor tan can hide the man ; 345 And see you not, my farmer. How weak and fond a woman waits Behind this silken armor ? " ' I love you : on that love alone, And not my worth, presuming, 350 Will you not trust for summer fruit The tree in May-day blooming?' " Alone the hangbird overhead. His hair-swung cradle staining. Looked down to see love's miracle, — 355 The giving' that is gaining " And so the farmer found a wife. His mother found a daughter : There looks no happier home than hers On pleasant Bearcamp Water. 360 34 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER " Flowers spring to blossom where she walks The careful ways of duty ; Our hard, stiff lines of life with her Are flowing curves of beauty. " Our homes are cheerier for her sake, 365 Our door-yards brighter blooming, And all about the social air Is sweeter for her coming. " Unspoken homilies of peace Her daily life is preaching ; 370 The still refreshment of the dew Is her unconscious teaching. " And never tenderer hand than hers Unknits the brow of ailing ; Her garments to the sick man's ear 375 Have music in their trailing. " And when, in pleasant harvest moons, The youthful buskers gather, Or sleigh-drives on the mountain ways Defy the winter weather, — 380 " In sugar-camps, when south and warm The winds of March are blowing. And sweetly from its thawing veins The maple's blood is flowing, — " In summer, where some lilied pond 385 Its virgin zone is baring. Or where the ruddy autumn fire Lights up the apple-paring, — " The coarseness of a ruder time Her finer mirth displaces, 390 A subtler sense of pleasure fills Each rustic sport she graces. AMONG THE HILLS 35 " Her presence lends its warmth and health To all who come before it. If woman lost us Eden, such 395 As she alone restore it. " For larger life and wiser aims The farmer is her debtor ; Who holds to his another's heart Must needs be worse or better. 400 " Through her his civic service shows A purer-toned ambition ; No double consciousness divides The man and politician. " In party's doubtful ways he trusts 405 Her instincts to determine ; At the loud polls, the thought of her Recalls Christ's Mountain Sermon. " He owns her logic of the heart, And wisdom of unreason, 410 Supplying, while he doubts and weighs, The needed word in season. " He sees with pride her richer thought. Her fancy's freer ranges ; And love thus deepened to respect 415 Is proof against all changes. " And if she walks at ease in ways His feet are slow to travel. And if she reads with cultured eyes What his may scarce unravel, 420 " Still clearer, for her keener sight Of beauty and of wonder. He learns the meaning of the hills He dwelt from childhood under. 36 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER " And higher, warmed with summer lights, 425 Or winter-crowned and hoary, The rigid horizon lifts for him Its inner veils of glory. " He has his own free, bookless lore, The lessons nature taught him, 430 The wisdom which the woods and hills And toiling men have brought him : " The steady force of will whereby Her flexile grace seems sweeter ; The sturdy counterpoise which makes 435 Her woman's life completer : " A latent fire of soul which lacks No breath of love to fan it ; And wit, that like his native brooks, Plays over solid granite. 440 " How dwarfed against his manliness She sees the poor pretension, The wants, the aims, the follies, born Of fashion and convention ! " How life behind its accidents 445 Stands strong and self-sustaining, The human fact transcending all The losing and the gaining. " And so, in grateful interchange Of teacher and of hearer, 450 Their lives their true distinctness keep While daily drawing nearer. " And if the husband or the wife In home's strong light discovers Such slight defaults as failed to meet 455 The blinded eyes of lovers. AMONG THE HILLS 37 "Why need we care to ask? — who dreams Without their thorns of roses, Or wonders that the truest steel The readiest spark discloses ? 460 " For still in mutual sufferance lies The secret of true living : Love scarce is love that never knows The sweetness of forgiving. " We send the Squire to General Court, 465 He takes his young wife thither ; No prouder man election day Rides through the sweet June weather. " He sees with eyes of manly trust All hearts to her inclining ; 470 Not less for him his household light That others share its shining." Thus, while my hostess spake, there grew Before me, warmer tinted And outlined with a tenderer grace, 475 The picture that she hinted. The sunset smouldered as we drove Beneath the deep hill-shadows. Below us wreaths of white fog walked Like ghosts the haunted meadows. 480 Sounding the summer night, the stars Dropped down their golden plummets The pale arc of the Northern lights Rose o'er the mountain summits, — Until, at last, beneath its bridge, 485 We heard the Bearcamp flowing. And saw across the mapled lawn The welcome home-lights glowing ; — 38 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER And, musing on the tale I heard, 'T were well, thought I, if often, 490 To rugged farm-life came the gift To harmonize and soften ; — If more and more we found the troth Of fact and fancy plighted. And culture's charm and labor's strength 495 In rural homes united, — The simple life, the homely hearth. With beauty's sphere surrounding. And blessing toil where toil abounds With graces more abounding. 500 SONGS OF LABOR DEDICATION I WOULD the gift I offer here Might graces from thy favor take. And, seen through Friendship's atmosphere, On softened lines and coloring, wear The unaccustomed light of beauty, for thy sake. 5 Few leaves of Fancy's spring remain : But what I have I give to thee. The o'er-sunned bloom of summer's plain. And paler flowers, the later rain 9 Calls from the westering slope of life's iautumnal lea. Above the fallen groves of green. Where youth's enchanted forest stood, Dry root and mossed trunk between, A sober after-growth is seen. As springs the pine where falls the gay-leafed maple wood! 15 SONGS OF LABOR 39 Yet birds will sing, and breezes play Their leaf-harps in the sombre tree ;: And through the bleak and wintry day- It keeps its steady green alway, — So, even my after-thoughts may have a charm for thee. 20 » Art's perfect forms no moral need, And beauty is its own excuse ; But for the dull and flowerless weed Some healing virtue still must plead. And the rough ore must find its honors in its use^. 25 So haply these, my simple lays Of homely toil, may serve to show The orchard bloom and tasselled maize That skirt and gladden duty's ways. The unsung beauty hid life's common things below. 30 Haply from them the toiler, bent Above his forge or plough, may gain A manlier spirit of content. And feel that life is wisest spent Where the strong working hand makes strong the working brain. 35 The doom which to the guilty pair Without the walls of Eden came. Transforming sinless ease to care And rugged toil, no more shall bear The burden of old crime, or mark of primal shame. 40 A blessing now, a curse no more ; Since He, whose name we breathe with awe, The coarse mechanic vesture wore, A poor man toiling with the poor. In labor, as in prayer, fulfilling the same law. 45 40 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER THE SHOEMAKERS Ho ! workers of the old time styled The Gentle Craft of Leather! Young brothers of the ancient guild, Stand forth once more together ! Call out again your long array, 60 In the olden merry manner ! Once more, on gay St. Crispin's day. Fling out your blazoned banner ! Rap, rap ! upon the well-worn stone How falls the polished hammer ! 55 Rap, rap ! the measured sound has grown A quick and merry clamor. Now shape the sole ! now deftly curl The glossy vamp around it. And bless the while the bright-eyed girl 60 Whose gentle fingers bound it ! For you, along the Spanish main A hundred keels are ploughing ; For you, the Indian on the plain His lasso-coil is throwing ; 65 For you, deep glens with hemlock dark The woodman's fire is lighting; For you, upon the oak's gray bark, The woodman's axe is smiting. For you, from Carolina's pine 70 The rosin-gum is stealing; For you, the dark-eyed Florentine Her silken skein is reeling ; For you, the dizzy goatherd roams His rugged Alpine ledges ; 75 For you, round all her shepherd homes, Bloom England's thorny hedges. The foremost still, by day or night. On moated mound or heather. SONGS OF LABOR 41 Where'er the need of trampled right 80 Brought toiUng men together ; Where the free burghers from the wall Defied the mail-clad master, Than yours, at Freedom's trumpet-call, No craftsman rallied faster. 85 Let f oplings sneer, let fools deride. Ye heed no idle scorner ; Free hands and hearts are still your pride. And duty done, your honor. Ye dare to trust, for honest fame, 90 The jury Time empanels. And leave to truth each noble name Which glorifies your annals. Thy songs, Hans Sachs, are living yet. In strong and hearty German ; 95 And Bloomfield's lay, and Gifford's wit. And patriot fame of Sherman ; Still from his book, a mystic seer. The soul of Behmen teaches. And England's priestcraft shakes to hear lOO Of Fox's leathern breeches. The foot is yours ; where'er it falls, It treads your well- wrought leather On earthen floor, in marble halls, On carpet, or on heather. 105 Still there the sweetest charm is found Of matron grace or vestal's. As Hebe's foot bore nectar round Among the old celestials ! Rap, rap ! your stout and rough brogan, 110 With footsteps slow and weary. May wander where the sky's blue span Shuts down upon the prairie. On Beauty's foot your slippers glance. By Saratoga's fountains, 115 42 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER Or twinkle down the summer dance Beneath the Crystal Mountains ! The red brick to the mason's hand, The brown earth to the tiller's. The shoe in yours shall wealth command, 120 Like fairy Cinderella's ! As they who shunned the household maid Beheld the crown upon her. So all shall see your toil repaid With hearth and home and honor. 125 Then let the toast be freely quaffed. In water cool and brimming, — " All honor to the good old Craft, Its merry men and women ! " Call out again your long array, 130 In the old time's pleasant manner: Once more, on gay St. Crispin's day. Fling out his blazoned banner ! THE FISHERMEN HuKRAH ! the seaward breezes Sweep down the bay amain ; 135 Heave up, my lads, the anchor ! Run up the sail again ! Leave to the lubber landsmen The rail-car and the steed ; The stars of heaven shall guide us, 140 The breath of heaven shall speed. From the hill-top looks the steeple. And the light-house from the sand ; And the scattered pines are waving Their farewell from the land. 145 One glance, my lads, behind us, For the homes we leave one sigh Ere we take the change and chances Of the ocean and the sky. SONGS OF LABOR 43 Now, brothers, for the icebergs 150 Of frozen Labrador, Floating spectral in the moonshine, Along the low, black shore ! Where like snow the gannet's feathers On Brador's rocks are shed, 155 And the noisy murr are flying. Like black scuds, overhead ; Where in mist the rock is hiding. And the sharp reef lurks below. And the white squall smites in summer, I6O And the autumn tempests blow ; Where through gray and rolling vapor, From evening unto morn, A thousand boats are hailing, Horn answering unto horn. 165 Hurrah ! for the Red Island, With the white cross on its crown 1 Hurrah! for Mecca tin a. And its mountains bare and brown ! Where the Caribou's tall antlers 170 O'er the dwarf- wood freely toss. And the footstep of the Mickmack Has no sound upon the moss. There we '11 drop our lines, and gather Old Ocean's treasures in, 175 Where'er the mottled mackerel Turns up a steel-dark fin. The sea 's our field of harvest. Its scaly tribes our grain ; We '11 reap the teeming waters I8O As at home they reap the plain ! Our wet hands spread the carpet, And light the hearth of home ; From our fish, as in the old time, The silver coin shall come. 185 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER As the demon fled the chamber Where the fish of Tobit lay, So ours from all our dwellings Shall frighten Want away. Though the mist upon our jackets 190 In the bitter air congeals, And our lines wind stiff and slowly From off the frozen reels ; Though the fog be dark around us, And the storm blow high and loud, 195 We will whistle down the wild wind, And laugh beneath the cloud ! In the darkness as in daylight. On the water as on land, God's eye is looking on us, 200 And beneath us is His hand Death will find us soon or later. On the deck or in the cot ; And we cannot meet him better Than in working out our lot. 205 Hurrah ! hurrah ! the west- wind Comes freshening down the bay. The rising sails are filling ; Give way, my lads, give way ! Leave the coward landsman clinging 210 To the dull earth, like a weed ; The stars of heaven shall guide us. The breath of heaven shall speed ! THE LUMBERMEN Wildly round our woodland quarters Sad- voiced Autumn grieves ; 215 Thickly down these swelling waters Float his fallen leaves. SONGS OF LABOR 45 Through the tall and naked timber. Column-like and old. Gleam the sunsets of November, 220 From their skies of gold. O'er us, to the southland heading. Screams the gray wild-goose ; On the night- frost sounds the treading Of the brindled moose. 225 Noiseless creeping, while we 're sleeping. Frost his task- work plies ; Soon, his icy bridges heaping. Shall our log-piles rise. When, with sounds of smothered thunder, 230 On some night of rain, Lake and river break asunder Winter's weakened chain, Down the wild March flood shall bear them To the saw-mill's wheel, 235 Or where Steam, the slave, shall tear them With his teeth of steel. Be it starlight, be it moonlight. In these vales below. When the earliest beams of sunlight 240 Streak the mountain's snow. Crisps the hoar-frost, keen and early. To our hurrying feet. And the forest echoes clearly, All our blows repeat. 245 Where the crystal Ambijejis Stretches broad and clear. And Millnoket's pine-black ridges Hide the browsing deer ; Where, through lakes and wide morasses, 250 Or through rocky walls. Swift and strong, Penobscot passes White with foamy falls ; 46 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER Where, through clouds, are glimpses given Of Katahdin's sides, — 255 Hock and forest piled to heaven, Torn and ploughed by slides ! F'dT below, the Indian trapping. In the sunshine warm ; Far above, the snow-cloud wrapping 260 Half the peak in storm ! Where are mossy carpets better Than the Persian weaves. And than Eastern perfumes sweeter Seem the fading leaves ; 265 And a music wild and solemn. From the pine-tree's height. Rolls its vast and sea-like volume On the wind of night ; Make we here our camp of winter ; 270 And, through sleet and snow. Pitchy knot and beechen splinter On our hearth shall glow. Here, with mirth to lighten duty. We shall lack alone 275 Woman's smile and girlhood's beauty, Childhood's lisping tone. But their hearth is brighter burning For our toil to-day ; And the welcome of returning 280 Shall our loss repay. When, like seamen from the waters, From the woods we come. Greeting sisters, wives, and daughters, Angels of our home ! 285 Not for us the measured ringing From the village spire, Not for us the Sabbath singing Of the sweet- voiced choir ; SONGS OF LABOR 47 Ours the old, majestic temple, 290 Where God's brightness shines Down the dome so grand and ample. Propped by lofty pines ! Through each branch-enwoven skylight, Speaks He in the breeze, 295 As of old beneath the twilight Of lost Eden's trees ! For His ear, the inward feeling Needs no outward tongue ; He can see the spirit kneeling 300 While the axe is swung. Heeding truth alone, and turning From the false and dim. Lamp of toil or altar burning Are alike to Him. 305 Strike, then, comrades ! Trade is waiting On our rugged toil ; Far ships waiting for the freighting Of our woodland spoil ! Ships, whose traffic links these highlands, 310 Bleak and cold, of ours. With the citron-planted islands Of a clime of flowers ; To our frosts the tribute bringing Of eternal heats ,* 315 In our lap of winter flinging Tropic fruits and sweets. Cheerly, on the axe of labor. Let the sunbeams dance. Better than the flash of sabre 320 Or the gleam of lance ! Strike ! With every blow is given Freer sun and sky, And the long-hid earth to heaven Looks, with wondering eye ! 325 48 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER Loud behind us grow the murmurs Of the age to come ; Clang of smiths, and tread of farmers. Bearing harvest home ! Here her virgin lap with treasures 330 Shall the green earth fill ; Waving wheat and golden maize-ears Crown each beechen hill. Keep who will the city's alleys, Take the smooth-shorn plain ; 335 Give to us the cedarn valleys. Rocks and hills of Maine ! In our North-land, wild and woody. Let us still have part ; Rugged nurse and mother sturdy, 340 Hold us to thy heart ! Oh, our free hearts beat the warmer For thy breath of snow ; And our tread is all the firmer For thy rocks below. 345 Freedom, hand in hand with labor, Walketh strong and brave ; On the forehead of his neighbor No man writeth Slave ! Lo, the day breaks ! old Katahdin's 350 Pine-trees show its fires, While from these dim forest gardens Rise their blackened spires. Up, my comrades ! up and doing I Manhood's rugged play 355 Still renewing, bravely hewing Through the world our way ! SONGS OF LABOR 49 THE SHIP-BUILDERS The sky is ruddy in the east, The earth is gray below. And spectral in the river-mist, 360 The ship's white timbers show. Then let the sounds of measured stroke And grating saw begin ; ^ The broad-axe to the gnarled oak, The mallet to the pin ! 365 Hark! roars the bellows, blast on blast, The sooty smithy jars, The fire-sparks, rising far and fast. Are fading with the stars. All day for us the smith shall stand 370 Beside that flashing forge ; AU day for us his heavy hand The groaning anvil scourge. From far-off hills, the panting team For us is toiling near ; 375 For us the raftsmen down the stream Their island barges steer. Rings out for us the axe-man's stroke In forests old and still ; For us the century-circled oak 380 Falls crashing down his hill. Up ! up ! in nobler toil than ours No craftsmen bear a part : We make of Nature's giant powers The slaves of human Art. 385 Lay rib to rib and beam to beam. And drive the treenails free ; Nor faithless jomt nor yawnmg seam Shall tempt the searching sea ! Where'er the keel of our good ship 390 The sea's rough field shall plough ; 50 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER Where'er her tossing spars shall drip With salt-spray caught below ; That ship must heed her master's beck Her helm obey his hand, 395 And seamen tread her reeling deck As if they trod the land. Her oaken ribs the vulture-beak Of Northern ice may peel ; The sunken rock and coral peak 400 May grate along her keel ; And know we well the painted shell We give to wind and wave, Must float, the sailor's citadel, Or sink, the sailor's grave ! 405 Ho ! strike away the bars and blocks. And set the good ship free ! Why lingers on these dusty rocks The young bride of the sea ? Look ! how she moves adown the grooves, 410 In graceful beauty now ! How lowly on the breast she loves Sinks down her virgin prow! God bless her ! Wheresoe'er the breeze Her snowy wing shall fan, 415 Aside the frozen Hebrides Or sultry Hindostan ! Where'er, in mart or on the main. With peaceful flag unfurled. She helps to wind the silken chain 420 Of commerce round the world ! Speed on the ship ! But let her bear No merchandise of sin. No groaning cargo of despair Her roomy hold within ; 425 No Lethean drug for Eastern lands, Nor poison-draught for ours ; I SONGS OF LABOR 51 But honest fruits of toiling hands And Nature's sun and showers. Be hers the Prairie's golden grain, 430 The Desert's golden sand, The clustered fruits of sunny Spain,' The spice of Morning-land ! Her pathway on the open main May blessings follow free, 435 And glad hearts welcome back again Her white sails from the sea ! THE DROVERS Through heat and cold, and shower and sun. Still onward cheerily driving! There 's life alone in duty done, 440 And rest alone in striving. But see ! the day is closing cool. The woods are dim before us ; The white fog of the wayside pool Is creeping slowly o'er us. 445 The night is falling, comrades mine. Our footsore beasts are weary, And through yon elms the tavern sign Looks out upon us cheery. The landlord beckons from his door, 450 His beechen fire is glowing ; These ample barns, with feed in store. Are filled to overflowing. From many a valley frowned across By brows of rugged mountains ; 455 From hillsides where, through spongy moss, Gush out the river fountains ; From quiet farm-fields, green and low, And bright with blooming clover ; From vales of corn the wandering crow 460 No richer hovers over, — 52 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER Day after day our way has been O'er many a hill and hollow ; By lake and stream, by wood and glen. Our stately drove we follow. 465 Through dust-clouds rising thick and dun As smoke of battle o'er us, Their white horns glisten in the sun, Like plumes and crests before us. We see them slowly climb the hill, 470 As slow behind it sinking ; Or, thronging close, from roadside rill. Or sunny lakelet, drinking. Now crowding in the narrow road. In thick and struggling masses, 475 They glare upon the teamster's load, Or rattling coach that passes. Anon, with toss of horn and tail. And paw of hoof, and bellow. They leap some farmer's broken pale, 480 O'er meadow-close or fallow. Forth comes the startled goodman ; forth Wife, children, house-dog sally. Till once more on their dusty path The baffled truants rally. 485 We drive no starvelings, scraggy grown, Loose-legged, and ribbed and bony. Like those who grind their noses down On pastures bare and stony, — Lank oxen, rough as Indian dogs, 490 And cows too lean for shadows, Disputing feebly with the frogs The crop of saw-grass meadows ! In our good drove, so sleek and fair, No bones of leanness rattle. 495 No tottering hide-bound ghosts are there, Or Pharaoh's evil cattle. SONGS OF LABOR 53 Each stately beeve bespeaks the hand That fed him unrepining ; The fatness of a goodly land 500 In each dun hide is shining. We Ve sought them where, in warmest nooks, The freshest feed is growing, By sweetest springs and clearest brooks Through honeysuckle flowing; 505 Wherever hillsides, sloping south, Are bright with early grasses, Or, tracking green the lowland's drouth, The mountain streamlet passes. But now the day is closing cool, 510 The woods are dim before us. The white fog of the wayside pool Is creeping slowly o'er us. The cricket to the frog's bassoon His shrillest time is keeping ; 515 The sickle of yon setting moon The meadow- mist is reaping. The night is falling, comrades mine, Our footsore beasts are weary. And through yon elms the tavern sign 520 Looks out upon us cheery. To-morrow, eastward with our charge We '11 go to meet the dawning. Ere yet the pines of Kearsarge Have seen the sun of morning. 525 When snow-flakes o'er the frozen earth. Instead of birds, are flitting ; When children throng the glowing hearth, And quiet wives are knitting ; While in the firelight strong and clear 530 Young eyes of pleasure glisten, To tales of all we see and hear The ears of home shall listen. 54 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER By many a Northern lake and hill, From many a mountain pasture, 535 Shall fancy play the Drover still. And speed the long night faster. Then let us on, through shower and sun, And heat and cold, be driving ; There 's life alone in duty done, 540 And rest alone in striving. THE HUSKERS It was late in mild October, and the long autumnal rain Had left the summer harvest-fields all green with grass again ,* The first sharp frost had fallen, leaving all the wood- lands gay With the hues of summer's rainbow, or the meadow- flowers of May. 545 Through a thin, dry mist, that morning, the sun rose broad and red. At first a rayless disk of fire, he brightened as he sped : Yet, even his noontide glory fell chastened and sub- dued, On the cornfields and the orchards, and softly pic- tured wood. And all that quiet afternoon, slow sloping to the night, 550 He wove with golden shuttle the haze with yellow light ; Slanting through the painted beeches, he glorified the hill; And, beneath it, pond and meadow lay brighter, greener still. And shouting boys in woodland haunts caught glimpses of that sky. Flecked by the many-tinted leaves, and laughed, they knew not why, 655 SONGS OF LABOR 55 And school-girls gay with aster-flowers, beside the meadow brooks, Mingled the glow of autumn with the sunshine of sweet looks. From spire and barn looked westerly the patient weathercocks ; But even the birches on the hill stood motionless as rocks. No sound was in the woodlands, save the squirrel's dropping shell, 560 And the yellow leaves among the boughs, low rus- tling as they fell. The summer grains were harvested; the stubble- fields 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 heavy corn crop stood. 565 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 glistened in the slanting light the pumpkin's sphere of gold. There wrought the busy harvesters; and many a creaking wain 570 Bore slowly to the long barn-floor its load of husk and grain ; Till broad and red, as when he rose, the sun sank down, at last, And like a merry guest's farewell, the day in bright- ness passed. 56 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER And lo ! as through the western pines, on meadow, stream, and pond, Flamed the red radiance of a sky, set all afire be- yond, 575 Slowly o'er the eastern sea-bluffs a milder glory shone, And the sunset and the moonrise were mingled into one! As thus into the quiet night the twilight lapsed away, And deeper in the brightening moon the tranquil shadows lay ; From many a brown old farm-house, and hamlet without name, 580 Their milking and their home-tasks done, the merry buskers came. Swung o'er the heaped-up harvest, from pitchforks 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. 585 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. Urged by the good host's daughter, a maiden young and fair, 590 Lifting to light her sweet blue eyes and pride of soft brown hair. The master of the village school, sleek of hair and smooth of tongue, To the quaint tune of some old psalm, a husking- ballad sung. SONGS OF LABOR 57 THE CORN-SONG, Heap high the farmer's wintry hoard ! Heap high the golden corn ! 595 No richer gift has Autumn poured From out her lavish horn ! Let other lands, exulting, glean The apple from the pine. The orange from its glossy green, 600 The cluster from the vine ; We better love the hardy gift Our rugged vales bestow. To cheer us when the storm shall drift Our harvest-fields with snow. 605 Through vales of grass and meads of flowers Our ploughs their furrows made. While on the hills the sun and showers Of changeful April played. We dropped the seed o'er hill and plain 610 Beneath the sun of May, And frightened from our sprouting grain The robber crows away. All through the long, bright days of June Its leaves grew green and fair, 615 And waved in hot midsummer's noon Its soft and yellow hair. And now, with Autumn's moonlit eyes, Its harvest-time has come. We pluck away the frosted leaves, 620 And bear the treasure home. There, when the snows about us drift, And winter winds are cold, Fair hands the broken grain shall sift, And knead its meal of gold. 625 58 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER Let vapid idlers loll in silk Around their costly board ; Give us the bowl of samp and milk, By homespun beauty poured ! Where'er the wide old kitchen hearth 630 Sends up its smoky curls, Who will not thank the kindly earth, And bless our farmer girls ! Then shame on all the proud and vain, Whose folly laughs to scorn 635 The blessing of our hardy grain. Our wealth of golden corn ! Let earth withhold her goodly root, Let mildew blight the rye, Give to the worm the orchard's fruit 640 The wheat-field to the fly : But let the good old crop adorn The hills our fathers trod ; Still let us, for His golden corn. Send up our thanks to God ! 645 THE BAREFOOT BO^ Blessings on thee, little man. Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan ! With thy turned-up pantaloons. And thy merry whistled tunes ; With thy red lip, redder still 5 Kissed by strawberries on the hill ; With the sunshine on thy face. Through thy torn brim's jaunty grace; From my heart I give thee joy, — I was once a barefoot boy ! 10 THE BAREFOOT BOY 59 Prince thou art, — the grown-up man Only is republican. Let the million-dollared ride ! Barefoot, trudging at his side. Thou hast more than he can buy 15 In the reach of ear and eye, — Outward sunshine, inward joy: Blessings on thee, barefoot boy ! Oh for boyhood's painless play, Sleep that wakes in laughing day, 20 Health that mocks the doctor's rules. Knowledge never learned of schools, Of the wild bee's morning chase. Of the wild-flower's time and place. Flight of fowl and habitude 25 Of the tenants of the wood ; How the tortoise bears his shell, How the woodchuck digs his cell. And the ground- mole sinks his well ; How the robin feeds her young, 30 How the oriole's nest is hung ; Where the whitest lilies blow. Where the freshest berries grow, Where the ground-nut trails its vine, Where the wood-grape's clusters shine ; 35 Of the black wasp's cunning way, Mason of his walls of clay, And the architectural plans Of gray hornet artisans ! For, eschewing books and tasks, 40 Nature answers all he asks ; Hand in hand with her he walks. Face to face with her he talks. Part and parcel of her joy, — Blessings on the barefoot boy! 45 Oh for boyhood's time of June, Crowding years in one brief moon, 60 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER When all things I heard or saw. Me, their master, waited for. I was rich in flowers and trees, 50 Humming-birds and honey-bees ; For my sport the squirrel played. Plied the snouted mole his spade ; For my taste the blackberry cone Purpled over hedge and stone ; 55 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 ; Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel pond, 60 Mine the walnut slopes beyond. Mine, on bending orchard trees. Apples of Hesperides ! Still as my horizon grew. Larger grew my riches too ; 65 All the world I saw or knew Seemed a complex Chinese toy. Fashioned for a barefoot boy ! Oh for festal dainties spread. Like my bowl of milk and bread ; 70 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, fringed with gold, 75 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. 80 I was monarch : pomp and joy Waited on the barefoot boy ! Cheerily, then, my little man. Live and laugh, as boyhood can ! MY PLAYMATE 61 Though the flinty slopes be hard, 85 Stubble-speared the new-mown sward, Every morn shall lead thee through Fresh baptisms of the dew ; Every evening from thy feet Shall the cool wind kiss the heat : 90 All too soon these feet must hide In the prison cells of pride, Lose the freedom of the sod, Like a colt's for work be' shod. Made to tread the mills of toil, 95 Up and down in ceaseless moil : Happy if their track be found Never on forbidden ground ; Happy if they sink not in Quick and treacherous sands of sin. lOp Ah! that thou couldst know thy joy, Ere it passes, barefoot boy ! MY PLAYMATE 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 our feet, 5 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, 10 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 15 Who fed her father's kine ? JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER She left us in the bloom of May : The constant years told o'er Their seasons with as sweet May morns, But she came back no more. 20 I walk, with noiseless feet, the round Of uneventful years ; Still o'er and o'er I sow the spring And reap the autumn ears. She lives where all the golden year 25 Her summer roses blow ; The dusky children of the sun Before her come and go. There haply with her jewelled hands She smoothes her silken gown, — 30 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 35 The woods of FoUymill. The lilies blossom in the pond. The bird builds in the tree. The dark pines sing on Ramoth hill The slow song of the sea. 40 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; 45 Does she remember mine ? And what to her is now the boy Who fed her father's kine ? TELLING THE BEES 63 What cares she that the orioles build For other eyes than ours, — 50 That other hands with nuts are filled, And other laps with flowers ? O playmate in the golden time ! Our mossy seat is green, Its fringing violets blossom yet, 55 The old trees o'er it lean. The winds so sweet with birch and fern A sweeter memory blow ; And there in spring the veeries sing The song of long ago. 60 And still the pines of Ramoth wood Are moaning like the sea, — The moaning of the sea of cbange Between myself and thee ! TELLING THE BEES Here is the place ; right over the hill Runs the path I took ; You can see the gap in the old wall still, And the stepping-stones in the shallow brook. There is the house, with the gate red-barred, 5 And the poplars tall ; And the barn's brown length, and the cattle- yard. And the white horns tossing above the wall. There are the beehives ranged in the sun; And down by the brink 10 Of the brook are her poor flowers, weed o'errun. Pansy and daffodil, rose and pink. A year has gone, as the tortoise goes. Heavy and slow ; 64 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER And the same rose blows, and the same sun glows, 15 And the same brook sings of a year ago. There 's the same sweet clover-smell in the breeze : And the June sun warm Tangles his wings of fire in the trees. Setting, as then, over Fernside farm. 20 I mind me how with a lover's care From my Sunday coat I brushed off the burrs, and smoothed my hair, And cooled at the brookside my brow and throat. Since we parted, a month had passed, — 25 To love, a year ; Down through the beeches I looked at last On the little red gate and the well-sweep near. I can see it all now, — the slantwise rain Of light through the leaves, 30 The sundown's blaze on her window-pane. The bloom of her roses under the eaves. Just the same as a month before, — The house and the trees. The barn's brown gable, the vine by the door, — 35 Nothing changed but the hive of bees. Before them, under the garden wall, Forward and back, Went drearily singing the chore-girl small. Draping each hive with a shred of black. 40 Trembling, I listened : the summer sun Had the chill of snow ; For I knew she was telhng the bees of one Gone on the journey we all must go ! Then I said to myself, " My Mary weeps 45 For the dead to-day : THE POET AND THE CHILDREN 65 Haply her blind old grandsire sleeps The fret and the pain of his age away." But her dog whined low ; on the doorway sill, With his cane to his chin, 50 The old man sat ; and the chore-girl still Sung to the bees stealing out and in. And the song she was singing ever since In my ear sounds on : — *' Stay at home, pretty bees, fly not hence ! 55 Mistress Mary is dead and gone ! " THE POET AND THE CHILDREN LONGFELLOW With a glory of winter sunshine Over his locks of gray. In the cftd historic mansion He sat on his last birthday; With his books and his pleasant pictures, 5 And his household and his kin, While a sound as of myriads singing From far and near stole in. It came from his own fair city, From the prairie's boundless plain, 10 From the Golden Gate of sunset, And the cedarn woods of Maine. And his heart grew warm within him. And his moistening eyes grew dim. For he knew that his country's children 15 Were singing the songs of him: The lays of his life's glad morning, The psalms of his evening time. Whose echoes shall float forever On the winds of every clime. 20 66 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER All their beautiful consolations, Sent forth like birds of cheer, Came flocking back to his windows, And sang in the Poet's ear. 1 Grateful, but solemn and tender, 25 The music rose and fell With a joy akin to sadness And a greeting like farewell. With a sense of awe he listened To the voices sweet and young ; 30 The last of earth and the first of heaven Seemed in the songs they sung. And waiting a little longer For the wonderful change to come, He heard the Summoning Angel, 35 Who calls God's children home ! And to him in a holier welcome Was the mystical meaning given Of the words of the blessed Master : " Of such is the kingdom of heaven ! " 40 BURNS ON RECEIVING A SPRIG OF HEATHER IN BLOSSOM No more these simple flowers belong To Scottish maid and lover ; Sown in the common soil of song. They bloom the wide world over. In smiles and tears, in sun a^d showers, 5 The minstrel and the heather. The deathless singer and the flowers He sang of live together. BURNS 67 Wild heather-bells and Robert Burns ! The moorland flower and peasant ! lo How, at their mention, memory turns Her pages old and pleasant ! The gray sky wears again its gold And purple of adorning. And manhood's noonday shadows hold 15 The dews of boyhood's morning. The dews that washed the dust and soil From off the wings of pleasure. The sky, that flecked the ground of toil With golden threads of leisure. 20 I call to mind the summer day, The early harvest mowing. The sky with sun and clouds at play, And flowers with breezes blowing. I hear the blackbird in the corn, 25 The locust in the haying ; And, like the fabled hunter's horn. Old tunes my heart is playing. How oft that day, with fond delay, I sought the maple's shadow, 30 And sang with Burns the hours away. Forgetful of the meadow ! Bees hummed, birds twittered, overhead I heard the squirrels leaping. The good dog listened while I read, 35 And wagged his tail in keeping. I watched him while in sportive mood I read " The Twa Dogs' " story. And half believed he understood The poet's allegory. 40 68 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER Sweet day, sweet songs ! The golden hours Grew brighter for that singing, From brook and bird and meadow flowers A dearer welcome bringing. New light on home-seen Nature beamed, 45 New glory over Woman ; And daily life and duty seemed No longer poor and common. I woke to find the simple truth Of fact and feeling better 50 Than all the dreams that held my youth A still repining debtor : That Nature gives her handmaid, Art, The themes of sweet discoursing ; The tender idyls of the heart 55 In every tongue rehearsing. "Why dream of lands of gold and pearl, Of loving knight and lady, When farmer boy and barefoot girl Were wandering there already ? 60 I saw through all familiar things The romance underlying ; The joys and griefs that plume. the wings Of Fancy skyward flying. I saw the same blithe day return, 65 The same sweet fall of even. That rose on wooded Craigie-burn, And sank on crystal Devon. I matched with Scotland's heathery hills The sweetbrier and the clover ; 70 With Ayr and Doon, my native rills, Their wood hymns chanting over. BURNS 69 O'er rank and pomp, as he had seen, I saw the Man uprising ; No longer common or unclean, 75 The child of God's baptizing ! With clearer eyes I saw the worth Of life among the lowly ; The Bible at his Cotter's hearth Had made my own more holy. 80 And if at times an evil strain, To lawless love appealing, Broke in upon the sweet refrain Of pure and healthful feeling, It died upon the eye and ear, 85 No inward answer gaining ; No heart had I to see or hear The discord and the staining. Let those who never erred forget His worth, in vain bewailings ; 90 Sweet Soul of Song ! I own my debt Uncancelled by his failings ! Lament who will the ribald line Which tells his lapse from duty. How kissed the maddening lips of wine 95 Or wanton ones of beauty ; But think, while falls that shade between The erring one and Heaven, That he who loved like Magdalen, Like her may be forgiven. 100 Not his the song whose thunderous chime Eternal echoes render ; The mournful Tuscan's haunted rhyme, And Milton's starry splendor ! 70 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER But who his human heart has laid 105 To Nature's bosom nearer ? Who sweetened toil like him, or paid To love a tribute dearer ? Through all his tuneful art, how strong The human feeling gushes ! 110 The very moonlight of his song Is warm with smiles and blushes ! Give lettered pomp to teeth of Time, So " Bonnie Doon " but tarry ; Blot out the Epic's stately rhyme, 115 But spare his Highland Mary ! ABRAHAM DAVENPORT In the old days (a custom laid aside With breeches and cocked hats) the people sent Their wisest men to make the public laws. And so, from a brown homestead, where the Sound Drinks the small tribute of the Mianas, 5 Waved over by the woods of Rippowams, And hallowed by pure lives and tranquil deaths, Stamford sent up to the councils of the State Wisdona and grace in Abraham Davenport. 'T was on a May-day of the far old year 10 Seventeen hundred eighty, that there fell Over the bloom and sweet life of the Spring, Over the fresh earth and the heaven of noon, A horror of great darkness, like the night In day of which the Norland sagas tell, — 15 The Twilight of the Gods. The low-hung sky Was black with ominous clouds, save where its rim Was fringed with a dull glow, like that which climbs The crater's sides from the red hell below. Birds ceased to sing, and all the barn-yard fowls 20 ABRAHAM DAVENPORT 71 Roosted ; the cattle at the pasture bars Lowed, and looked homeward ; bats on leathern wings Flitted abroad ; the sounds of labor died ; Men prayed, and women wept ; all ears grew sharp To hear the doom-blast of the trumpet shatter 25 The black sky, that the dreadful face of Christ Might look from the rent clouds, not as he looked A loving guest at Bethany, but stern As Justice and inexorable Law. Meanwhile in the old State House, dim as ghosts, 30 Sat the lawgivers of Connecticut, Trembling beneath their legislative robes. " It is the Lord's Great Day ! Let us adjourn," Some said ; and then, as if with one accord, All eyes were turned to Abraham Davenport. 35 He rose, slow cleaving with his steady voice The intolerable hush. " This well may be The Day of Judgment which the world awaits ; But be it so or not, I only know My present duty, and my Lord's command 40 To occupy till He come. So at the post Where He hath set me in His providence, I choose, for one, to meet Him face to face, — No faithless servant frightened from my task, But ready when the Lord of the harvest calls ; 45 And therefore, with all reverence, I would say. Let God do His work, we will see to ours. Bring in the candles." And they brought them in. Then by the flaring lights the Speaker read. Albeit with husky voice and shaking hands, 50 An act to amend an act to regulate The shad and alewive fisheries. Whereupon Wisely and well spake Abraham Davenport, Straight to the question, with no figures of speech Save the ten Arab signs, yet not without 55 The shrewd dry humor natural to the man : His awe-struck colleagues listening all the while, Between the pauses of his argument. 72 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER To hear the thunder of the wrath of God Break from the hollow trumpet of the cloud. 60 And there he stands in memory to this day, Erect, self-poised, a rugged face, half seen Against the background of unnatural dark, A witness to the ages as they pass, That simple duty hath no place for fear. 65 THE POOR VOTER ON ELECTION DAY The proudest now is but my peer. The highest not more high ; To-day, of all the weary year, A king of men am I. To-day alike are great and small, 5 The nameless and the known ; My palace is the people's hall, The ballot-box my throne ! Who serves to-day upon the list Beside the served shall stand ; 10 Alike the brown and wrinkled fist. The gloved and dainty hand ! The rich is level with the poor. The weak is strong to-day ; And sleekest broadcloth counts no more 15 Than homespun frock of gray. To-day let pomp and vain pretence My stubborn right abide ; I set a plain man's common sense Against the pedant's pride. 20 To-day shall simple manhood try The strength of gold and land ; The wide world has not wealth to buy The power in my right hand ! While there 's a grief to seek redress, 25 Or balance to adjust. THE GIFT OF TRITEMIUS 73 Where weighs our living manhood less Than Mammon's vilest dust, — While there 's a right to need my vote, A wrong to sweep away, 30 Up ! clouted knee and ragged coat ! A man 's a man to-day ! THE GIFT OF TRITEMIUS Tritemius of Herbipolis, one day. While kneeling at the altar's foot to pray Alone with God, as was his pious choice, Heard from without a miserable voice, A sound which seemed of all sad things to tell, 5 As of a lost soul crying out of hell. Thereat the Abbot paused ; the chain whereby His thoughts went upward broken by that cry ; And, looking from the casement, saw below A wretched woman, with gray hair a-flow, 10 And withered hands held up to him, who cried For alms as one who might not be denied. She cried, " For the dear love of Him who gave His life for ours, my child from bondage save, — My beautiful, brave first-born, chained with slaves 15 In the Moor's gaUey, where the sun-smit waves Lap the white walls of Tunis ! " — " What I can I give," Tritemius said, " my prayers." — " O man Of God ! " she cried, for grief had made her bold, " Mock me not thus ; I ask not prayers, but gold. 20 Words will not serve me, alms alone suffice ; Even while I speak perchance my first-born dies." " Woman ! " Tritemius answered, " from our door None go unfed, hence are we always poor ; A single soldo is our only store. 25 Thou hast our prayers; — what can we give thee more ? " 74 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER " Give me," she said, " the silver candlesticks On either side of the great crucifix. God well may spare them on His errands sped, Or He can give you golden ones instead." 30 Then spake Tritemius, " Even as thy word, Woman, so be it ! (Our most gracious Lord, Who loveth mercy more than sacrifice, Pardon me if a human soul I prize Above the gifts upon his altar piled !) 35 Take what thou askest, and redeem thy child." But his hand trembled as the holy alms He placed within the beggar's eager palms ; And as she vanished down the linden shade. He bowed his head and for forgiveness prayed. 40 So the day passed, and when the twilight came He woke to find the chapel all aflame, And, dumb with grateful wonder, to behold Upon the altar candlesticks of gold! KING SOLOMON AND THE ANTS Out from Jerusalem The king rode with his great War chiefs and lords of state, And Sheba's queen with them ; Comely, but black withal, 6 To whom, perchance, belongs That wondrous Song of songs, Sensuous and mystical, Whereto devout souls turn In fond, ecstatic dream, 10 And through its earth-born theme The Love of loves discern. KING SOLOMON AND THE ANTS 75 Proud in the Syrian sun, In gold and purple sheen, The dusky Ethiop queen 15 Smiled on King Solomon. Wisest of men, he knew The languages of all The creatures great or small That trod the earth or flew. 20 Across an ant-hill led The king's path, and he heard Its small folk, and their word He thus interpreted: " Here comes the king men greet 25 As wise and good and just. To crush us in the dust Under his heedless feet." The great king bowed his head. And saw the wide surprise 30 Of the Queen of Sheba's eyes As he told her what they said. " O king ! " she whispered sweet, " Too happy fate have they Who perish in thy way 35 Beneath thy gracious feet ! " Thou of the God-lent crown. Shall these vile creatures dare Murmur against thee where The knees of kings kneel down?" 40 " Nay," Solomon replied, " The wise and strong should seek The welfare of the weak," And turned his horse aside. 76 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER His train, with quick alarm, 45 Curved with their leader round The ant-hill's peopled mound. And left it free from harm. The jewelled head bent low ,* " O king ! " she said, " henceforth 50 The secret of thy worth And wisdom well I know. " Happy must be the State Whose ruler heedeth more The murmurs of the poor 55 Than flatteries of the great." HOW THE ROBIN CAME AN ALGONQUIN LEGEND Happy young friends, sit by me Under Maj^'s blown apple-tree. While these home-birds in and out Through the blossoms flit about. Hear a story, strange and old, 5 By the wild red Indians told. How the robin came to be; Once a great chief left his son, — Well-beloved, his only one, — When the boy was well-nigh grown, 10 In the trial-lodge alone. Left for tortures long and slow Youths like him must undergo, Who their pride of manhood test, Lacking water, food, and rest. 15 Seven days the fast he kept. Seven nights he never slept. Then the young boy, wrung with pain, Weak from nature's overstrain, HOW THE ROBIN CAME 77 Faltering, moaned a low complaint : 20 " Spare me, father, for I faint ! " But the chieftain, haughty- eyed, Hid his pity in his pride. " You shall be a hunter good. Knowing never lack of food : 25 You shall be a warrior great. Wise as fox and strong as bear ; Many scalps your belt shall wear, If with patient heart you wait Bravely till your task is done. 30 Better you should starving die Than that boy and squaw should cry Shame upon your father's son ! " When next morn the sun's first rays Glistened on the hemlock sprays, 35 Straight that lodge the old chief sought. And boiled samp and moose meat brought. " Rise and eat, my son ! " he said. Lo, he found the poor boy dead ! As with ^rief his grave they made, . 40 And his bow beside him laid. Pipe, and knife, and wampum-braid, On the lodge-top overhead, Preening smooth its breast of red And the brown coat that it wore, 45 Sat a bird, unknown before. And as if with human tongue, " Mourn me not," it said, or sung : " I, a bird, am still your son. Happier than if hunter fleet, 50 Or a brave, before your feet Laying scalps in battle won. Friend of man, my song shall cheer Lodge and corn-land ; hovering near. To each wigwam I shall bring 55 Tidings of the coming spring ; Every child my voice shall know In the moon of melting snow. 78 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER When the maple's red bud swells, And the wind-flower lifts its bells. 60 As their fond companion Men shall henceforth own your son, And my song shall testify That of human kin am I." Thus the Indian legend saith 65 How, at first, the robin came With a sweeter life and death. Bird for boy, and still the same. If my young friends doubt that this Is the robin's genesis, 70 Not in vain is still the myth If a truth be found therewith : Unto gentleness belong Gifts unknown to pride and wrong Happier far than hate is praise, — 75 He who sings than he who slays. APRIL ' The spring comes slowly up this way.* Christabel. 'T IS the noon of the spring-time, yet never a bird In the wind-shaken elm or the maple is heard ; For green meadow-grasses wide levels of snow. And blowing of drifts where the crocus should blow ; Where wind-flower and violet, amber and white, 5 On south-sloping brooksides should smile in the light, O'er the cold winter-beds of their late- waking roots The frosty flake eddies, the ice-crystal shoots ; And, longing for light, under wind-driven heaps. Round the boles of the pine- wood the ground-laurel creeps, 10 Unkissed of the sunshine, unbaptized of showers, With buds scarcely swelled, which should burst into flowers ! THE MAYFLOWERS 79 We wait for thy coming, sweet wind of the south ! For the touch of thy light wings, the kiss of thy mouth ; For the yearly evangel thou bearest from God, 15 Resurrection and life to the graves of the sod ! Up our long river- valley, for days, have not ceased The wail and the shriek of the bitter northeast, Raw and chill, as if winnowed through ices and snow. All the way from the land of the wild Esquimau, 20 Until all our dreams of the land of the blest. Like that red hunter's, turn to the sunny southwest. O soul of the spring-time, its light and its breath, Bring warmth to this coldness, bring life to this death; Renew the great miracle ; let us behold 25 The stone from the mouth of the sepulchre rolled, And Nature, like Lazarus, rise, as of old I Let our faith, which in darkness and coldness has lain, Revive with the warmth and the brightness again. And in blooming of flower and budding of tree 30 The symbols and types of our destiny see ,• The life of the spring-time, the life of the whole. And, as sun to the sleeping earth, love to the soul ! THE MAYFLOWERS Sad Mayflower ! watched by winter stars, And nursed by winter gales. With petals of the sleeted spars. And leaves of frozen sails ! What had she in those dreary hours, 5 Within her ice-rimmed bay, In common with the wild- wood flowers. The first sweet smiles of May ? Yet, " God be praised ! " the Pilgrim said. Who saw the blossoms peer 10 Above the brown leaves, dry and dead, " Behold our Mayflower here ! " 80 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER " God wills it : here our rest shall be, Our years of wandering o'er ; For us the Mayflower of the sea 15 Shall spread her sails no more." O sacred flowers of faith and hope, As sweetly now as then Ye bloom on many a birchen slope. In many a pine-dark glen. 20 Behind the sea-wall's rugged length, Unchanged, your leaves unfold, Like love behind the manly strength Of the brave hearts of old. So live the fathers in their sons, 25 Their sturdy faith be ours. And ours the love that overruns Its rocky strength with flowers. The Pilgrim's wild and wintry day Its shadow round us draws ; 30 The Mayflower of his stormy bay. Our Freedom's struggling cause. But warmer suns erelong shall bring To life the frozen sod ; And through dead leaves of hope shall spring 35 Afresh the flowers of God ! FOR AN AUTUMN FESTIVAL The Persian's flowery gifts the shrine Of fruitful Ceres charm no more ; The woven wreaths of oak and pine Are dust along the Isthmian shore. But beauty hath its homage still, And nature holds us still in debt; And woman's grace and household skill. And manhood's toil, are honored yet. FOR AN AUTUMN FESTIVAL 81 And we, to-day, amidst our flowers And fruits, have come to own again lo The blessings of the summer hours, The early and the latter rain ; To see our Father's hand once more Reverse for us the plenteous horn Of autumn, filled and running o'er 15 With fruit, and flower, and golden corn ! Once more the liberal year laughs out O'er richer stores than gems or gold ; Once more with harvest-song and shout Is Nature's bloodless triumph told. 20 Our common mother rests and sings. Like Ruth, among her garnered sheaves ; Her lap is full of goodly things, Her brow is bright with autumn leaves. Oh, favors every year made new ! 25 Oh, gifts with rain and sunshine sent ! The bounty overruns our due. The fulness shames our discontent. We shut our eyes, the flowers bloom on ; We murmur, but the corn- ears flU, 30 We choose the shadow, but the sun That casts it shines behind us still. God gives us with our rugged soil The power to make it Eden-fair, And richer fruits to crown our toil 35 Than summer- wedded islands bear. Who murmurs at his lot to-day? Who scorns his native fruit and bloom ? Or sighs for dainties far away. Beside the bounteous board of home ? 40 82 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER Thank Heaven, instead, that Freedom's arm Can change a rocky soil to gold, — That brave and generous lives can warm A clime with northern ices cold. And let these altars, wreathed with flowers 45 And piled with fruits, awake again Thanksgivings for the golden hours, The early and the latter rain ! THE FROST SPIRIT He comes, — he comes, — the Frost Spirit comes! You may trace his foot-steps now On the naked woods and the blasted fields and the brown hill's withered brow. He has smitten the leaves of the gray old trees where their pleasant green came forth, And the winds, which follow wherever he goes, have shaken them down to earth. He comes, — he comes, — the Frost Spirit comes ! from the frozen Labrador, 5 From the icy bridge of the Northern seas, which the white bear wanders o'er. Where the fisherman's sail is stiff with ice, and the luckless forms below In the sunless cold of the lingering night into marble statues grow ! He comes, — he comes, — the Frost Spirit comes ! on the rushing Northern blast. And the dark Norwegian pines have bowed as his fearful breath went past. 10 With an unscorched wing he has hurried on, where the fires of Hecla glow On the darkly beautiful sky above and the ancient ice below. THE LAST WALK IN AUTUMN 83 He comes, — he comes, — the Frost Spirit comes ! and the quiet lake shall feel The torpid touch of his glazing breath, and ring to the skater's heel ; And the streams which danced on the broken rocks, or sang to the leaning grass, 15 Shall bow again to their winter chain, and in mourn- ful silence pass. He comes, — he comes, — the Frost Spirit comes ! Let us meet him as we may. And turn with the light of the parlor-fire his evil power away ; And gather closer the circle round, when that fire- light dances high, And laugh at the shriek of the baffled Fiend as his sounding wing goes by ! 20 THE LAST WALK IN AUTUMN I O'ek the bare woods, whose outstretched hands Plead with the leaden heavens in vain, I see, beyond the valley lands. The sea's long level dim with rain. Around me all things, stark and dumb, 5 Seem praying for the snows to come, And, for the summer bloom and greenness gone. With winter's sunset lights and dazzling morn atone. II Along the river's summer walk. The withered tufts of asters nod ; 10 And trembles on its arid stalk The hoar plume of the golden-rod. And on a ground of sombre fir, And azure-studded juniper, The silver birch its buds of purple shows, 15 And scarlet berries tell where bloomed the sweet wild- rose! 84 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER III With mingled sound of horns and bells, A far-heard clang, the wild geese fly, Storm-sent, from Arctic moors and fells. Like a great arrow through the sky, 20 Two dusky lines converged in one, Chasing the southward-flying sun ; While the brave snow-bird and the hardy jay Call to them from the pines, as if to bid them stay. IV I passed this way a year ago : 25 The wind blew south ; the noon of day Was warm as June's ; and save that snow Flecked the low mountains far away, And that the vernal-seeming breeze Mocked faded grass and leafless trees, 30 I might have dreamed of summer as I lay. Watching the fallen leaves with the soft wind at play. Since then, the winter blasts have piled The white pagodas of the snow On these rough slopes, and, strong and wild, 35 Yon river, in its overflow Of spring-time rain and sun, set free, Crashed with its ices to the sea ; And over these gray fields, then green and gold, The summer corn has waved, the thunder's organ rolled. 40 VI Rich gift of God ! A year of time ! What pomp of rise and shut of day. What hues wherewith our Northern clime Makes autumn's dropping woodlands gay, What airs outblown from ferny dells, 45 And clover-bloom and sweetbrier smells. THE LAST WALK IN AUTUMN 85 What songs of brooks and birds, what fruits and flowers. Green woods and moonlit snows, have in its round been ours ! VII I know not how, in other lands. The changing seasons come and go; 50 What splendors fall on Syrian sands, What purple lights on Alpine snow! Nor how the pomp of sunrise waits On Venice at her watery gates ; A dream alone to me is Arno's vale, 55 And the Alhambra's halls are but a traveller's tale. VIII Yet, on life's current, he who drifts Is one with him who rows or sails ; And he who wanders widest lifts No more of beauty's jealous veils 60 Than he who from his doorway sees The miracle uf flowers and trees. Feels the warm Orient in the noonday air, And from cloud minarets hears the sunset call to prayer! IX The eye may well be glad that looks 65 Where Pharpar's fountains rise and fall ; But he who sees his native brooks Laugh in the sun, has seen them all. The marble palaces of Ind Rise round him in the snow and wind ; 70 From his lone sweetbrier Persian Hafiz smiles. And Rome's cathedral awe is in his woodland aisles. ' And thus it is my fancy blends The near at hand and far and rare ; 86 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER And while the same horizon bends Above the silver-sprinkled hair Which flashed the light of morning skies On childhood's wonder-lifted eyes, Within its round of sea and sky and field, Earth wheels with all her zones, the Kosmos stands revealed. 80 XI And thus the sick man on his bed, The toiler to his task- work bound, Behold their prison- walls outspread. Their clipped horizon widen round ! While freedom-giving fancy waits, 85 Like Peter's angel at the gates, The power is theirs to baffle care and pain, To bring the lost world back, and make it theirs agam xn What lack of goodly company. When masters of the ancient lyre 90 Obey my call, and trace for me Their words of mingled tears and fire ! I talk with Bacon, grave and wise, I read the world with Pascal's eyes ; And priest and sage, with solemn brows austere, 95 And poets, garland-bound, the Lords of Thought, draw near. XIII Methinks, O friend, I hear thee say, " In vain the human heart we mock ; Bring living guests who love the day, Not ghosts who fly at crow of cock ! 100 The herbs we share with flesh and blood Are better than ambrosial food With laurelled shades." I grant it, nothing loath, But doubly blest is he who can partake of both. THE LAST WALK D^ AUTUMN 87 XIV He who might Plato's banquet grace, 105 Have I not seen before me sit, And watched his puritanic face, With more than Eastern wisdom Ut ? Shrewd mystic ! who upon the back Of his Poor Richard's Almanac 110 Writing the Sufi's song, the Gentoo's dream, Links Manu's age of thought to Fulton's age of steam ! XV Here too, of answering love secure. Have I not welcomed to my hearth The gentle pilgrim troubadour, 115 Whose songs have girdled half the earth ; Whose pages, like the magic mat Whereon the Eastern lover sat. Have borne me over Rhine-land's purple vines, And Nubia's tawny sands, and Phrygia's mountain pines ! 120 XVI And he, who to the lettered wealth Of ages adds the lore unpriced. The wisdom and the moral health. The ethics of the school of Christ ; The statesman to his holy trust, 125 As the Athenian archon, just. Struck down, exiled like him for truth alone. Has he not graced my home with beauty all his own ? XVII What greetings smile, what farewells wave. What loved ones enter and depart ! 130 The good, the beautiful, the brave, The Heaven-lent treasures of the heart ! How conscious seems the frozen sod And beechen slope whereon they trod ! 88 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER The oak-leaves rustle, and the dry grass bends 135 Beneath the shadowy feet of lost or absent friends. XVIII Then ask not why to these bleak hills I cling, as clings the tufted moss, To bear the winter's lingering chills, The mocking spring's perpetual loss. 140 I dream of lands where summer smiles, And soft winds blow from spicy isles. But scarce would Ceylon's breath of flowers be sweet. Could I not feel thy soil, New England, at my feet ! XIX At times I long for gentler skies, 145 And bathe in dreams of softer air, But homesick tears would fill the eyes That saw the Cross without the Bear. The pine must whisper to the palm. The north-wind break the tropic calm ; 150 And with the dreamy languor of the Line, The North's keen virtue blend, and strength to beauty join. XX Better to stem with heart and hand The roaring tide of life, than lie, Unmindful, on its flowery strand, 155 Of God's occasions drifting by ! Better with naked nerve to bear The needles of this goading air. Than, in the lap of sensual ease, forego The godlike power to do, the godlike aim to know. 160 XXI Home of my heart, to me more fair Than gay Versailles or Windsor's halls, The painted, shingly town-house where The freeman's vote for Freedom falls I THE LAST WALK IN AUTUMN 89 The simple roof where prayer is made, 165 The Gothic groin and colonnade ; The living temple of the heart of man, Than Rome's sky-mocking vault, or many-spired Milan ! XXII More dear thy equal village schools, Where rich and poor the Bible read, 170 Than classic halls where Priestcraft rules, And Learning wears the chains of Creed ; Thy glad Thanksgiving, gathering in The scattered sheaves of home and kin, Than the mad license ushering Lenten pains, 175 Or holidays of slaves who laugh and dance in chains. XXIII And sweet homes nestle in these dales, And perch along these wooded swells ; And, blest beyond Arcadian vales. They hear the sound of Sabbath bells ! 180 Here dwells no perfect man sublime. Nor woman winged before her time. But with the faults and follies of the race. Old home-bred virtues hold their not unhonored place. XXIV Here manhood struggles for the sake 185 Of mother, sister, daughter, wife. The graces and the loves which make The music of the march of life ; And woman, in her daily round * Of duty, walks on holy ground. 190 No unpaid menial tills the soil, nor here Is the bad lesson learned at human rights to sneer. XXV Then let the icy north- wind blow The trumpets of the coming storm, 90 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER To arrowy sleet and blinding snow 195 Yon slanting lines of rain transform. Young hearts shall hail the drifted cold, As gayly as I did of old ; And I, who watch them through the frosty pane, Unenvious, live in them my boyhood o'er again. 200 XXVI And I will trust that He who heeds The life that hides in mead and wold, Who hangs yon alder's crimson beads. And stains these mosses green and gold, Will still, as He hath done, incline 205 His gracious care to me and mine ; Grant what we ask aright, from wrong debar. And, as the earth grows dark, make brighter every star! XXVII I have not seen, I may not see. My hopes for man take form in fact, 210 But God will give the victory In due time ; in that faith I act. And he who sees the future sure. The baffling present may endure, 214 And bless, meanwhile, the unseen Hand that leads The heart's desires beyond the halting step of deeds. XXVIII And thou, my song, I send thee forth, Where harsher songs of mine have flown ; Go, find a place at home and hearth Where'er thy singer's name is known ; 220 Revive for him the kindly thought Of friends ; and they who love him not. Touched by some strain of thine, perchance may take The hand he proffers all, and thank him for thy THE ETERNAL GOODNESS 91 THE ETERNAL GOODNESS FEiENDS ! with whom my feet have trod The quiet aisles of prayer, Glad witness to your zeal for God And love of man I bear. 1 trace your lines of argument ; 5 Your logic linked and strong I weigh as one who dreads dissent, And fears a doubt as wrong. But still my human hands are weak To hold your iron creeds : 10 Against the words ye bid me speak My heart within me pleads. Who fathoms the Eternal Thought? Who talks of scheme and plan ? The Lord is God ! He needeth not 15 The poor device of man. I walk with bare, hushed feet the ground Ye tread with boldness shod ; I dare not fix with mete and bound The love and power of God. 20 Ye praise His justice ; even such His pitying love I deem : Ye seek a king ; I fain would touch The robe that hath no seam. Ye see the curse which overbroods 25 A world of pain and loss ; I hear our Lord's beatitudes And prayer upon the cross. 92 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER More than your schoolmen teach, within Myself, alas ! I know : 30 Too dark ye cannot paint the sin. Too small the merit show. I bow my forehead to the dust, I veil mine eyes for shame. And urge, in trembling self-distrust, 35 A prayer without a claim. I see the wrong that round me lies, I feel the guilt within ; I hear, with groan and travail-cries, The world confess its sin. 40 Yet, in the maddening maze of things, And tossed by storm and flood. To one fixed trust my spirit clings ; I know that God is good ! Not mine to look where cherubim 45 And seraphs may not see. But nothing can be good in Him Which evil is in me. The wrong that pains my soul below I dare not throne above, 50 I know not of His hate, — I know His goodness and His love. I dimly guess from blessings known Of greater out of sight. And, with the chastened Psalmist, own 55 His judgments too are right. I long for household voices gone. For vanished smiles I long. But God hath led my dear ones on, And He can do no wrong. 60 THE ETERNAL GOODNESS 93 I know not what the future hath Of marvel or surprise, Assured alone that life and death His mercy underlies. And if my heart and flesh are weak 65 To bear an untried pain, The bruised reed He will not break, But strengthen and sustain. No offering of my own I have. Nor works my faith to prove ; 70 I can but give the gifts He gave. And plead His love for love. And so beside the Silent Sea I wait the muffled oar ; No harm from Him can come to me 75 On ocean or on shore. I know not where His islands lift Their fronded palms in air ; I only know I cannot drift Beyond His love and care. 80 O brothers ! if my faith is vain. If hopes like these betray. Pray for me that my feet may gain The sure and safer way. And Thou, O Lord ! by whom are seen 85 Thy creatures as they be. Forgive me if too close I lean My human heart on Thee ! NOTES AND QUESTIONS PROEM (Written in 1847 to introduce the first general collection of Whittier's Poema.) 3. Edmund Spenser (1552(?)-1599). One of the earliest of the great English poets, and a friend of Sidney's. Author of The Shepherd^s Calendar, The Faerie Queene, etc. 4. Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586). An English poet and ro- mancist. Author of Arcadia, Astrophel and Stella, etc. 32. John Milton (1608-1674). One of the greatest English poets. Author of Paradise Lost. 33. Andrew Marvell (1621-1678). An English poet and satirist. His Thoughts in a Garden are regarded as particularly graceful poetry. SNOW-BOUND Whittier's own Introduction to Snow-Bound. "The inmates of the family at the Whittier homestead who are referred to in the poem were my father, mother, my brother and two sisters, and my uncle and aunt, both unmarried. In addition, there was the district school master, who boarded with us. The 'not un- f eared, haK-welcome guest' was Harriet Livermore, daughter of Judge Livermore, of New Hampshire, a young woman of fine natural ability, enthusiastic, eccentric, with slight control over her violent temper, which sometimes made her religious profes- sion doubtful. She was equally ready to exhort in school-house prayer-meetings and dance in a Washington ballroom, while her father was a member of Congress. She early embraced the doc- trine of the Second Advent, and felt it her duty to proclaim the Lord's speedy coming. With this message she crossed the Atlan- tic and spent the greater part of a long life in travelling over Europe and Asia. She lived some time with Lady Hester Stan- hope, a woman as fantastic and mentally strained as herself, on the slope of Mt. Lebanon, but finally quarrelled with her in regard to two white horses with red marks on their backs which suggested the idea of saddles, on which her titled hostess ex- pected to ride into Jerusalem with the Lord. A friend of mine found her, when quite an old woman, wandering in Syria with a NOTES AND QUESTIONS 95 tribe of Arabs, who, with the Oriental notion that madness is inspiration, accepted her as their prophetess and leader. At the time referred to in Snow- Bound she was boarding at the Rocks Village, about two miles from us. " In my boyhood, in our lonely farm-house, we had scanty sources of information; few books and only a small weekly news- paper. Our only annual was the almanac. Under such circmn- stances story-telling was a necessary resource in the long winter evenings. My father when a young man had traversed the wil- derness to Canada, and could tell us of his adventures with Indians and wild beasts, and of his sojourn in the French vil- lages. My uncle was ready with his record of hunting and fish- ing, and, it must be confessed, with stories which he at least half believed, of witchcraft and apparitions. My mother, who was born in the Indian-haunted region of Somersworth, New Hamp- shire, between Dover and Portsmouth, told us of the inroads of the savages, and the narrow escape of her ancestors. She de- scribed strange people who lived on the Piscataqua and Cocheco, among whom was Bantam the sorcerer. I have in my possession the wizard's 'conjuring book,' which he solemnly opened when consulted. It is a copy of Cornelius Agrippa's Magic, printed in 1651, dedicated to Doctor Robert Child, who, Uke Michael Scott, had learned * the art of glammorie In Padua beyond the sea,' and who is famous in the annals of Massachusetts, where he was at one time a resident, as the first man who dared petition the General Court for liberty of conscience. The full title of the book is Three Books of Occult Philosophy: hy Henry Cornelius Agrippa, Knight, Doctor of both Laws. Counsellor to Ccesar's Sacred Majesty and Judge of the Prerogative Court." The Meter of Snow-Bound. Snow-Bound is written in tetram- eter, that is, with four divisions or measures in each line. Each of these measures, called a foot, is composed of two syllables, the first short or unaccented, the second, long or accented. Such a poetic foot is called an iambus. The meter of Snow-Bound, therefore, is iambic tetrameter. The first lines of the poem are scanned as follows : — The stin | that brifif | Dec6m | ber ddy Rose ch6er | less 6 | ver hills | of grdy, And d^rk | ly cir ] cled gdve | at no6n A add I der light | than wd | ning mo6n. | 96 NOTES AND QUESTIONS Notes and Questions. 16. Point out the words in this first paragraph that help most to give an impression of cheerlessness — of cold. 29-30. To what mediaeval character is the cock compared in these hnes? 31-40. What words in this passage make the description of the snow-storm most vivid — most weird? Where do we get an impression of spirits, of mad reveling of ghosts? In lines 34-36, point out the words that describe the various movements of the snow. 41-65. Write a hundred- word description of the scene por- trayed in these lines. . 63. Point out the well-sweep in the picture opposite page 3. 65. of Pisa's leaning miracle. The Leaning Tower of Pisa, in Italy, which inclines from the perpendicular a Httle more than six feet in eighty, is a campanile, or bell-tower, built of white marble, very beautiful, but so famous for its singular deflection from perpendicularity as to be known almost wholly as a curios- ity. 65. Does this description of the appearance of the world agree with anything you have ever seen? 77. rare Aladdin's wondrous cave. For the story of Aladdin and his lamp see any edition of The Arabian Nights' Entertain- ments, or R.L.S., No. 117. 90. Amun, or Ammon, was an Egyptian being, representing an attribute of Deity under the form of a ram. 93-115. From what words in this paragraph do we again get a feeling of the supernatural — of the hostile influences of nature — of solitude — of a love of nature. Compare with this descrip- tion of the buried brooklet, Lowell's description of the little ice- bound brook in The Vision of Sir Launfal, R.L.S. No. 30. 116-142. Reproduce in a few words the description of the building of the fire. Point out in the picture opposite page 8 the crane, trammels, andirons. Explain their uses. 143-154. What sort of feeling does the paragraph give the reader? Explain the contrast between this paragraph and the following lines (155-174). What words or expressions do most to describe the loneliness and cold without — the cheer and warmth within? 156. What does clean-winged mean? What sort of wing was often used in country homes to sweep up the hearth? 175-211. What is the general subject of this paragraph? NOTES AND QUESTIONS 97 How many of Whittier's family were living when he wrote this poem? 204. With what experiences in life are cypress trees associ- ated? Where are they frequently planted? 215. Gambia is a British colony in western Africa inhabited chiefly by negroes. This hne and lines 220-223 are taken from The African Chief, a poem by Mrs, Sarah Wentworth Morton (1759-1846). This poem was included in The American Preceptor, a schoolbook which was in use in Whittier's boyhood. 217. What experience in our country's history is here referred to? 219. Dame Mercy Warren, a writer of poems, was the wife of James Warren, one of the American patriots in the Revolution- ary War. 243. Isles of Shoals. A group of islands off the coast of New Hampshire. The American poet, CeUa Thaxter, made her home here. 259. Cocheco. Now Dover, New Hampshire. 262-283. What are the attractive features of this beautiful description of the mother's early life? 270. Conjtiring-book. (See Whittier's Introduction to Snow- Bound, page 94.) 286. Why is he called painful Sewel ? William Sewel was the historian of the Quakers. Charles Lamb seemed to have as good an opinion of the book as Whittier. In his essay, A Quakers' Meeting, in Essays of Elia, he says: "Reader, if you are not acquainted with it, I would recommend to you, above all church-narratives, to read Sewel's History of the Quakers. ... It is far more edifying and affecting than any- thing you will read of Wesley or his colleagues." 289. Thomas Chalkley was an Englishman of Quaker parent- age, born in 1675, who traveled extensively as a preacher, and finally made his home in Philadelphia. He died in 1749; his Jour- nal was first published in 1747. His own narrative of the incident which the poet relates is as follows: "To stop their murmuring, I told them they should not need to cast lots, which was usual in such cases, which of us should die first, for I would freely offer up my life to do them good. One said, * God bless you! I will not eat any of you.' Another said, 'He would die before he would eat any of me'; and so said several. I can truly say, on that occasion, at that time, my life was not dear to me, and that I was 98 NOTES AND QUESTIONS serious and ingenuous in my proposition; and as I was leaning over the side of the vessel, thoughtfully considering my proposal to the company, and looking in my mind to Him that made me, a very large dolphin came up towards the top or surface of the water, and looked me in the face; and I called the people to put a hook into the sea, and take him, for here is one come to redeem me (I said to them). And they put a hook into the sea, and the fish readily took it, and they caught him. He was longer than myself. I think he was about six feet long, and the largest that ever I saw. This plainly showed us that we ought not to distrust the providence of the Almighty. The people were quieted by this act of Providence, and murmured no more. We caught enough to eat plentifully of, till we got into the capes of Dela- ware." 306. See Genesis xxii, 13. 307-349. A fine description of a man who loves outdoor fife. Follow the lines through carefully, noting the different features of Nature touched on, and point out how our interest is held and how plainly we see the different scenes described. 310. What is a lyceum as the word is used in America? The Lyceum was ^originally a park in ancient Athens where the Greek philosopher, Aristotle, taught. The measure requires the accent ly'ceum, but in stricter use the accent is lyce'um. 320. ApoUonius Tyanaeus, a philosopher born in the first cen- tury of the Christian era, of whom many strange stories were told, especially regarding his converse with birds and animals. 322. Hermes Trismegistus, a celebrated Egyptian priest and philosopher, to whom was attributed the revival of geometry, arithmetic, and art among the Egyptians. He was a little later than ApoUonius. 325. Does Whittier mean to commend or criticize the uncle's seeming lack of ambition? 332. Gilbert White, of Selborne, England, was a clergyman who wrote the Natural History of Selborne, a minute, affection- ate, and charming description of what could be seen as it were from his own doorstep. The accuracy of his observation and the delightfulness of his manner have kept the book a classic. 337-338. How do these and the following lines show the power of narration which the uncle possessed? 355-356. What do these lines suggest as to the aunt's disposi- tion and activities? Put into simple language lines 366-375. NOTES AND QUESTIONS 99 369. What is the correct pronunciation of mirage? How is it pronounced here? What does it mean? 376-377. Paraphrase these lines, so as to make clearer the expression in line 377. 378-391. Have pupils state in their own words the impression of the elder sister received from reading these lines. 386-388. What view of death does the poet here express? 390. What is meant by the low green tent ? Put in simpler words the meaning of lines 393^394. 395. What is the meaning of motley-braided ? Look for this mat in the picture opposite page 8. 398. green. Paradise is always fresh like green fields and trees. 415-437. What lines before have expressed these same feel- ings? 438-509. This paragraph is one of the best in the poem. 439. The master of the district school. This schoolmaster was George Haskell, a native of Harvard, Massachusetts, who was a Dartmouth College student at the time referred to in the poem, and afterward became a physician. Till near the end of his own life Mr. Whittier could not recall the teacher's name, and Mr. Haskell seems never to have known that he was immor- tahzed in Snow-Bound. 447. In classic Dartmouth's college halls. Where is Dart- mouth College? How near was it to Whittier's home? 450. Why is New Hampshire not a good State for farming? 453. What advantage is here suggested of a life on the farm where a boy is taught to work? 456. It was customary in the early days of America for college students to pay their expenses by teaching country schools dur- ing vacation. 464. This line refers to games played at social gatherings. 471. See line 447 for the word classic. In what spirit do you think the schoolmaster told the legends of Greece and Rome? 476. Pindus is the mountain chain which, running from north to south, nearly bisects Greece. Five rivers take their rise from the central peak, the Aoiis, the Arachthus, the Haliacmon, the Peneiis, and the Acheloiis. 485-509. Whittier drops the thread of his story for a few lines to moralize. Why was this passage particularly appropriate at the time Whittier wrote Snow-Bound? What solution of the negro 100 NOTES AND QUESTIONS problem does the poet here suggest? How much of his plan and of his prophecy has been realized? 500. What does Whittier think the results of education will be? Mention two famous institutions in the South for the edu- cation of negroes. Besides the work of the public school systems in the South, much wealth is devoted in our times to aiding Southern schools. The Southern Education Board and the General Education Board are especially active in these matters. George Peabody, John D. Rockefeller, and others have given large sums of money for this purpose. 506. Is this true to-day? What war of our country fought since the Civil War tended to bring the North and South more closely together? 510-589. Read in Whittier 's Introduction to Snow-Bound, page 94, the account of this guest. Miss Harriet Livermore. After studying the meaning of the words used to describe her in lines 510-562, write in your own language a description of his guest. 536. Petruchio's Kate. See Shakespeare's comedy of The Taming of the Shrew. 537. Siena's saint. St. Catherine, of Siena, who is represented as having wonderful visions. She made a vow of silence for three years. 550, etc. Find on the map the places here mentioned. 555. The crazy Queen of Lebanon. An interesting account of Lady Hester Stanhope, an English gentlewoman who led a singular life on Mount Lebanon in Syria, will be found in King- lake's Eothen, chap. viii. 562. This "not unf eared, half -welcome guest," Miss Harriet Livermore, at the time of this narrative was about twenty-eight years old. She once went on an independent mission to the Western Indians, whom she, in common with some others, be- lieved to be remnants of the lost tribes of Israel, but much of her life was spent in the Orient. See the introductory note to this poem, page 94. 563-589. These lines are a sort of sermon. What is the subject of the sermon? What are the points offered in defense of this "not unfeared, half -welcome guest" ? 690-613. What trait of character in Whittier 's mother is here depicted? 611. How do such people as Whittier's mother try to answer their own prayers? 614-628. Point out the contrast in these beautiful lines be- NOTES AND QUESTIONS 101 tween the wintry scene about the home and the dreams of the sleepers. 629-656. What means did the country people take to clear the roads? 639. What picture does this line give you? 646. What picture do you see here? What is there unusual m these words? 659. The wise old Doctor was Dr. Weld of Haverhill, an able man, who died at the age of ninety-six. 661. In what previous passage has Whittier spoken of his mother's willingness to help? 668. To what rehgious denomination did Whittier belong? (See page xiii.) 669. Calvin's creed. Who was Calvin? What religious de- nomination did he found? 670-674. The doctrine of Calvin taught that certain persons were the elect, that is, were selected or chosen to be saved. In these lines what does Whittier suggest as the grounds on which we shall be saved? 674. How did the snow-bound family entertain itself? 676. In early days when books were fewer than to-day the almanac was more important than now and contained much information of an encyclopaedic nature. 683. What color did the Quakers largely use for their cloth- ing? 683. Thomas EUwood, one of the Society of Friends, a con- temporary and friend of Milton, who suggested to him the writ- ing of Paradise Regained, wrote an epic poem in five books, called Davideis, the life of King David of Israel. He wrote the book, we are told, for his own diversion, so it was not necessary that others should be diverted by it. 686. See 1 and 2 Samuel. 693. Before us passed the painted Creeks. Referring to the removal of the Creek Indians from Georgia to beyond the Mis- sissippi. 694. In 1822 Sir Gregor McGregor, a Scotchman, began an ineffectual attempt to estabhsh a colony in Costa Rica. 697. Taygetus is a mountain on the Gulf of Messenia in Greece, and near by is the district of Maina, noted for its rob- bers and pirates. It was from these mountaineers that Ypsilanti, a Greek patriot, drew his cavalry in the struggle with Turkey which resulted in the independence of Greece. 102 NOTES AND QUESTIONS 700. What experience had Whittier himself had with the rustic Muse? (See page xv.). What lines in this passage describe most vividly the influence of the newspaper? 715-739. The story is done. The last two paragraphs are in the nature of a conclusion. From the point of view of this paragraph, where has the poet been reading these memories of the past? 739. aloe, the century plant which was formerly supposed to blossom only when a century old. 741. Truce of God. The name is drawn from a historic com- pact in 1040, when the Church forbade the barons to make any attack on each other between sunset on Wednesday and sunrise on the following Monday, or upon any ecclesiastical fast or feast day. It also provided that no man was to molest a laborer work- ing in the fields, or to lay hands on any implement of husbandry, on pain of excommunication. 747. Flemish pictures. The Flemish school of painting was chiefly occupied with homely interiors. 740-759. Where does Whittier think that he will get his re- ward or satisfaction for writing this poem? General Questions. If you have enjoyed reading Snow- Bound, can you tell what part of it has attracted you most? What would you call the main effect of the poem? Is Whittier most capable in description, character sketch, or portrayal of sentiment? Which would you consider the stronger, his mental quahties or his spiritual? What passage of the poem in your opinion contains the best description? Why do you consider it the best? What passage is most religious? Most excited or violent? Most expressive of affection — of sorrow — of tolerance? What passage is most beautiful — most touching? Gather together the passages containing references to religion or religious feeling, and make of them a statement of Whittier's religious belief. Do the same with the passages expressing his pohtical views. AMONG THE HILLS 2. tawny Incas. The Incas were the kings of the ancient Peruvians. At Yucay, their favorite residence, the gardens, according to Prescott, contained "forms of vegetable life skil- NOTES AND QUESTIONS lOS fully imitated in gold and silver." See History of the Conquest of Peru, I, 130. 26. The volume in which this poem stands first, and to which it gives the name, was published in the fall of 1868. 110. the knife-grinder of whom Canning sings. The Anti- Jacobin was a periodical published in England in 1797-98, to ridicule democratic opinions, and in it Canning, who afterward became premier of England, wrote many light verses and jeux d' esprit, among them a humorous poem called the Needy Knife- Grinder, in burlesque of a poem by Southey. The knife-grinder is anxiously appealed to to tell his story of wrong and injustice, but answers as here: — " Story, God bless you! I 've none to tell." 121. See Ruth iii. 134. Happy Isles of prophecy. The Fortunate Isles, or Isles of the Blest, were imaginary islands in the West, in classic myth- ology, set in a sea which was warmed by the rays of the declining sun. Hither the favorites of the gods were borne, and here they dwelt in endless joy. 165. Sandwich Notch, Chocorua Mountain, Ossipee Lake, and the Bearcamp River are all striking features of the scenery in that part of New Hampshire which lies just at the entrance of the White Mountain region. Many of Whittier's most graceful poems are drawn from the suggestions of this country, where he often spent the summer months, and a mountain near West Ossipee has received his name. 465. The General Court is the official designation of the legis- lative body in New Hampshire and in Massachusetts. SONGS OF LABOR The Songs of Labor were written in 1845 and 1846, and printed first in magazines. They reflect the working life of New England at that time, before the great changes were wrought which have nearly put an end to some of the forms of labor, the praises of which here are sung. The Songs were collected into a volume, entitled Songs of Labor and Other Poems, in 1850, and the follow- ing Dedication was then prefixed. 22. And beauty is its own excuse. "For the idea of this line," says Mr. Whittier, "I am indebted to Emerson in his inimitable sonnet to the Rhodora: — " ' If eyes were made for seeing, Then Beauty is its own excuse for being.' " 104 NOTES AND QUESTIONS 52. St. Crispin's day. October 25. St. Crispin and his brother Crispinian were said to be martyrs of the third century who while preaching the gospel had made their living by shoemaking. 62. Spanish main. A name given to the northern coast of South America when it was taken possession of by the Spaniards. 72. the dark-eyed Florentine. So associated was Florence, Italy, in the minds of people with the manufacture of sewing- silk, that when the industry was set up in the neighborhood of Northampton, Massachusetts, the factory village took the name of Florence. 94. Hans Sachs. See Longfellow's poem, Nuremberg, for a reference to Hans Sachs, the cobbler poet. 96. Robert Bloomfield, an English poet, author of The Farm- er's Boy, was bred a shoemaker, as was William Gifford, a wit and satirist, and first editor of the Quarterly Review, but Gifford hated his craft bitterly. 97. Roger Sherman, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, was at one time a shoemaker in New Milford, Connecticut. 99. Jacob Behmen, or Boehme, a German visionary of the seventeenth century. 101. George Fox, the founder of the Society of Friends, or Quakers, as they are more commonly called. 117. Crystal Mountains. A name early given to the White Mountains from the crystals found there by the first explorers, who thought them diamonds. 155. Brador's rocks are on the coast of Prince Edward Island. 166. Red Island lies in Placentia Bay, on the coast of New- foundland. 172. The Mickmacks are a tribe of Indians living in and near Nova Scotia. 187. the fish of Tobit. See the story in the Book of Tobit, one of the Apocrypha. 358. Compare The Ship-Builders with Longfellow's poem The Building of the Ship. 497. See Genesis xli, 2-4. THE BAREFOOT BOY 63. Apples of Hesperides. The Hesperides were three nymphs who were set to guard the golden apples which Gaea (Earth) planted in the gardens of Here, as a wedding gift. NOTES AND QUESTIONS 105 TELLING THE BEES A remarkable custom, brought from England, formerly pre- vailed in the rural districts of New England. On the death of a member of the family, the bees were at once informed of the event, and their hives were dressed in mourning. This cere- monial was supposed to be necessary to prevent the swarms from leaving their hives and seeking a new home. The scene is minutely that of the Whittier homestead. BURNS 38. The Twa Dogs. The title of a poem by Bums. 67-68. Craigie-bum . . . Devon. The names of two small rivers in Scotland. 71. Ayr . . . Doon. Streams in southwestern Scotland. 73-76. These lines allude to Burns's poem Is there for honest poverty. Whittier himself wrote a poem in the same spirit — The Poor Voter on Election Day. See page 72. 77-80. Burns's poem The Cotter's Saturday Night is here re- ferred to. Whittier's poem Snow-Bound is of the same genre. 103. The mournful Tuscan. Dante (1265-1321), the Italian poet, author of The Divine Comedy. 114. Bonnie Doon. An allusion to Burns's poem The Banks of Doon. 116. Highland Mary. A lass celebrated in Burns's poem of the same name. She was one of the poet's sweethearts. ABRAHAM DAVENPORT The famous Dark Day of New England, May 19, 1780, was a physical puzzle for many years to our ancestors, but its occur- rence brought something more than philosophical speculation into the minds of those who passed through it. The incident of Colonel Abraham Davenport's sturdy protest is a matter of history. 5. Mianas. The Mianus River, in Connecticut. 8. Stamford. A city in Connecticut. 16. The Twilight of the Gods. In Norse mythology, the final destruction of the world, when the sun would be darkened, the earth would sink into the sea, and flames would lick the sky. 28. Bethany. See John xi. 106 NOTES AND QUESTIONS THE POOR VOTER ON ELECTION DAY In tone this poem is strongly suggestive of Burns's Is therefor honest poverty. THE GIFT OF TRITEMIUS 17. Tunis. A city in the Barbary State of the same name, on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea. 25. soldo. An Italian coin, worth rather less than one cent. KING SOLOMON AND THE ANTS 4, Sheba's queen. See 1 Kings x and 2 Chronicles ix. 7. Song of songs. The Song of Solomon, a book in the Old Testament comprising a group of love poems capable of inter- pretation as an allegory. APRIL Christabel. A poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 27. Lazarus. See John xi, THE MAYFLOWERS The trailing arbutus, or mayfiower, grows abundantly in the vicinity of Plymouth, and was the first flower that greeted the Pilgrims after their fearful winter. The name ** may flower" was familiar in England, as the application of it to the historic vessel shows, but it was applied by the English, and still is, to the haw- thorn. Its use in New England in connection with Epigcea repens dates from a very early day, some claiming that the first Pil- grims so used it, in affectionate memory of the vessel and its Enghsh flower association. FOR AN AUTUMN FESTIVAL 2. Ceres. The Greek goddess of growing vegetation. 22. Ruth. See the Book of Ruth. THE FROST SPIRIT XL Hecla. A volcano in Iceland. NOTES AND QUESTIONS 107 THE LAST WALK IN AUTUMN 34. Compare with the description in hne 62 of Snow-Bound. 55. Arno's vale. The Arno valley is in northern Italy. The city of Florence lies within it. 56. The Alhambra is a famous palace, built by the Moors in Seville, Spain. 66. See 2 Kings v. 71. Hafiz. A Persian poet who died about 1389. 93. Sir Francis Bacon, an English philosopher and statesman, 1561-1626. His Essays remain a classic in English literature. His scientific writings foreshadowed many of the developments of later years. 94. Blaise Pascal, a French philosopher and mathematician, 1623-62. His Thoughts are still widely read. 105. Plato, a Greek philosopher, b.c. 427-347. His Dialogues and Republic established him as one of the greatest thinkers of the ancient world. 111. Sufi's song. The Sufis were the members of a sect of mystics among the Mohammedans of Persia. Gentoo is another name for Brahman, the highest caste among the Hindus. The priests of the religion are drawn from this caste. 112. Menu, or Manu, was the reputed author of the Laws, the most authoritative of the Hindu codes. 117. the magic mat. An allusion to the magic carpet, of the Arabian Nights. 121-125. The statesman was Charles Sumner. 126. Athenian archon. The archon was one of the chief magis- trates in ancient Athens. 127. Struck down. An allusion to an assault upon Sumner committed by Preston Brooks, of South CaroHna, in the Senate Chamber. 148. the Cross without the Bear. The constellation of the Southern Cross occupies, in the heavens south of the Equator, a position equally conspicuous with that of the Great Bear in the northern heavens. 162. Than gay Versailles or Windsor's halls. A palace of the French kings is situated at Versailles. One of the Enghsh roy- alty is at Windsor. 179. Arcadian vales. Arcadia, a rural district in Greece, mountainous and picturesque, and inhabited by a simple, con- tented, pastoral people. MAP OF THE REGIOU CELKBRAaMD IN WHITTIER'S POEMS NATURE THE DALLAS LORE SHARP NATURE SERIES The Fall of the Year. 60 cents, net. Postpaid. Winter. 60 cents, net. Postpaid. The Spring of the Year. 60 cents, net. Postpaid. Summer. 60 cents, net. Postpaid. BURROUGHS. Bird Stories from Burroughs. School Editm 60 cents, net. Postpaid. Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers. School Edition. 60 cent net. Postpaid. Afoot and Afloat. Paper, 1 5 cents ; cloth, 25 cents, net. Postpai( Birds and Bees. Paper, 15 cents, net. Postpaid. — - A Bunch of HerbSj and Other Papers. Paper, 15 cents, m Postpaid. r J Sharp Eyes, and Other Papers. Paper, 15 cents; cloth cents, net. Postpaid. EASTMAN. New England Ferns and their Common Allies gi.25, net. Postpaid. ECKSTORM. The Woodpeckers. $1.00. Postage extra. HIGGINSON. Three Outdoor Papers. Paper, 15 cents, nei Postpaid. 1 ^^^^y- ?^7 Garden Acquaintance, A Moosehead Journal? and A Good Word for Winter. Paper, 15 cents, net. Postpaid^ is MILLER. True Bird Stories from my Note-Books. Scho^i Edition. 60 cents, net. Postpaid. •——-The First Book of Birds. School Edition. 60 cents, nei Postpaid. The Second Book of Birds: Bird Families, ^i.oo. Postagi extra. SARGENT. Corn Plants: Their Uses and Ways of Life 75 cents. Postage extra. " THOREAU. Camping in the Maine Woods. With an intro duction by Clifton Johnson. Paper, 15 cents; linen, 25 cents, nei Postpaid. ——The Succession of Forest Trees, Wild Apples, and Sounds. Paper, 15 cents, ?z^^. Postpaid. —-Notes on New England Birds. Arranged and edited b? Francis H. Allen. $1.75. Postage extra. -— Walden. Edited by Francis H. Allen, with questions bvl Charles Swain Thomas, ^aper, 45 cehti^ cloth, 50 cents, net\ Postpaid. ij p ^j^^t . TRAFTON. MethoS of /^^Bfilg Birdi ;?i.25. Postage extra.! HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY \ BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO | I4in J RIVERSIDE LITERATURE SERIES 147. 48. 49. 150. 151. 152. 3. 154. 155. 15G, 157: 158. lO'J. iGO. Kil. 1102. IG3. i(;4. 1(55. 1(16. 1G7. ^1G8. 1(;9. 170. 171, 173. 174. 175. 176. 177. 178, 179. ,180. 181. 182. 183. 184. 185. '18G. 187, 180. 190. ) 191. 192. 193. 194. 195. 106. 197. 198, 200. 201. 202. 203. 204. 205. 20G. 207. 208. 209= 210. Pope's Rape of the Lock, etc. Hawthorne's Marble Faun. Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. Ouida's Dog of Flanders, etc. Ewing's Jackanapes, etc. Marthieau's The Peasant and the Prince. Shakespeare's Midsumiuer Night's Dream. Shakespeare's Tempest. Irving's Life of Goldsmith. Temiysou's Gareth and Lynette, etc. Tlie Song of Roland. Malory's Merlin and Sir Balin. Beowulf. Spenser's Faerie Queene. Book I. Dickens's Tale of Two Cities. Prose and Poetry of Cardinal Newman. Shakespeare's Henry V. De Quincey's Joan of Arc, etc. Scott's Quentin Durward. Carlyle's Heroes and Hero-Worship. Longfellow^s Autobiographical Poems. Shelley's Poems. Lowell's My Garden Acquaintance, etc. Lamb's Essays of Elia. 172. Emerson's Essays. Kate Douglas Wiggin's Flag-Raising. Kate Douglas Wiggin's Finding a Home. Whittier's Autobiographical Poems. Burroughs' s Afoot and Afloat. Bacon's Essays. Selections from John Ruskin. King Arthur Stoiies from Malory. Palmer's Odyssey. Goldsmith's The Good-Natured Man. Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer. Old English and Scottish Ballads. Shakespeare's King Lear. Moores's Life of Lincoln. Thoreau's Camping in the Maine Woods. 188. Huxley's Autobiography, and Essays. Byron's Childe Harold, Canto IV, etc. Washington's Farewell Address, and Web- ster's Bunker Hill Oration. The Second Shepherds' Play, etc. Mrs. Gaskell's Cranford. Williams's ^neid. Irving's Bracebridge Hall. Selections. Thoreau's Walden. Sheridan's The Rivals. Barton's Captains of Industry. Selected. 199. Macaulay's Lord Clive, and W. Hast- ings. Howells's The Rise of Silas Lapham. Harris's Little Mr.Thimblefinger Stories. Jewett's The Night Before Thanksgiving. Shumway's Nibelungenlied. Sheffield's Old Testament Narrative. Powers's A Dickens Reader. Goethe's Faust. Part I. Cooper's The Spy. v — Aldrich's Story of a Bad Boy. Warner's Being a Boyl Kate Douglas Wiggin's Polly Oliver's Problem. 211. Milton's Areopagitica, etc. 212. Sliakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. 213. Hemingway's Le Morte Arthur. 214. Moores's Life of Cohimbus. 215. Bret Harte's Tennessee's Partner, etc. 216. Ralph Roister Doihter. 217. Gorboduc. (In preparation.) 218. Selected Lyrics from Wordsworth, Keats, and Shelley. 219. Selected Lyrics from Dryden, Collins, Gray, Cowper, and i-urns. 220. Southern Poems. 221. Macaulay's Speeches on Copyright; Lin- coln's Cooper Union Address. 222. Briggs's College Life. 223. Selections from the Prose Writings of Mat- thew Arnold. 224. Perry's American Mind and American Idealism. 225. Newman's University Subjects. 226. Burroughs's Studies in Nature and Lit- eratui-e. 227. Bryce's Promoting Good Citizenship. 228. Selected EiigUsh Letters. 229. Jewett's Play Day Stories. 230. Grenfell's Adrift on an Ice-Pan. 231. Muir's Stickeen. 232. Harte's Waif of the Plains, etc. 233. Tennyson's The Coming of Arthur, the Holy Grail and the Passing of Arthur. 234. Selected Essays. 235. Briggs's To College Girls. 236. Lowell's Literary Essays. (Selected.) 237. Mai-mion. 238. Short Stories. 239. Selections from American Poetry. 240. Howells's Tlie Parlor Car, and The Sleep- ing Car. 241. Mills's The Story of a Thousand- Year Pine, etc. 242. Eliot's The Training for an Effective Life. 243. Bryant's Iliad, Abridged Edition. 244. Lockwood's English Sonnets. 245. Antin's At School in the Promised Laud. 246. Shepard's Shakespeare Questions. (Other titles to be announced.) (75) RIVERSIDE LITERATURE SERIES {Continued) EXTRA NUMBERS American Authors and their Birthdays. Biographical Sketches of American Au- thors. Warriner's Teaching of English Classics in the Grades. Scudder's Literature in School. Longfellow Leaflets . Whittler Leaflets. Holmes Leaflets. Thomas's How to Teach English Clas- sics. Holbrook's Northland Heroes. The Riverside Song Book. Lowell's Fable for Critics. Selections from American Authors. Lowell Leaflets. Holbrook's Hiawatha Primer, Selections from English Authors. E .Hawthorne's Twice-Told Tales. Selected, j S Irving's Essays from Sketch Book. °'- lected. T Literature for the Study of Language. U A Dramatization of the Song of Hia- watha. V Holbrook's Book of Nature M3rths. W Brown's In the Days of Giants. X Poems for the Study of Language. Y Warner'sln the Wilderness. Z Nine Selected Poems. A A Coleridge's The Ancient Mariner am Lowell's The Vision of Sir Launfal. BB Poe's The Raven, Whittier's Snow Bound, and Longfellow's The Court ship of Miles Standish. CC Selections for Study and Memorizing! LIBRARY BINDING 135-136. Chaucer's Prologue, The Knight's Tale, and The Nun's Priest's Tale. 160. Spenser's Faerie Queene, Book I. 166. Carlyle's Heroes and Hero-Worship. 168. Shelley's Poems. Selected. 177. Bacon's Essays. 178. Selections from the Works of John Ruskin. 181-182. Goldsmith's The Good-Natured Man, and She Stoops to Conquer. 183. Old English and Scottish Ballads. 187-188. Huxley's Autobiography and Selected Essays. 191. Second Shepherd's Play, Everyman, etc. 211. Milton's Areopagitica, etc. 216. Ralph Roister Doister. 222> Briggs's College Life. > : 223. Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold 224. Perry's The American Mind and American Idealism. 225. Newman's University Subjects. 225. Burroughs 's Studies in Nature and Literature. 227. Bryce's Promoting Good Citizenship. 235. Briggs's To College Girls. I 236. Selected Literary Essays from James Russell Lowell. 1 242. Eliot's The Training for an Effective Life. K. Minimum College Requirements in English for Study. 244. Lockwood's English Sonnets. 246. Shepard's Shakespeare Questions. « -/>/