John Greenleaf Whittier

“ The partridge drummed: and as his thoughts went back
To the sick wife and little child at home,
What marvel that the poor man felt his faith
Too weak to bear its burden,—like a rope
That, strand by strand uncoiling, breaks above
The hand that grasps it. "Even now, O Lord!
Send me," he prayed, "the angel of my dream!
Nauhaught is very poor; he cannot wait."
Even as he spake he heard at his bare feet
A low, metallic clink, and, looking down,
He saw a dainty purse with disks of gold
Crowding its silken net. ”

“ This printing of “The Exile’s Departure” in the poet’s corner of a struggling local newspaper was a fateful event for Whittier. Everybody knows the instant and generous interest aroused in the youthful editor: how he drove out to East Haverhill, unearthed his bashful poet,—who was at that moment crawling under the barn after a stolen hen’s nest,—and urged his father to give Greenleaf something better than a district schooling. “Sir, poetry will not give him bread!” exclaimed John Whittier, as sternly as Carlyle’s father might have said it. ”

“ No service from thee Is needed by her Whom the Lord hath set free; Nine days, in stern silence, Her thraldom she bore, But the tenth morning came, And Death opened her door!" As if suddenly smitten La Tour staggered back; His hand grasped his sword-hilt, His forehead grew black. He sprang on the deck Of his shallop again. "We cruise now for vengeance! Give way!" cried Estienne. "Massachusetts shall hear Of the Huguenot's wrong, And from island and creekside Her fishers shall throng! Pentagoet shall rue What his Papists have done, When his palisades echo The Puritan's gun!" ”

“ Time passed; with change of hopes and fears, And in the self-same place, Two women, gray with middle years, Stood, wondering, face to face. With wakened memories, as they met, They queried what had been "A poor man's wife am I, and yet," Said one, "I am a queen. "My realm a little homestead is, Where, lacking crown and throne, I rule by loving services And patient toil alone." The other said: "The great world lies Beyond me as it lay; O'er love's and duty's boundaries My feet may never stray. ”

“ For truth will not allow us to admit that any human law or compact can make void or put aside the ordinance of the living God and the eternal laws of Nature.
We therefore hold it to be the duty of the people of the slave-holding states to begin the work of emancipation now; that any delay must be dangerous to themselves in time and eternity, and full of injustice to their slaves and to their brethren of the free states.
Because the slave has never forfeited his right to freedom, and the continuance of his servitude is a continuance of robbery ”

“ I should hear my mother calling through the twilight for her child!"
Blazing upward from the ocean, shines the sun of morning-time,
Through the coffee-trees in blossom, and green hedges of the lime.
Side by side, amidst the slave-gang, toil the lover and the maid;
Wherefore looks he o'er the waters, leaning forward on his spade?
Sadly looks he, deeply sighs he: 't is the Haytien's sail he sees,
Like a white cloud of the mountains, driven seaward by the breeze.
But his arm a light hand presses, and he hears a low voice call
Hate of Slavery, hope of Freedom, Love is mightier than all. ”

“ But the Lord of the seed-field takes care of His own, And the world shall yet reap what our sowers have sown. The last of the sect to his fathers may go, Leaving only his coat for some Barnum to show; But the truth will outlive him, and broaden with years, Till the false dies away, and the wrong disappears. Nothing fails of its end. Out of sight sinks the stone, In the deep sea of time, but the circles sweep on, Till the low-rippled murmurs along the shores run, And the dark and dead waters leap glad in the sun. ”

“ As a tall Negro hastened nigh,
With fearless step and strong.
'What ho, Toussaint!' A moment more,
His shadow crossed the lighted floor.
'Away,' he shouted; 'fly with me,—
The white man's bark is on the sea;—
Her sails must catch the landward wind,
For sudden vengeance sweeps behind.
Our brethren from their graves have spoken,
The yoke is spurned—the chain is broken;
On all the hills our fires are glowing—
Through all the vales red blood is flowing! ”

“ Free labor is perfectly in accordance with the spirit of our institutions; slave labor is a relic of a barbarous, despotic age. The one, like the firmament of heaven, is the equal diffusion of similar lights, manifest, harmonious, regular; the other is the fiery predominance of some disastrous star, hiding all lesser luminaries around it in one consuming glare.
Emancipation would reform this evil. The planter would no longer be under the necessity of a heavy expenditure for slaves. He would only pay a very moderate price for his labor ”

“ The Judge rode slowly down the lane, Smoothing his horse's chestnut mane. He drew his bridle in the shade Of the apple-trees, to greet the maid, And asked a draught from the spring that flowed Through the meadow across the road. She stooped where the cool spring bubbled up, And filled for him her small tin cup, And blushed as she gave it, looking down On her feet so bare, and her tattered gown. "Thanks!" said the Judge; "a sweeter draught From a fairer hand was never quaffed." He spoke of the grass and flowers and trees, Of the singing birds and the humming bees ”

“ We wash our hands forever of your sin and shame and curse.
A voice from lips whereon the coal from Freedom's shrine hath been,
Thrilled, as but yesterday, the hearts of Berkshire's mountain men:
The echoes of that solemn voice are sadly lingering still
In all our sunny valleys, on every wind-swept hill.
And when the prowling man-thief came hunting for his prey
Beneath the very shadow of Bunker's shaft of gray,
How, through the free lips of the son, the father's warning spoke;
How, from its bonds of trade and sect, the Pilgrim city broke! ”

“ Ours is a government of opinion, and slavery is interwoven with it. Change the current of opinion, and slavery will be swept away. Let the awful sovereignty of the people, a power which is limited only by the sovereignty of Heaven, arise and pronounce judgment against the crying iniquity. Let each individual remember that upon himself rests a portion of that sovereignty; a part of the tremendous responsibility of its exercise. The burning, withering concentration of public opinion upon the slave system is alone needed for its total annihilation. God has given us the power to overthrow it ”

“ Thousands swarm forth who during week- days are confined to the mills. Gay colors alternate with snowy whiteness; extremest fashion elbows the plain demureness of old- fashioned Methodism.
Fair pale faces catch a warmer tint from the free sunshine and fresh air. The languid step becomes elastic with that "springy motion of the gait" which Charles Lamb admired. Yet the general appearance of the city is that of quietude; the youthful multitude passes on calmly, its voices subdued to a lower and softened tone, as if fearful of breaking the repose of the day of rest. ”

“ BEAMS of noon, like burning lances, through the tree-tops flash and glisten, As she stands before her lover, with raised face to look and listen.
Dark, but comely, like the maiden in the ancient
Jewish song
Scarcely has the toil of task-fields done her graceful
beauty wrong.
He, the strong one and the manly, with the vassal's
garb and hue,
Holding still his spirit's birthright, to his higher
nature true;
Hiding deep the strengthening purpose of a freeman
in his heart,
As the gregree holds his Fetich from the white
man's gaze apart. ”

“ John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892) was born near the little town of Haverhill, Massachusetts, in the same county as Salem, the birthplace of Hawthorne. The old farmhouse in which Whittier was born was built by the poet’s great-great-grandfather. It still stands to mark the site of the old home. His family were Quakers, sturdy of stature as of character. Whittier’s boyhood was in complete contrast to that of Lowell or Longfellow. He led the life of a typical New England farm boy, used to hard work, no luxuries, and few pleasures. ”

“ They heard the air above them fanned, A light step on the sward, And lo! they saw before them stand The angel of the Lord! "Arise," he said, "why look behind, When hope is all before, And patient hand and willing mind, Your loss may yet restore? "I leave with you a spell whose power Can make the desert glad, And call around you fruit and flower As fair as Eden had. "I clothe your hands with power to lift The curse from off your soil; Your very doom shall seem a gift, Your loss a gain through Toil. "Go, cheerful as yon humming-bees, To labor as to play." ”

“ It is to be regretted, as a loss to American Literature, that one so highly gifted as a poet should devote so little time to poetic labors. But he may derive satisfaction from the idea, that his labors for the honor of our nation, in a far nobler sense, will ultimately give freedom and life to her literature—now withering beneath the soul-enslaving censorship of a public, who exact of an author that he shall not unreservedly name the very name of Freedom. ”

“ John Greenleaf Whittier (b. December 17, 1807; d. September 7, 1892) , as an editor and poet contributed no little to the cause of the abolitionists. Together with Longfellow, Holmes, Lowell, Hawthorne, and Emerson, he may be considered an epoch-maker in the development of American literature as guided by the spirit of New England. He types the sweet, simple, and absolutely sincere poet whose verse breathes forth a strong patriotism, and is redolent of the healthful home life of the Eastern States. ”

“ In his arms the strong man folds her, Closer to his breast he holds her; Trembling limbs his own are meeting, And he feels her heart's quick beating "Nay, my dearest, why this fear?" "Hush!" she saith, "the dead is here!" "Nay, a dream,—an idle dream." But before the lamp's pale gleam Tremblingly her hand she raises. There no more the diamond blazes, Clasp of pearl, or ring of gold,— "Ah!" she sighs, "her hand was cold!" Broken words of cheer he saith, But his dark lip quivereth, And as o'er the past he thinketh, From his young wife's arms he shrinketh ”

“ We envy not the man who can sneer at this simple picture. It is honest as Nature herself. An old and lonely man looks back upon the young years of his wedded life. Can we not look with him? The sunlight of a summer morning is weaving itself with the leafy shadows of the bass-tree, beneath which a fair and ruddy-checked young woman, with her full, rounded arms bared to the elbow, bends not ungracefully to her task, pausing ever and anon to play with the bright-eyed child beside her, and mingling her songs with the pleasant murmurings of gliding water! ”

“ Before him the church stood large and fair "I have builded my tomb," said Esbern Snare. And he closed his eyes the sight to hide, When he heard a light step at his side "O Esbern Snare!" a sweet voice said, "Would I might die now in thy stead!" With a grasp by love and by fear made strong, He held her fast, and he held her long; With the beating heart of a bird afeard, She hid her face in his flame-red beard. "O love!" he cried, "let me look to-day In thine eyes ere mine are plucked away; Let me hold thee close, let me feel thy heart Ere mine by the Troll is torn apart! ”

“ The lowing cows, the bleat of sheep, the voices of
the sea;
"And oh, upon my father's knee to sit beside the
door,
And hear the bell of vespers ring in Rambin
church once more!"
He kissed her cheek, he kissed her lips; the Brown
Dwarf groaned to see,
And tore his tangled hair and ground his long
teeth angrily.
But Deitrich said: "For five long years this tender
Christian maid
Has served you in your evil world and well must
she be paid!
"Haste!—hither bring me precious gems, the richest in your store; Then when we pass the gate of glass, you'll take your cap once more." ”

“ The calm brow through the parted hair, The gentle lips which knew no guile, Softening the blue eye's thoughtful care With the bland beauty of their smile. Ah me! at times that last dread scene Of Frost and Fire and moaning Sea Will cast its shade of doubt between The failing eyes of Faith and thee. Yet, lingering o'er thy charmed page, Where through the twilight air of earth, Alike enthusiast and sage, Prophet and bard, thou gazest forth, Lifting the Future's solemn veil; The reaching of a mortal hand To put aside the cold and pale Cloud-curtains of the Unseen Land ”

“ Men were never abstractions to him. They were concrete persons, with ambitions to be tempted, generosities to be wakened, weaknesses to be utilized. His own county of Essex was then, as now, noted for the adroitness of its politicians, but at twenty-five John Greenleaf Whittier could beat the best of them at their own game. ”

“ Dark lowered the brows of Endicott, and with a deeper red O'er Rawson's wine-empurpled cheek the flush of anger spread; "Good people," quoth the white-lipped priest, "heed not her words so wild, Her Master speaks within her,—the Devil owns his child!" But gray heads shook, and young brows knit, the while the sheriff read That law the wicked rulers against the poor have made, Who to their house of Rimmon and idol priesthood bring No bended knee of worship, nor gainful offering. Then to the stout sea-captains the sheriff, turning, said,— "Which of ye, worthy seamen, will take this Quaker maid? ”