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Poems,
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POEMS
JOHN G. WHITTIER
' ' * There is a time to keep silence,' saith Solomon \ but whfo T proceeded te
the first verse of the fourth chapter of the Ecclesiastes, ' and considered all the
oppressions that are done under the sun, and beheld the tears of such as were
oppressed, and they had no comforter ; and on the side of the oppressors there
was power ; * 1 concluded this was not the time to keep silence ; for Truth should
be spoken at all timeS| but more especially at those times when to speak Truth ir
dangerous."
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TO
HENRY B. STANTON
THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED AS A TOKEN OF THE AUTHOR'S
PERSONAL FRIENDSHIP, AND OF HIS RESPECT FOR
THE UNRESERVED DEVOTION OF EXALTED
TALENTS TO THE CAUSE OF
HUMANITY AND FREEDOM,
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Stanzas, ii
Toussaint L'Ouverture, 17
The Yankee Girl, 29
To William Lloyd Garrison, 33
To the Memory of Charles B. Storrs, late President o£
Western Reserve College, 36
Song o£ the Free, 40
The Hunters of Men, 43
To Governor M'Duffie 47
Lines, written on reading " Right and Wrong in Boston," . 51
To G. B., Esq., author of the Worcester Democratic Ad-
dress, ... 54
To the Memory of Thomas Shipley 57
The Slave Ships, , ... 61
Stanzas for the Times, 68
Lines, written on reading the spirited and manly Remarks of
Governor Ritner, of Pennsylvania, in his Message of
1836, on the subject of Slavery 72
Hymn, written for the Meeting of the Anti-Slavery Society,
at Chatham Street Chapel, N.Y., held on the 4th of
the Seventh month, 1834, 78
Hymn, written for the Celebration of the Third Anniversary
of British Emancipation, at the Broadway Tabernacle,
N.Y., " First of August," 1837 .80
6 CONTENTS.
rAGB.
Clerical Oppressors, 82
Lines, written on the Adoption of Pinckney's Resolutions,
in the House of Representatives, and the passage of
Callioun's "Bill of Abominations" to a Second Read-
ing, in the Senate of the United States, . . . -85
Lines, on the Death of S. Oliver Torrey, Secretary of the
Boston Young Men's Anti-Slavery Society, ... go
Lines, written on reading the famous " Pastoral Letter " of
the Massachusetts General Association, 1837, . . 93
The Moral Warfare, 99
•Massachusetts, 10 1
The Farewell of a Virginia Slave-mother to her Daughters,
sold into Southern bondage, 106
Address, written for the Opening of " Pennsylvania Hall,"
dedicated to Free Discussion, Virtue, Liberty, and
Independence, on the 15th of the Fifth month, 1838, , no
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.
Palestine, 121
Christ in the Tempest, . 126
The Female Martyr 129
" Knowest thou the Ordinances of Heaven ? " — Job xxxviii.
33. .134
Hymn (from the French of Lamartine) 136
From the French of Lamartine, 140
The Familist's Hymn, 143
The Call of the Christian 148
The Frost Spirit 151
The Worship of Nature, 153
Lines, written in the Common-place Book of a Young Lady, 155
The Watcher, ' . 160
The Cities of the Plain, 166
The Crucifixion 169
The City of Refuge, 172
Isabella of Austria, 174
Lines, written on visiting a singular Cave in Chester, N. H., 180
The Fratricide, 183
CONTENTS. 1
FAGS
Suicide Pond i88
The Fountain 192
Pentucket, 198
The Missionary, 202
Stanzas, suggested by the Letter of a Friend, . . . 213
Lines on a Portrait, 217
Stanzas, . , 220
To the Memory of J. O. Rockwell, 223
The Unquiet Sleeper, 226
Metacom 230
The Murdered Lady, 23S
The Weird Gathering, 242
The Black Fox, 253
The White Mountains, .261
The Indian's Tale, 265
The Spectre Ship, 269
The Spectre Warriors, . 275
The Last Norridgewock 278
The Aerial Omens, 284
Mogg Megone, 291
The Vaudois Teacher, 345
The Prisoner for Debt, 348
WHITTIER'S POEMS.
STANZAS.
" The despotism which our fathers could not bear in their native
country is expiring, and the sword of justice in her reformed hands
has applied its exterminating edge to slavery. Shall the United
States — the free United States, which could not bear the bonds of
a king, cradle the bondage which a king is abolishing i" Shall a
Republic be less free than a Monarchy ? Shall we, in the vigor
and buoyancy of our manhood, be less energetic in righteousness
than a kingdom in its age ? " — Dr. Fallen's Address,
"Genius of America! — Spirit of our free institutions! — where
art thou i" How art thou fallen, O Lucifer ! son of the morning-^
how art thou fallen from Heaven I Hell from beneath is moved for
thee, to meet thee at thy coming)! The kings of the earth cry out to
thee, Aha! Aha! — art THOU become like unto us!" — Speech
of Samuel J. May.
Our fellow-countrymen in chains !
Slaves — in a land of light and law!
Slaves — crouching on the very plains
Where roU'd the storm of Freedom's war!
A groan from Eutaw's haunted wood —
A wail where Camden's martyrs fell —
By every shrine of patriot blood,
From Moultrie's wall and Jasper's well!
WHITTJER'S POEMS.
By storied hill and hallow'd grot,
By mossy wood and marshy glen,
Whence raiig of old the rifle-shot,
And hurrying shout of Marion's men !
The groan of breajcing hearts is there —
The falling lash — the fetter's clank !
Slaves — SLAVES are breathing in that air,
Which old De Kalb and Sumter drank !
What, ho V^our countrymen in chains !
The whip on woman's shrinking flesh !
Our soil reddening with the stains.
Caught from her scourging, warm and fresh !
What ! mothers from their children riven !
What! God's own image bought and sold I
Americans to market driven,
And barter'd as the brute for gold !
Speak ! shall their agony of prayer
Come thrilling to our hearts in vain ?
To us, whose fathers scorn'd to bear
The paltry menace of a chain ;
To us, whose boast is loud and long
Of holy Liberty and Light —
Say, shall these writhing slaves of wrong,
Plead vainly for their plunder'd Right?
WHITTIRR' S POEMS. 13
What ! shall we send, with lavish breath,
Our sympathies across the wave,
Where Manhood, on the field of death,
Strikes for his freedom, or a grave ?
Shall prayers go up, and hymns be sung
For Greece, the Moslem fetter spurning,
And millions hail with pen and tongue
Our light on all her altars burning ?
Shall Belgium feel, and gallant France,
By Vendome's pile and Schoenbrun's wall,
And Poland, gasping on her lance,
The impulse of our cheering call ?
And shall the slave, beneath our eye,
Clank o'er our fields his hateful chain ?
And toss his fetter'd arms on high.
And groan for Freedom's gift, in vain ?
Oh, say, shall Prussia's banner be
A refuge for the stricken slave ?
And shall the Russian serf go free
By Baikal's lake and Neva's wave ?
And shall the wintry-bosom'd Dane
Relax the iron hand of pride.
And bid his bondmen cast the chain,
From fetter'd soul and limb, aside ?
14 WHITTIEK'S POEMS.
Shall every flap of England's flag
Proclaim that all around are free,
From " farthest Ind " to each blue crag
That beetles o'er the Western Sea ?
And shall we scoff at Europe's kings,
When Freedom's fire is dim with us,
And round our country's altar clings
The damning shade of Slavery's curse ?
Go — let us ask of Constantine
To loose his grasp on Poland's throat ;
And beg the lord of Mahmoud's line
To spare the struggling Suliote —
Will not the scorching answer come
From turban 'd Turk, and fiery Russ :
" Go, loose your fetter'd slaves at home,
Then turn, and ask the like of us ! "
Just God ! and shall' we calmly rest,
The Christian's scorn — the Heathen's
mirth —
Content to live the lingering jest
And by-word of a mocking Earth ?
Shall our own glorious land retain
That curse which Europe scorns to bear ?
Shall our own brethren drag the chain
Which not even Russia's menials wear?
WHITTIER'S POEMS,
Up, then, in Freedom's manly part,
From gray-beard eld to fiery youth.
And on the nation's naked heart
Scatter the living coals of Truth !
Up — ^while ye slumber, deeper yet
The shadow of our fame is growing !
(Jp— while ye pause, our sun may set
In bloodi around our altars flowing 1
Oh ! rouse ye, ere the storm comes forth-^
The gather 'd wrath of God and man —
Like that which wasted Egypt's earth.
When hail and fire above it ran.
Hear ye no warnings in the air ?
Feel ye no earthquake underneath ?
Up — up — why will ye slumber where
The slee er only wakes in death ?
Up now for freedom ! — not in strife
Like that your sterner fathers sawv«-
The awful waste of human life —
The glory and the guilt of war :
But break the chain — the yoke remove.
And smite to earth Oppression's rod.
With those mild arms of Trutn and Love,
Made mighty through the living God !
IS
l6 WRITTIEIPS POEMS.
Down let the shrine of Moloch sink,
And leave no traces where it stood ;
Nor longer let its idol drink
His daily cup of human blood :
But rear another altar there,
To Truth and Love and Mercy given,
And Freedom's gift, and Freedom's prayer,
Shall call an answer down from Heaven !
TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE.
TOOSSAINT L'OUVERTURE, the black chieftain of Haytl, wav
a slave on the plantation " de Libertas," belonging to M. Bayoa.
When the rising of the negroes took place, in 1791, Tonssaiin
refused to join them, until he had aided M. Bayou and his family
to escape to Baltimore. The white man had discovered in Tous-
saint many noble qualities, and had instructed him in some of the
first branches of education; and the preservation of his life was
owing to the negro's gratitude for this kindness.
In 1797, Toussaint I'Ouverture was appointed, by the French
government, General-in-Chief of the armies of St. Domingo, and,
as such, signed the convention with General Maitland, for the
evacuation of the island by the British. From this period until
1801, the island, under the government of Toussaint, was happy,
tranquil, and prosperous. The miserable attempt of Napoleon to
re-estab^sh slavery in St. Domingo, although it failed of its in-
tended object, proved fatal to the negro chieftain. Treacherously
seized by Le Clerc, he was hurried on board a vessel by night,
and conveyed to France, where he was confined in a cold subter-
ranean dungeon, at Besanfon, where, in April, 1803, he died, The,
treatment of Toussaint finds a parallel only in the murder of the
Duke d'Enghlen. It was the remark of Godwin, in his Lectures,
that the West India islands, since their first discovery by Colum-
bus, could not boast of a single name which deserves comparison
with that of Toussaint l'Ouverture.
The moon was up. One general smile
Was resting on the Indian isle —
Mild, pure, ethereal ; rock and wood,
In searching sunshine, wild and rude,
l8 WHITTIER'S POEMS.
Rose, mellow'd through the silver gleam,
Soft as the landscape of a dream.
All motionless and dewy wet,
Tree, vine, and flower in shadow met :
The myrtle with its snowy bloom,
Crossing the nightshade's solemn gloom —
The white crecopia's silver rind
Relieved by deeper green behind, —
The orange with its fruit' of gold,^
The lithe paullinia's verdant fold, —
The passion-flower, with symbol holy,
Twining its tendrils long and lowly, —
The rhexias dark, and cassia tall,
And, proudly rising over all,
The kingly palm's imperial stem,
Crown'd with its leafy diadem, —
Star-like, beneath whose sombre shade,
The fiery-wing'd cucullo play'd !
Yes — lovely was thine aspect, then.
Fair island of the Western Sea !
Lavish of beauty, even when
Thy brutes were happier than thy men.
For they, at least, wer&free !
Regardless of thy glorious clime.
Unmindful of thy soil of flowers.
The toiling negro sigh'd, that Time
WHITTIER'S POEMS. i
No faster sped his hours.
For, by the dewy moonlight still,
He fed the weary-turning niill.
Or bent him in the chill morass,
To pluck the long and tangled grass.
And hear above his scar-worn back
The heavy slave- whip's frequent crack ;
While in his heart one evil thought
In solitary madness wrought, — ■
One baleful fire surviving still
The quenching of th' immortal mind —
One sterner passion of his kind,
Which even fetters could not kill, —
The savage hope, to deal, ere long,
A vengeance bitterer than his wrong !
Hark to that cry ! — long, loud and ghrill.
From field and forest, rock and hill,
Thrilling and horrible it rang.
Around, beneath, above ; —
The wild beast from his cavern sprang —
The wild bird from her grove !
Nor fear, nor joy, nor agony
Were mingled in that midnight cry ;
But, like the lion's growl of wrath.
When falls that hunter in his path.
.L
) WHITTIER'S POEMS.
Whose barbed arrow, deeply set,
Is rankling in his bosom yet,
It told of hate, full, deep and strong, —
Of vengeance kindling out of wrong ;
It was as if the crimes of years —
The unrequited toil — the tears —
The shame and hate, which liken well
Earth's garden to the nether Hell,
Had found in Nature's self a tongue.
On which the gather'd horror hung ;
As if from cliff, and stream, and glen.
Burst, on the startled ears of men.
That voice which rises unto God,
Solemn and stern — the cry of blood !
It ceased — and all was still once more.
Save ocean chafing on his shore,
The sighing of the wind between
The broad banana's leaves of green.
Or bough by restless plumage shook.
Or murmuring voice of mountain brook.
Brief was the silence. Once again
Peal'd to the skies that frantic yell —
Glow'don the heavens a fiery stain,
And flashes rose and fell ;
And, painted on the blood-red sky,
i_
wmrr/ER's poems. j ,
Dark, naked arms were toss'd on high;
And, round the white man's lordly hall,
Trode, fierce and free, the brute he made ;
And those who crept along the wall,
And answer'd to his lightest call
With more than spaniel dread — '■
The creatures- of his lawless beck —
Were trampling on his very neck !
And, on the night-air, wild and clear,
Rose woman's shriek of more than fear ;
For bloodied arms were round her thrown,
And dark cheeks press'd against her own I
Then, injured Afric ! — -for the shame
Of thy own daughters, vengeance came
Full on the scornful hearts of those,
Who mock'd thee in thy nameless woes,
And to thy hapless children gave
One choice — pollution, or the grave !
Dark-brow'd Toussaint ! — The storm had risen
Obedient to his master-call —
The Negro's mind had burst its prison —
His hand its iron thrall !
Yet where was he, whose fiery zeal
First taught the trampled heart to feel,
Until Despair itself grew strong,
And Vengeance fed its torch from wrong ?
22 WHITTIER'S POEMS.
Now — when the thunder-bolt is speeding;
Now — when Oppression's heart is bleeding ;
Now — when the latent curse of Time
Is raining down, in fire and blood —
That curse which, through long years of crime,
Has gather'd, drop by drop, its flood —
Why strikes he not, the foremost one.
Where Murder's sternest deeds are done ?
He stood the aged palms beneath.
That shadow'd o'er his humble door,
Listening with half-suspended breath,
To the wild sounds of fear and death —
Toussaint I'Ouverture !
What marvel that his heart beat high !
The blow for freedom had been given ;
And blood had answer'd to the cry
Which earth sent up to heaven !
What marvel, that a fierce delight
Smiled grimly o'er his brow of night.
As groan,, and shout, and bursting flame,
Told where the midnight tempest came,
With blood and fire along its van.
And death behind ! — he was a MAN !
Yes, dark-soul'.d chieftain ! — if the light
Of mild Religion's heavenly ray
,k—
WHITTJER'S POEMS. 23
Unveiled not to thy mental sight ^
The lowlier and the purer way, ^
In which the Holy Sufferer trod,
Meekly amidst the sons of crime,—
That calm reliance upon God
For justice, in His own good time,—
That gentleness, to which belongs
Forgiveness for its many wrongs
Even as the primal martyr, kneeling
For mercy on the evil-dealing, —
Let not the favor'd white man name
Thy stern appeal, with words of blame-
Has he not, with the light of Heaven
Broadly around him, made the same ?
Yea, on a thousand war-fields striven,
And gloried in his open shame ? —
Kneeling amidst his brothers' blood.
To offer mockery unto God,
As if the High and Holy One
Could smile on deeds of murder done! —
As if a human sacrifice
Were purer in His holy eyes.
Though offer'd up by Christian hands,
Than the foul rites of Pagan lands !
24
WHITTIRK'S POEMS.
Sternly, amidst his household band,
His carbine grasp'd within his hand,
The white man stood, prepared and still,
Waiting the shock of madden'd men,
Unchain'd, and fierce as tigers, when
The horn winds through their cavern 'd hill
And one was weeping in his sight, —
The fairest flower of all the isle, —
The bride who seem'd but yesternight
The image of a smile.
And, clinging to her trembling knee,
Look'd up the form of infancy.
With tearful glance in either face,
The secret of its fear to trace.
* Ha — stand, or die! " The white man's eye
His steady musket gleam'd along,
As a tall Negro hasten'd nigh.
With fearless tep and strong.
" What, ho, Toussaint ! " A moment more,
His shadow cross'd the lighted floor.
" Away," he shouted ; " fly with me, —
The white man's bark is on the sea ; —
Her sails must catch the seaward wind.
For sudden vengeance sweeps behind.
Our brethren from their graves have spoken.
The yoke is spurn 'd— the chain is broken ;
WHITTIER'S POEMS.
»S
On all the hills our fires are glowing —
Through all the vales red blood is flowing !
No more the mocking White shall rest
His foot upon the Negro's breast ; ;
No more, at morn or eve, shall drip
The warm blood from the driver's whip : —
Yet, though Toussaint has vengeance sworn
For all the wrongs his race have be rne, —
Though for each drop of Negro blood.
The white man's veins shall pour a flood ;
Not all alone the sense of ill
Around his heart is lingering still,
Nor deeper can the white man feel
The generous warmth of grateful zeal.
Friends of the Negro ! fly with me —
The path is open to the sea :
Away for life ! " — He spoke, and press 'd
The young child to his manly breast.
As, headlong, through the cracking cane,
Down swept the dark iiigurgent train —
Drunken and grim — with shout and yell
Howl'd through the dark, like sounds from
hell!
Far out, in peace, the white man's sail
Sway'd free before the sunrise gale.
Cloud-like that island hung afar,
26 WHITriER'S POEMS.
Along the bright horizon's verge,
O'er which the curse of servile war
Roll'd its red torrent, surge on surge.
And he — the Negro champion — where
In the fierce tumult, struggled he ?
Go trace him by the fiery glare
Of dwellings in the midnight air —
The yells of triurnph and despair —
The streams that crimson to the sea!
Sleep calmly in thy dungeon-tomb,
Beneath Besancon's alien sky,
Dark Haytien ! — for the time shall come, —
Yea, even now is nigh —
When, everywhere, thy name shall be
Redeem'd from colors infamy ;
And men shall learn to speak of thee,
As one of earth's great spirits, born
In servitude, and nursed in scorn,
Casting aside the weary weight
And fetters of its low estate,
In that strong majesty of soul,
Which knows no color, tongue, or clime —
Which still hath spiirn'd the base control
Of tyrants through all time !
Far other hands than mine may wreath
WHITTIER'S POEMS. 27
The laurel round thy brow of death,
And speak thy praise, as one whose word
A thousand fiery spirits stirf'd, —
Who crush 'd his foeman as a worm — >
Whose step on human hearts fell firm : — *
Be mine the better task to find
A tribute for thy lofty mind,
Amidst whose gloomy vengeance shone
Some milder virtues all thine own, —
Some gleams of feeling pure and warm,
Like sunshine on a sky of storm, —
Proofs that the Negro's heart retains
Some nobleness amidst its chains, —
. * The reader may, perhaps, call to mind the beautiful sonnet
of William Wordsworth, addressed to Tousaaint I'Ouverture, dur-
ing his confinement in Frahce,
" Toussaint ! — thou most unhappy man of men I
Whether the whistling rustic tends his plough
Within thy hearing, or thou liest now
Buried in'some deep dungeon's earless den;
Oh, miserable chieftain I — where and when
Wilt thou find patience ? — Yet, di^ not ; do thou
Wear rather in thy bonds a cheerful brow >
Though fallen thyself, never to rise again.
Live and take comfort. Thou hast left behind
Powers that will work for thee ; air, earth, and skies,—
There's not a breathing of the common wind
That will forget thee : thou hast great allies.
Thy friends are exultations, agonies,
And love, and man's unconquerable mind."
28 WHITTIER'S POEMS.
That kindness to t,he wrong'd is never
Without its excellent reward, —
Holy to human-kind, and ever
Acceptable to God.
THE YANKEE GIRL.
She sings by her wheel, at that low cottage-
door,
Which the long evening shadow is stretching
before,
With a music as sweet as the music which
seems
Breathed softly and faint in the ear of our
dreams !
How brilliant and mirthful the light of her
eye.
Like a star glancing out from the blue of the
sky!
And lightly and freely her dark tresses play
O'er a birow and a bosom as lovely as they !
Who comes in his pride to that low cottage-
door —
The haughty and rich to the humble and poor ?
3°
WHITTJEK'S POEMS.
'Tis the great Southern planter — the master ,
who waves
His whip of dominion o'er hundreds of slaves.
" Nay, Ellen — for shame ! Let those Yankee
fools spin,
Who would pass for our slaves with a change
of their skin ;
Let them toil as they will at the loom or the
wheel,
Too stupid for shame, and too vulgar to feel !
But thou art too lovely and precious a gem
To be bound to their burdens and sullied by
them —
For shame, Ellen, shame ! — cast thy bondage
aside,
And away to the South, as my blessing and
pride.
Oh, come where no winter thy footsteps can
wrong, long,
But where flowers are blossoming all the year
Where the shade of the palm tree is over my
home.
And the lemon and orange are white in their
bloom !
WfflTTIER'S POEMS. ,1
Oh, come to my home, where my servants
shall all
Depart at thy bidding and come at thy call ;
They shall heed thee as mistress with trem-
bling and awe^,
And each wish of thy heart shall be felt as a
law."
Oh, could ye have seen her-^that pride of
, our girls —
Arise and cast back , the dark wealth of her
curls.
With a scorn in her eye which the gazer could
feel.
And a glance like the sunshine that flashes
on steel !
" Go back, haughty Southron ! thy treasures
of gold
Are dim with the blood of the hearts thou
hast sold ;
Thy home may be lovely, but round it I hear
The crack of the whip and the footsteps of
fear!
And the sky of thy South may be brighter
than ours,
32 WHITTIEieS POEMS.
And greener thy landscapes, and fairer thy
flowers ;
But, dearer the blast round our mountains
which raves,
Than the sweet summer zephyr which
breathes over slaves 1
Full low at thy bidding thy negroes may kneel,
With the iron of bondage on spirit and heel ;
Yet know that the Yankee girl sooner would
be
In fetters with them, than in freedom with
thee ! "
TO WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON.
Champion of those who groan benea'th
Oppression's iron hand :
In view of penury, hate and death,
I see thee fearless stand.
Still bearing up thy lofty brow,
In the steadfast strength of truth,
In manhood sealing well the vow
And promise of thy youth.
Go on ! — ^for thou hast chosen well ;
On, in the strength of God !
Long as one human heart shall swell
Beneath the tyrant's rod.
Speak in a slumbering nations ear, •
As thou hast ever spoken,
Until the dead in sin shall hear —
The fetter's link be broken I
^4
WHITTTEK'S POEMS.
I love thee with a brother's love,
I feel my pulses thrill,
To rnark thy spirit soar above
The cloud of human ill.
My heart hath leap'd to answer thine,
And echo back thy words,
As leaps the warrior's at the shine
And flash of kindred swords !
They tell me thou art rash and vain —
A searcher after fame-
That thou art striving but to gain
A long enduring name —
That thou hast nerved the Afric's hand,
And steel'd the Afric's heart,
To shake aloft his vengeful brand,
And rend his chain apart.
Have I not known thee well, and read
Thy mighty purpose long !
And watch'd the trials which have made
Thy human spirit strong?
And shall the slanderer's demon breath
Avail with one like me.
To dim the sunshine of my faith
And earnest trust in thee ?
WJIITTIER'S POEMS. , 35
Go on — the dagger's point may glare
Amid thy patliway's gloom —
The fate which sternly threatens there
Is glorious martyrdom /
Then onward with a martyr's zeal —
Press on to thy reward —
The hour when man shall only kneel
Before his Father — God.
TO THE MEMORY OF CHARLES B
STORRS,
LATE PRESIDENT OF WESTERN RESERVE COLLEGE,
" He fell a martyr \o the interests of his colored brethren. For
many months did that mighty man of God apply his discriminating
and gigantic mind to the subject of Slavery and its remedy; and,
when his soul could no longer contain his holy indignation against
the upholders and apologists of this unrighteous system, he gave
vent to his aching heart, and poured forth his clear thoughts and
holy feelings in such deep and soul-entrancing eloquence, that,
other men, whom he would fain in his humble modesfy acknowledge
his superiors, sat at his feet and looked up as children to a parent"
— Correspondent of the "Liberator," i6th ^nth mo. 1833.
Thou hast fallen in thine armor,
Thou martyr of the Lord !
With thy last breath crying — " Onward ! "
And thy hand upon the sword.
The haughty heart derideth,
And the sinful lip reviles,
But the blessing of the perishing
Around thy pillow smiles 1
WHITTIER'S POEMS. 37
When to our cup of trembling
The added drop is given,
And the long suspended thunder
Falls terribly from Heaven, —
When a new and fearful freedom
Is proffer'd of the Lord
To the slow consuming Famine —
The Pestilence and Sword ! —
When the refuges of Falsehood
Shall be swept away in wrath,
And the temple shall be shaken,
With its idol, to the earth, —
Shall not thy words of warning
Be all remember'd then ? '
And thy now unheeded message
Burn in the hearts of men ?
Oppression's hand may scatter
Its nettles on thy tomb,
And even Christian bosoms
Deny thy memory room ;
For lying lips shall torture
Thy mercy into crime,
And the slanderer shall flourish
As the bay-tree for a time.
38 WHITTIER'S POEMS.
But, where the South-wind lingers
On Carolina's pines,
Or, falls the careless sunbeam
Down Georgia's golden mines,-
Where now beneath his burthen
The toiling slave is driven, —
Where now a tyrant's mockery
Is offer'd unto Heaven, —
Where Mammon hath its altars
Wet o'er with human blood,
And Pride and Lust debases
The workmanship of God —
There shall thy praise be spoken,
Redeem'd from Falsehood's ban,
When the fetters shall be broken.
And the slave shall be a man !
Joy to thy spirit, brother !
A thousand hearts are warm —
A thousand kindred bosoms
Are baring to the storm.
What though red-handed Violence
With secret Fraud combine.
The wall of fire is round us —
Our Present Help was thine I
WHITTIER'S POEMS.
Lo — the waking up of nations,
From Slavery's fatal sleep —
The murniur of a Universe —
Deep calling unto Deep !
Joy to thy spirit, brother !
On every wind of Heaven
The onward cheer and summons
Of Freedom's soul is given I
Glory to God for ever !
Beyond the despot's will
The soul of Freedom liveth
Imperishable still.
The words which thou hast utter'd
Are of that soul a part,
And the good seed thou hast scatter'd
Is springing from the heart.
In the evil days before us.
And the trials yet to come — ,
In the shadow of the prison.
Or the cruel martyrdom —
We will think of thee, O brother !
And thy sainted name shall be
In the blessing of the captive,
And the anthem of the free.
33
SONG OF THE FREE.
" Living, I shall assert the right of Free Discussion: dying, I
shall assert it; and, should I leave no other inheritance to my chil-
dren, by the blessing of God I will leave them the inheritance of
FREE PRINCIPLES, and the example of a manly and independent
defence of them." — Daniel Webster.
Pride of New England !
Soul of our fathers !
Shrink we all craven-like,
When the storm gathers ?
What though the tempest be
Over us lowering,
Where's the New Englander
Shamefully cowering?
Graves green and holy
Around us are lying, —
Free were the sleepers all,
Living and dying !
WHITTJBiR'S POEMS.
Back with the Southerner's
Padlocks and scourges !
Go — let him fetter down
Ocean's free surges ! ' .
Go — let him silence
Winds, clouds, and waters — »
Never New England's own ,
Free sons and daughters!
Free as our rivers are
Ocean-ward going — -
Free as the «breezes are
Over us blowing.
Up to our altars, then,
Haste we, and summon
Courage and loveliness,
Manhood and woman !
Deep let our pledges be :
Freedom for ever 1
Truce with Oppression,
Never, oh ! never !
By our own birthright-gift,
Granted of Heaven —
Freedom for heart and lip,
Be the pledge given 1
41
43
WHITTJER'S POEMS.
If we have whisper'd truth,
Whisper no longer ;
Speak as the tempest does,
Sterner and stronger ;
Still be the tones of truth
Louder and firmer,
Startling the haughty South
With the deep murmur :
God and our Charter's right,
Freedom for ever !
Truce with Oppression,
Never, oh ! never !
THE HUNTERS OF MEN*
Have ye heard of our hunting, o'er mountain
and glen,
Through cane-break and forest — the hunting
of men ?
The lords of our land to this hunting have
gone,
As the fox-hunter follows the sound of the
horn :
Hark ! — the cheer and the hallo !~the crack
of the whip,
And the yell of the hound as he fastens his
grip!
All blithe are our hunters, and noble their
match —
Though hundreds are caught, there are mil-
lions to catch :
* Written on reading the report of the proceedings of the
American Colonization Society, at its annual meeting in 1834.
44
WHITTIER'S POES^.
So speed to their hunting, o'er mountain and
glen,
Through cane-break and forest — the hunting
of men ! * [ride
Gay luck to our hunters ! — how nobly they
In the glow of their zeal, and the strength of
"their pride ! —
The Priest with his cassock flung back on the
wind,
Just screening the politic Statesman behind —
The saint and the sinner, with cursing and
prayer —
The drunk and the sober, ride merrily there.
And woman — kind woman — ^wife, widow, and
maid —
For the good of the hunted, is lending her aid-:
Her foot's in the stirrup — her hand on the
rein —
How blithely she rides to the hunting of
men!
Oh ! goodly and grand is our hunting to see,
In this " land of the brave and this home of
the free."
Priest, warrior, and statesman, from Georgia
to Maine,
All mounting the saddle — all grasping the
rein —
WHITTIEK'S POEMS. 45
Right merrily hunting the black man, whose
sin
Is the curl of his hair and the hue of his skin !
Wo, now, to the hunted who turns him at
bay !
Will our hunters be turn'd from their purpose
and prey ?
Will their hearts fail within them ? — their
nerves tremble, when
All roughly they ride to the hunting of men ?
Ho ! — ^ALMS for our hunters ! all weary and
faint
Wax the curse of the sinner and prayer of the
saint.
The horn is wound faintly — the echoes are
still
Over cane-brake and river, and forest and hill.
Haste — alms for our hunters ! the hunted
once more
Have turn'd from their flight with their backs
to the shore :
What right have they here in the home of the
white,
Shadow'd o'er by our banner of Freedom and'
Right?
^g. WHITTIER'S POEMS.
Ho ! — alms for the hunters ! or never again
Will they ride in their pomp to the hunting
of men I
Alms — alms for our hunters ! why will ye
delay,
When their pride and their glory are melting
away ?
The parson has turn'd ; for, on charge of his
own.
Who goeth a warfare, or hunting, alone ?
The politic statesman looks back with a
sigh
There is doubt in his heart— there is fear in
his eye.
Oh ! haste, lest that doubting and fear shall
prevail.
And the head of his steed take the place of
the tail.
Oh ! haste, ere he leave us ! for who will ride
then.
For pleasure or gain, to the hunting of men ?
TO GOV. M'DUFFIE.
"The patriarchal institution of slavery," — "the corner-stone
of our republican edifice." — Gov. lifDuffie.
King of Carolina- — hail !
Last champion of Oppression's battle !
Lord of rice-tierce and cotton-bale !
Of sugar-box and human cattle !
Around thy temples, green and dark,
Thy own tobacco- wreath reposes ;
Thyself, a brother Patriarch
Of Isaac, Abraham, and Moses !
Why not ? — Their household rule is thine ;
Like theirs, thy bondmen feel its rigor ;
And thine, perchance, as concubine.
Some swarthy counterpart of Hagar.
Why not ? — Like patriarchs of old,
The priesthood is thy chosen station ;
Like them thou payest thy rites to gold —
An Aaron's calf of Nullification.
48 WHITTIER'S POEMS.
All fair and softly ! — Must we, then,
From Ruin's open jaws to save us,
Upon our own free working men
Confer a master's special favors ?
Whips for the back — chains for the heels —
Hooks for the nostrils of Democracy,
Before it spurns as well as feels
The riding of the Aristocracy !
Ho ! — -fishermen of Marblehead !
Ho ! — Lynn cordwainers, leave your
leather,
And wear the yoke in kindness made,
And clank your needful chains together!
Let Lowell mills their thousands yield,
Down let the rough Vermonter hasten,
Down from the workshop and the field,
And thank us for each chain we fasten.
Slaves in the rugged Yankee land I .■
I tell thee, Carolinian, never !
Our rocky hills and iron strand
Are free, and shall be free forever.
The surf shall wear that strand away,
Our granite hills in dust shall moulder.
Ere Slavery's hateful yoke shall lay.
Unbroken, on a Yankee's shoulder 1
WHITTIER'S POEMS.
49
No, George M'Dufifie! — keep thy words
For the mail plunderers of thy city,
Whose robber-right is in their swords ;
For recreant Priest and Lynch-Committee !
Go, point thee to thy cannon's mouth,
And swear its brazen lips are better,
To guard " the interests of the South,"
Than parchment scroll, or Charter's letter *
We fear not. Streams which brawls most loud
Along their course, are oftenest shallow ;
And loudest to a doubting crowd
The coward publishes his valor.
Thy courage has at least been shown
In many a bloodless Southern quarrel,
Facing, with hartshorn and cologne,
The Georgian's harmless pistol-barreLt
No, Southron not in Yankee land
Will threats, like thine, a fear awaken ;
The men, who on their charter stand
For truth and right, may not be shaken.
* See Speech of Gov. M'D. to an artillery company in Charles-
ton, S. C.
t Most of our readers will recollect the " chivalrous " affair be-
tween M'Duffie and Col. Cummings, of Georgia, some years ago,
in which the parties fortified themselves with spirits of hartshorn
and tau de Cologne.
5°
WHITTIER'' S POEMS.
Still shall that truth assail thine ear ;
Each breeze, from Northern mountains
blowing,
The tones of Liberty shall bear —
God's "free incendiaries " going!
We give thee joy ! — thy name is heard
With reverence on the Neva's borders ;
And " turban'd Turk," and Poland's load,
And Metternich are thy applauders.
Go— if thou lov'st such fame, and share
The mad Ephesian's base example —
The holy bonds of Union tear,
And clap the torch to Freedom's temple I
Do this — Heaven's frown thy country's curse,
Guilt's fiery torture ever burning —
The quenchless thirst of Tantalus,
And Ixion's wheel forever turning —
A name, for which " the pain'dest fiend
Below " his own would barter never, —
These shall be thine unto the end — ■
Thy damning heritage forever I
LINES
Written on reading " Wright and Wrong I^f Boston ; " contain-
ing an account of the meeting of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery
Society, and the mob which followed, on the 2ist of the loth
month, 1835.
Unshrinking from the storm,
Well have ye borne your part,
With woman's fragile form,
But more than manhood's heart!
Faithful to Freedom, when
Its name was held accursed —
Faithful, midst ruffian men,
Unto your holy trust.
Oh — ^steadfast in the Truth !
Not for yourselves alone.
Matron and gentle youth.
Your lofty zeal was shown:
For the bondman of all climes —
For Freedom's last abode —
For the hope of future times —
For the birthright gift of God —
52 WHITTIEIPS POEMS.
For scorn 'd and broken laws —
For honor and the right —
For the staked and peril'd cause
Of liberty and light —
For the holy eyes above
On a world of evil cast —
For the children of your love —
For "the mothers of the past !
Worthy of them are ye —
The Pilgrim wives who dared
The waste and unknown sea,
And the hunter's perils shared.
Worthy of her * whose mind,
Triumphant over all,
Ruler nor priest could bind,
Nor banishment appal.
Worthy of her t who died
Martyr of Freedom, where
Your " Commons' " verdant pride,
Opens to sun and air :
* Mrs. Hutchinson, who was banished frcm the Massachusetts
Colony, as the easiest method of confuting her doctrines.
t Mary Dyer, the Quaker Martyr, who was hanged in Boston, in
1659, for worshipping God according to the dictates of her con-
science.
WHJTTIER'S POEMS, , "
Upheld at that dread hour
By strength which could not fail ;
Before whose holy power
Bigot and priest turn'd pale.
God give ye strength to run,
Unawed by Earth or Hell,
The race ye have begun
So gloriously and well,
Until the trumpet-call
Of Freedom has gone forth;
With joy and life to all
The bondmen of the earth 1
Until IMMORTAL MIND
Unshackled walks abroad,
And chains no longer bind
, The itnage of our God.
Until no captive one
Murmurs on land or wave ;
And, in his course, the sun
Looks down upon no slave I
TO G. B., Esq.
AUTHOR OF THE WORCESTER DEMOCRATIC ADDRESS.
Friend of the poor ! — go on —
Speak for the Truth and Right ! ,
Onward — though hate and scorn
Gloom round thee as the nia:ht.
Speak — at each word of thine,
Some ancient Fraud is riven,
And through its rents of ruin shine
The sunbeams and the heaven !
Speak — ^for thy voice will be
Welcome in each abode
Where manhood's heart and knee
Are bended but to God-;
Where honest bosoms hold
Their holy birthright well ;
Where Freedom spurns at Mammon's gold ;
Where Man is not to sell !
WHITTIEWS rOEMS.
Speak — for the poor man's cause —
For Labor's just reward —
For violated law
Of nature and of God !
Speak- — let the Debtor hear
Within his living grave !
Speak — THUNDER in Oppression's ear,
Deliverance to the slave I
Ay, speak — while there is time,
For «//a freeman's claim, —
Ere thought becomes a crime,
And Freedom but a name !
While yet the Tongue and Pen
And Press are unforbid.
And we dare to feel and act as men-
Speak—as our fathers did !
The land we love ere long
Shall kindle at thy call ;
Falsehood and charter d Wrong,
And legal Robbery, fall:
The proud shall not combine-^
The secret council cease —
And underneath his sheltering vine
Shall Labor dwell in peace !
55
; -J WRITTTEH'S POEMS.
Old Massachusetts yet
Retains her earliest fires ;
Still on her hills are set
The altars of her sires ;
Her " fierce Democracie "
Has yet its strength unshorn,
And pamper'd Power ere long shall see
Its Gaza-gates uptorn.
Perish shall all which takes
From Labor's board and can !
Perish shall all which makes
A Spaniel of the Man !
With freshen'd courage, then,
On to the glorious end —
Ever the same as thou has been — •
The poor man's fastest friend 1
TO THE MEMORY OF THOMAS
SHIPLEY,
President of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, who died on the
17th o£ the gth month, 1836, a devoted Christian and Philan-
thropist.
Gone to thy Heavenly Father's rest!
The flowers of Eden round thee blowing !
And on thine ear the murmurs blest
Of Shiloah's waters softly flowing !
Beneath that Tree of Life which gives
To all the earth its healing leaves !
In the white robe of angels clad !
And wandering by that sacred river,
Whose streams of holiness make glad
The city of our God for ever !
Gentlest of spirits ! — not for thee
Our tears are shed — our sighs are given :
Why mourn to know thou art a free
Partaker of the joys of Heaven ?
Finish'd thy work, and kept thy faith
In Christian firmness unto death :
58 WHITTIER'S POEMS.
And beauHful as sky and earth,
When Autumn's sun is downward eoinsr
The blessed memory of thy worth
Around thy place of slumber glowing !
But woe for us ! who linger still
With feebler strength and hearts less lowly,
And minds less steadfast to the will
Of Him whose every work is holy.
For not like thine, is crucified
The spirit of our human pride :
And at the bondman's tale of woe,
And for the outcast and forsaken^
Not warm like thine, but cold and slow,
Our weaker sympathies awaken.
Darkly upon our struggling way
The storm of human hate is sweeping ;
Hunted and branded, and a prey.
Our watch amidst4he darkness keeping !
Oh ! for that hidden strength which can
Nerve unto death the inner man !
Oh! for thy spirit, tried and true.
And constant in the hour of trial,
•■epared to suffer, or to do,
In meekness and in self-denial.
WHITTIER'S POEMS. S9
Oh ! for that spirit, meek and mild,
Derided, spurn'd, yet uncomplaining —
By man deserted and reviled,
Vet faithful to its trust remaining.
Still prompt and resolute to save
From scourge and chain the hunted slave !
Unwavering in the Truth's defence,
Even where the fires of Hate are burning,
Th' unquailing eye of innocence
Alone upon th' oppressor turning !
O loved of thousands to thy grave.
Sorrowing of heart, thy brethren bore thee J
The poor man and the rescued slave
Wept as the broken earth closed o'er thee —
And grateful tears like summer rain,
Quicken'd its dying grass again !
And there, as to some pilgrim-shrine.
Shall come the outcast and the lowly,
Of gentle deeds and words of thine
Recalling memories sweet and holy!
Oh ! for the death the righteous die !
An end, like Autumn's day declining,
On human hearts, as on the sky,
With holier, tenderer beauty shining;
As to the parting soul were given
6o WHITTIER'S POEMS.
The radiance of an opening Heaven !
As if that pure and blessed light,
From off th' Eternal altar flowing,
Were bathing, in its upward flight,
The spirit to its worship going I
THE SLAVE SHIPS.
-That fatal, that perfidious bark,
Built i' the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark."
Milton's Lycidas.
The French ship Le Rodeur, with a crew of twenty-two men ^~A
with one hundred and sixty negro slaves, sailed from Bonny <n
Africa, April, 1819. On approaching the line, a terrible malatly
broke out — an obstinate disease of the eyes — contagious, and alto-
gether beyond the resources of medicine. It was aggravated by
the scarcity of water among the slaves (only half a wine-glass per
day being allowed to an individual), and by the extreme impurity
of the air in whicn they breathed. By the advice of the physician,
they were brought upon deck occasionally ; but some of the poor
wretches, locking themselves in each other's arms leaped over-
board, in the hope, which so universally prevails among them, of
being swiftly transported to their own homes in Africa. To check
this, the captain ordered several, who were stopped in the attempt,
to be shot, or hanged, before their companions. The disease ex-
tended to the crew ; and one after another were smitten with it,
until only one remained unaffected. Yet even this dreadful condi-
tion did not preclude calculation : to save the expense of support-
ing slaves rendered unsalable, and to obtain grounds for a claim
against the underwriters, thirty-six of the negroes, having ietome blind
were thrown into the sea and drowned !
In the midst of their dreadful fears lest the solitary individual,
whose sight remained unaffected, should also be seized with the
62 WHITTIEIVS POEMS.
malady, a sail was discovered. It was the Spanish slaver Leon.
The same disease had been there ; and horrible to tell, all the crew
liad become blind I Unable to assist each other, the vessels parted
The Spanish ship has never since been heard of. The Rodeur
reached Guadaloupe on the 2ist of June ; the only man who had
escaped the disease, and had thus been enabled to steer the slaver
into port, caught it in three days after its arrival. — Speech of M,
Benjamin Constant, in the French Chamber of Deputies, June 17
1820.
" All ready ? " cried the captain ;
" Ay, ay ! " the seamen said ;
"Heave up the worthless lubbers —
The dying and the dead."
Up from the slave-ship's prison
Fierce, bearded heads were thrust-
" Now let the sharks look to it —
Toss up the dead ones first ! "
Corpse after corpse came up, —
Death had been busy there ;
Where every blow is mercy,
Why should the Spoiler spare ?
Corpse after corpse they cast
Sullenly from the ship.
Yet bloody with the traces
Of fetter-link and whip.
Gloomily stood the captain.
WHITTIER'S POEMS. 63
With his arms upon his breast,
With his cold brow sternly knotted,
And his iron lip compress'd.
" Are all the dead dogs over ? "
Growl'd through that matted Up—
" The blind ones are no better,
Let's lighten the good ship."
Hark ! from the ship's dark bosom,
' The very SQunds of Hell !
The ringing clank of iron —
The maniac's short, sharp yell ! —
The hoarse, low curse, throat-stifled— «
The starving infant's moan —
The horror of a breaking heart
Pour'd through a mother's groan !
Up from that loathsome prison
The stricken blind ones came :
Below, had all been darkness —
Above, was still the same.
Yet the holy breath of Heaven
Was sweetly breathing there.
And the heated brow of fever
Cool'd in the soft sea air.
" Overboard with them, shipmates ! "
Cutlass and dirk were pHed ;
64 WHITTIEK'S POEMS.
Fetter'd and blind, one after one,
Plunged down the vessel's side.
The sabre smote above —
Beneath, the lean shark lay.
Waiting with wide and bloody jaw
His quick and human prey.
God of the Earth ! what cries
Rang upward unto Thee?
Voices of agony and blood,
From ship-deck and from sea.
The last dull plunge was heard —
The last wave caught its stain —
And the unsated shark look'd up
For human hearts in vain.
Red glow'd the Western waters —
The setting sun was there,
Scattering alike on wave and cloud
His fiery mesh of hair.
Amidst a group in blindness,
A solitary eye
Gazed, from the burden'd slaver's deck,
Into that burning sky.
" A storm," spoke out the gazer,
" Is gathering and at hand —
WHITTIER'S POEMS. 65
Curse on't — I'd give my other eye
For one firm rood of land."
And then he laugh 'd — but only
His echo'd laugh replied —
For the blinded and the suffering
Alone were at his side.
Night settled on the waters, .
And on a stormy heaven,
While fiercely on that lone ship's track
The thunder-gust was driven.
" A sail ! — thank God, a sail ! "
And, as the helmsman spoke,
Up through the stormy murmur,
A shout of gladness broke.
Down came the stranger vessel
Unheeding on her way ,
So near, that on the slaver's deck,
Fell off her driven spray.
" Ho ! for the love of mercy —
We're perishing and blind ! "
A wail of utter agony
Came back upon the wind :
" Help us ! for we are stricken
With blindness every one ;
66 WHITTIER'S POEMS.
Ten days we've floated fearfully,
Unnoting star or sun.
Our ship's the slaver Leon—
We've but a score on board —
Our slaves are all gone over —
Help — for the love of God ! "
On livid brows of agony
The broad red lightning shone-
But the roar of wind and thunder
Stifled the answering groan.
Wail'd from the broken waters
A last despairing cry,
As, kindling in the stormy light,
The stranger ship went by.
In the sunny Guadaloupe
A dark hull'd vessel lay —
With a crew who noted never
The night-fall or the day.
The blossom of the orange
Was white by every stream,
And tropic leaf, and flower, and bird
Were in the warm sun-beam.
And the sky was bright as ever
And the moonlight slept as well,
WHITTIER'S POEMS. d'j
On the palm-trees by the hill-side,
And the streamlet of the dell ;
And the glances of the Creole
Were still as archly deep,
And her smiles as full as ever
Of passion and of sleep.
But vain were bird and blossom,
The green earth and the sky,
And the smile of human faces.
To the ever darken'd eye ;
For, amidst a world of beauty,
The slaver went abroad.
With his ghastly visage written
By the awful curse of God 1
STANZAS FOR THE TIMES*
Is this the land our fathers loved,
The freedom which they toil'd to win ?
Is this the soil whereon they moved ?
■ Are these the graves they slumber in ?
Are we the sons by whom are borne
The mantles which the dead have worn ?
And shall we crouch above these graves,
With craven soul and fetter'd lip ?
Yoke in with mark'd and branded slaves,
And tremble at the driver's whip ?
Bend to the earth our pliant knees,
And speak — but as our masters please ?
* The " Times " alluded to, were those evil times of the pro-
slavery meeting in Faneuil Hall for the suppression of Freedom
of Speech, lest it should endanger the foundations of commercial
society. In view of the outrages which a careful-observation of
the times had enabled him to foresee must spring from the false
witness borne against the abolitionists by the speakers at that
meeting, well might Garrison say of them, " Sir, I consider the
man who fires a city, guiltless in comparison."
WHITTIER'S POEMS. 6 )
Shall outraged Nature cease to feel ?
Shall Mercy''s tears no longer flow ?
Shall ruffian threats of cord and steel —
The dungeon's gloom — th' assassin's blow,
Turn back the spirit roused to save
The Truth — our Country — and the Slave?
Of human skulls that shrine was made,
Round which the priests of Mexico '
Before their loathsome idol pray'd —
Is Freedom's altar fashion'd so ?
And must we yield to Freedom's God,
As offering meet, the negro's blood ?
Shall tongues be mute, when deeds are
wrought
Which well might shame extremest Hell ?
Shall freemen lock th' indignant thought?
Shall Mercy's bosom cease to swell ?
Shall Honor bleed?— Shall Truth succumb?
Shall pen, and press, and soul be dumb ?
No— by each spot of haunted ground,
Where Freedom weeps her children's fall —
By Plymouth's rock — and Bunker's mound — ■
By Griswold's stain'd and shatter'd wall —
By Warren's ghost — by Langdon's shade —
By all the memories of our dead !
70 WHITTIEIVS POEMS.
By their enlarging souls, which burst
The bands and fetters round them set- —
By the free Pilgrim spirit nursed
Within our inmost bosoms, yet, —
By all above — around — below —
Be ours th' indignant answer — NO !
No — guided by our country's laws,
For truth, and right, and suffering man,
Be ours to strive in Freedom's cause.
As Christians may — as freemen can !
Still pouring on unwilling ears i
That truth oppression only fears.
What ! shall we guard our neighbor still,
While woman shrieks beneath his rod,
And while he tramples down at will
The image of a common God !
Shall watch and ward be round him set,
Of Northern nerve and bayonet ?
And shall we know and share with him
The danger and the open shame ?
And see our Freedom's light grow dim.
Which should have fiU'd the world with
flame ?
And, writhing, feel where'er we turn,
A world's reproach around us burn ?
WHITTIEI?S POEMS. 71
Is't not enough that this is borne ?
And a&ks our haughty neighbor more?
Must fetters which his slaves have worn,
Clank round the Yankee farmer's door ?
Must he be told, beside his plough,
What he' must speak, and when, and how ?
Must he be told his freedom stands
On slavery's dark foundations strong —
On breaking hearts and fetter'd hands.
On robbery, and crime, and wrong ?
That all his fathers taught in vain —
That Freedom's emblem is the chain ?
Its life — its soul, from slavery drawn ?
False — foul — profane ! Go — teach as well
Of holy Truth from Falsehood born !
Of Heaven refresh'd by airs from Hell !
Of Virtue nursed by open Vice !
Of Demons planting Paradise !
Rail on, then, " brethren of the South " —
Ye shall not hear the truth the less —
No seal is on the Yankee's mouth !
No fetter on the Yankee's press !
From our Green Mountains to the Sea,
One voice shall thunder — we are free !
LINES,
Written on reading the spirited and manly remarks o£ Governor
RiTNER, * of Pennsylvania, in his Message of 1836, on the sub-
ject of Slavery.
Thank God for the token ! — one lip is still
free —
1
One spirit untrammel'd — unbending one
knee !
Like the oak of the mountain, deep-rooted and
firm,
Erect, when the multitude bends to the storm ;
When traitors to Freedom, and Honor, and
. God,
Are bow'd at an Idol polluted with blood ;
When the recreant North has forgotten her
trust.
And the lip of her honor is low in the dust, —
"* The fact greatly redounds to the credit, and will serve to per-
petuate the memory, of this independent farmer and highminded
statesman, that he alone, of all the Governors in the Union, has
met the insulting demands and scare-crow menaces of the South,
in a manner becoming a freeman and a hater of slavery, in his
Message to the Legislature of Pennsylvania.
WHITTIER'S POBjua. 73
Thank God, that one arm from the shackle
has broken 1
Thank God, that one man, as z^ freeman, has
spoken !
O'er thy crags, Alleghany, a blast has been
blown !
Down thy tide, Susquehanna, the murmur has
gone !
To the land of the South — of the Charter and
Chain —
Of Liberty sweeten'd with Slavery's pain ;
Where the cant of Democracy dwells on the
lips '
Of the forgers of fetters, and wielders of whips !
Where " chivalric " honor means really no
more
Than scourging of women, and robbing the
poor!
Where the Moloch of Slavery sitteth on high,
And the words which he utters are — Worship,
OR DIE !
Right onward, oh, speed it I Wherever the
blood
Of the wrong' d and the guiltless is crying to
God ;
74 WHITTIER'S POEMS.
Wherever a slave in his fetters is pining ;
Wherever the lash of the driver is twining
Wherever from kindred, torn rudely apart,
Comes the sorrowful wail of the broken of
' heart ;
Wherever the shackles of tyranny bind,
In silence and darkness, the Godgiven mind ;
There, God speed it onward ! — its truth will
be felt—
The bonds shall be loosen'd — the iron shall
melt!
And oh, will the land where the free soul of
Penn
Still lingers and breathes over mountain and
glen-
Will the land where a Benezet's spirit went
forth
To the peel'd, and the meted, and outcast of
earth — [first
Where the words of the Charter of Liberty
From the soul of the sage and the patriot
burst —
Where first, for the wrong'd and the weak of
their kind,
The Christian and Statesman their efforts
combin'd —
WHITTIEK'S POEMS.
75
Will that land of the free and the good wear
a chain ?
Will the call to the rescue of Freedom be vain ?
No, Ritner! — her " Friends," at thy warning
, shall stand
Erect for the truth, like their ancestral band ;
Forgetting the feuds and the strife of past
time,
Counting coldness injustice, and silence a
, crime ;
Turning back from the cavil of creeds, to unite
Once again for the poor in defence of the
Right;
Breasting calmly, but firmly, the full tide of
Wrong,
Overwhelm'd, but not borne on its surges
along ;
Unappal'd by the danger, the shame, and the
pain.
And counting each trial for Truth as their
gain !
And that bold-hearted yeomanry, honest and
true,
Who, haters of fraud, give to labor its due ;
76 WHITTIER'S POEMS.
Whose fathers, of old, sang in concert with
thine,
On the banks of Swetara:, the songs of the
Rhine —
The pure German pilgrims, who first dared to
brave
The scorn of the proud in the cause of the
slave :* —
Will the sons of such men yield the lords of
the South
One brow for the brand — ^for the- padlock one
mouth ?
They cater to tyrants? — They rivet the chain,
Which their fathers smote off, on the negro
again ?
No, NEVER ! — one voice, like the sound in
the cloud.
When the roar of the storm waxes loud and
more loud.
Wherever the foot of the freeman hath press'd
From the Delaware's marge to the Lake of the
West,
On the South-going breezes shall deepen and
grow
* It is a remarkable f aet, that the first testimony of a religious body
against negro slavery, was that of a Society of German " Friends "
in Pennsylvania.
WHJTTIER'S POEMS.
77
Till the land it sweeps over shall tremble
below !
The voice of a people — uprisen — awake —
Pennsylvania's watchword, with Freedom at
stake,
Thrilling up from each valley, flung down
from each height,
" Our Country and Liberty I — God for the
Right ! "
HYMN,
Written for the meeting of the Anti-Slavery Society, at Chatham
, Street Chapel, N. Y., held on the 4th of the 7th month, 1834.
O Thou, whose presence went before
Our fathers in their weary way,
As with Thy chosen moved of yore
The fire by night — the cloud by day
When from each temple of the free,
A nation's song ascends to Heaven,
Most Holy*Father ! unto Thee
May not our humble prayer be given ?
Thy children all — though hue and form
Are varied in thine own good will — r
With Thy own holy breathings warm,
And fashion'd in thine image still.
We thank Thee, Father ! — hill and plain
Around us wave their fruits once more
And cluster'd vine, and blossom'd grain,
Are bending round each cottage door.
WHITTIEK'S POEMS.
79
And peace is here ; and hope and love
Are round us as a mantle thrown,
And unto Thee, supreme above,
The knee of prayer is bow'd alone.
But oh, for those this day can bring,
"As unto us, no joyful -thrill —
For those who, under freedom's wing,
Are bound in slavery's fetters still :
For those to whom Thy living word
Of light and love is never given —
For those whose ears have never heard
The promise and the hope of heaven !
For broken heart, and clouded mind.
Whereon no human mercies fall —
Oh, be Thy gracious love inclined,
Who, as a father, pitiest all I
And grant, O Father ! that the time
Of Earth's deliverance may be near.
When every land, and tongue, and clime.
The message of thy love shall hear —
When, smitten as with fire from Heaven,
The captive's chain shall sink in dust,
And to his fetter'd soul be given
The glorious freedom of the just I
HYMN,
Written for the celebration of the Third Anniversary of British
Emancipation, at the Broadway Tabernacle, N. Y., " First o£
August," 1837.
O HOLY Father!— just and true
Are all Thy works and words and ways,
And unto Thee alone are due
Thanksgiving and eternal praise !
As children of thy gracious care,
We veil the eye — we bend the knee.
With broken words of praisa and prayer,
Father and God, we come to Thee.
For Thou hast heard, O God of right,
The sighing of the Island slave ;
And stretched for him the arm of might,
Not shortened that it could not save.
The laborer sits beneath his vine.
The shackled soul and hand are free —
Thanksgiving ! — for the work is Thine !
Praise I — for the blessing is of Thee 1
tVmTTIER'S POEMS. 8l
And oh, we feel Thy presence here —
Thy awful arm in judgment bare!
Thine eye hath seen the bondman's tear —
Thine ear hath heard the bondman's
prayer !
Praise! — for the pride of man is low,
The counsels of the wise are nought,
The fountains of repentance flow ;
What hath our God in mercy wrought.''
Speed on thy work, Lord God of Hosts
And when the bondman's chain is riven,
And swells from all our guilty coasts
The anthem of the free to Heaven,
Oh, not to those, whom Thou hast led,
As with Thy cloud and fire before,
But unto thee, in fear and dread,
Be praise and glory evermore !
CLERICAL OPPRESSORS.
In the Report of the celebrated pro-slavery meeting in Charles
ton, S. C, on the 4th of the 9th month, 1835, published in the
Courier of that city, it is stated, " The CLERGY of all denomina-
tions attended in a body, lending their sanction TO the pro-
ceedings, and adding by their presence to the impressive character
of the scene I "
Just God !— and these are they
Who minister at Thine altar, God of Right !
Men who their hands with prayer and blessing
lay
On Israel's Ark of light!
What ! preach and kidnap men ?
Give thanks — and rob Thy own afflicted poor ?
Talk of thy glorious liberty, and then
Bolt hard the captive's door ?
What ! servants of Thy own
Merciful Son, who came to seek and save
The homeless and the outcast, — fettering down
The task'd and plunder'd slave !
WHITTIEICS POEMS. 83
Pilate and Herod, friends !
Chief priests and rulers, as of old, combine !
Just God and holy ! is that church which lends
Strength to the spoiler, Thine ?
Paid hypocrites, who turn
Judgment aside, and rob the Holy Book
Of those high words of truth which search and
burn
In warning and rebuke.
Feed fat, ye locusts, feed !
And, in your tassel'd pulpits, thank the Lord
That, frorn the toiling bondman's utter need.
Ye pile your own full board.
How long, O Lord ! how long
Shall such a Priesthood barter truth away,
And, in Thy name, for robbery and wrong
At Thy own altars pray ?
Is not thy Hand stretch'd forth
Visibly in the heavens, to awe and smite ?
Shall not the living God of all the earth,
And heaven above, do right ?
84 WHITTIEWS POEMS.
Woe, then, to all who grind
Their brethren of a Common Father down .
To all who plunder from th' immortal mind
Its bright and glorious crown !
Woe to the Priesthood ! woe
To those whose hire is with the price of blood-
Perverting, darkening, chaiiging as they go,
The searching truths of God !
Their glory and their might
Shall perish; and their very names shall be
Vile before all the people, in the light
Of A world's liberty,
Oh ! speed the rnoment on
When Wrong shall cease — and Liberty, and
Love,
And Truth, and Right, throughout the earth
be known
As in their home above.
LINES,
Written on the adoption of Pickney's Resolutions, in the House
of Representatives, and the passage of Callioun's " Bill Ot
Abominations " to a second reading, in the Senate of the
United States.
Now, by our fathers' ashes! where's the spirit
Of the true-hearted and the unshackled
gone ?
Sons of old freemen, do we but inherit
Their names alone ?
Is the old Pilgrim spirit quench'd within us ?
Stoops the proud manhood of our souls so
low, [us
That Mammon's lure or Party's wile can win
To silence now ?
No. When our land to ruin's brink is verg-
ing,
In God's name, let us speak while there is
time! ^ [ing,
Now, when the padlocks for our lips are forg-
SlLENCE IS CRIME I
86 WmTTIER'S POEMS.
What! shall we henceforth humbly ask as
favors
Rights all our own ? In madness shall we
barter,
For treacherous peace, the freedom Nature
gave us,
God and our charter ?
Here shall the statesman seek the free to fet-
ter ?
Here Lynch law light its horrid fires on
high ?
And, in the church, their proud and skill'd
abettor,
Make truth a He ?
Torture the pages of the hallow'd Bible,
To sanction crime, and robbery, and blood?
And, in Oppression's hateful service, libel
Both man and God ?
Shall our New England stand erect no longer,
But stoop in chains upon her downward
way.
Thicker to gather on her limbs and stronger
Day after day ?
"'lo^U
WHITTIEK'S POEMS. 87
Oh, no, ; methiqks from all her wild, green
mountains —
From- valleys where her slumbering fathers
lie—
From her blue rivers and her welling foun-
tains,
And clear, cold sky —
From her rough coast, and isles, which hun-
gry Pcean
Gnaws with his surges — ^from the fisher's
skiff.
With white sail swaying to the billows' mo-
tion
Round rock and cliff— >
From the free fire-side of her unbought far-
mer —
From her free laborer at his loom and
wheel —
From the brown smith-shop, where, beneath
the hammer,
Rings the red steel —
From each and all, if God hath not forsaken
Our land', and left us to an evil choice,
Loud as the summer thunderbolt shall waken
A people's voice I
88 WHITTJER'S POEMS.
Startling and stern ! the Northern winds shall
bear it
Over Potomac's to St. Mary's wave ;
And buried Freedom shall awake to hear it
Within her grave.
Oh, let that voice go forth ! The bondman
sighing
By Santee's wave, in Mississippi's cane.
Shall feel the hope, within his bosom dying,
Revive again.
Let it go forth ! The millions who are gazing
Sadly upon us from afar, shall smile.
And unto God devout thanksgiving raising.
Bless us the while.
Oh, for your ancient freedom, pure and holy,
For the deliverance of a groaning earth,
For the wrong'd captive, bleeding, crush'd
and lowly,
Let it go forth !
Sons of the best of fathers ! will ye falter
With all they left ye peril'd arid at stake?
Ho ! once again on freedom's holy altar
The fire awake I
WHITTIER'S POEMS. 89
Prayer-strengthen'd for the trial, come to-
gether,
Put on the harness for the moral fight,
And, with the blessing of your heavenly
Father,
Maintain the right J
LINES.
On the death of S. Oliver Torrey, Secretary of the Boston
Young Men's Anti-Slavery Society..
Gone before us, O our brother,
To the spirit-land !
Vainly look we for another
In thy place to stand.
Who shall offer youth slnd beauty
On the wasting shrine
Of a stern and lofty duty,
With a faith like thine .?
Oh ! thy gentle smile of greeting
Who again shall see ?
Who, amidst' the solemn meeting,
Gaze again on thee ? —
Who, when peril gathers o'er us,
Wear so calm a brow ?
Who, with evil men before us,
So serene as thou ?
WHITTIEK'S POEMS. 95
Early hath the spoiler found thee,
Brother of our love !
Autumn's faded earth around thee,
And its storms above !
■ Evermore that turf lie lightly,
And, with future showers,
O'er thy slumbers fresh and brightly
Blow the summer flowers !
In the locks thy forehead gracing,
Not a silvery streak;
Nor a line of sorrow's tracing
On thy fair young cheek ;
Eyes of light and lips of roses,
Such as Hylas wore —
Over all that curtain closes,
Which shall rise no more!
Will the vigil Love is keeping
Round that grave of thine,
Mournfully, like Jazer weeping
Over Sibmah's vine * —
Will the pleasant memories, swelling
Gentle hearts, of thee.
In the spirit's distant dwelling
All unheeded be ?
* " O vine of Sibmah ! I will vfeep for thee with the weeping <A
{azer 1 "—Jeremiah xlviii., 32,
V-
q2 WHITTIER'S POEMS.
If the spirit ever gazes,
From its journeyings, back .
If the immortal ever traces
O'er its mortal track ;
Wilt thou not, O brother, meet us
Sometimes on our way,
And, in hours of sadness, greet us
As a spirit may ?
Peace be with thee, O our brother.
In the spirit-land !
Vainly look we for .another
In thy place to stand. '
Unto Truth and Freedom giving
All thy earthly powers.
Be thy virtues with the living,
And thy spirit ours !
LINES. .
Written on reading the famous " Pastoral Letter " or **'e
Massachusetts General Association, 1837.
So, this is all — the utmost reach
Of priestly power the mind to tetter!
When laymen think — when -wouitn preach —
A war of words — a " Pastoral Let'x.r I "
Now, shame upon ye, parish Popes!
Was 't thus with those, your predecessors
Who seal'd with racks and fire and ropes
Their loving kindness to transgressors ?
A " Pastoral Letter," grave and dull —
Alas ! in hoofs and horns and features.
How different is your Brooi.field bull.
From him who thunders fr m St. Peter's
Your pastoral rights and powers from harm,
Think ye, can words alone preserve them ?
Your wiser father taught the arm
And sword of temporal power to serve
them.
94 WfflTTIER'S POEMS.
Oh, glorious days — when Church and State
Were wedded by your spiritual' fathers 1
And on submissive shoulders sat
Your Wilsons and your Cotton Mathers.
No vile " itinerant " then could mar /
The beauty of your tranquil Zion,
But at his peril of the scar
Of hangman's whip and branching-iron.
Then, wholesome laws relieved the Church
Of heretic and mischief-maker,
And priest and bailiff joined in search.
By turns, of Papist, Witch, and Quaker I
The stocks wtre at each Church s door.
The gallows stood on Boston Common,
A Papist's ears the pillory bore, —
The gallows-rope, a Quaker woman!
Your fathers dealt not as ye deal
With " non-professing " frantic teachers ;
They bored the tongue with red-hot steel.
And flayed th-^ backs of " female preachers;''
Old Newbury, had her fields a tongue,
And Salem's streets could tell their story,
Of fainting woman dragged along,
Gashed by the whip, accursed and gory I
WHITTIEIVS POEMS. pi;
And will ye ask me, why this taunt
Of memories sacred from the scorner?
And why with reckless hand I plant
A nettle on the graves ye honor?
Not to reproach New-England's dead
This record from the past I summon,
Of manhood to the scaffold led,
And suffering and heroic woman
No — ior yourselves alone, I turn
The pages of intolerance over,
That, in their spirit, dark and stern,
Ye haply may your own discover!
For, if ye claim the " pastoral right "
To silence Freedom's voice of warning,
And from your precincts shut the light
Of Freedom's day around ye dawning ;
If when an earthquake voice of power,
And signs in earth and heaven are showing
That, forth, in its appointed hour,
The spirit of the Lord is going !
And, with that Spirit, Freedom's light
On kindred, tongue, and people breaking,
Whose slumbering millions, at the sight.
In glory and in strength are waking !
g6 WHITTIEirS /'OEMS.
When, for the sighing of the poor,
And for the needy, God hath risen,
And chains are breaking, and a door
Is opening for the souls in prison !
If then ye would, with puny hands,
Arrest the very work of Heaven,
And bind anew the evil bands
Which God's right arm of power hath riven.
What marvel that, in many a mind.
Those darker deeds of bigot madness
Are closely with your own combined.
Yet '' less in anger than in sadness ? "
What marvel, if the people learn
To claim the right of free opinion ?
What marvel, if at times they spurn
The ancient yoke of your dominion ?
*
Oh, how contrast, with such as ye,
A Leavitt's free and generous bearing !
A Perry's calm integrity,
A Phelp's zeal and Christian daring !
A Pollen's soul of sacrifice.
And May's with kindness overflowing !
How green and lovely in the eyes
Of freemen are their graces growing !
WHITTIEK'S POEMS.
97
Ay, there 's a glorious remnant yet,
Whose Hps are wet at Freedom's fountains,
The coming of whose welcome feet
' Is beautiful upon our mountains !
Men, who the gospel tidings bring
Of Liberty and Love for ever,
Whose joy is one abiding spring,
Whose peace is as a gentle river !
But ye, who scorn the thrilling tale
Of Carolina's high-soul'd daughters,
Which echoes here the mournful wail
Of sorrow from Edisto's waters.
Close while ye may the public ear —
With malice vex, with slander wound them — ■
The pure and good shall throng to hear,
And tiied and manly hearts surround them.
Oh, ever may the Power which led !
Their way to such a fiery trial.
And strengthen'd womanhood to tread
The wine-press of such self-denial,
Be round them in an evil land,
With wisdom and \vith strength from
Heaven,
With Miriam's voice, and Judith's hand,
And Deborah's song for triumph given I
lyS WHITTIER'S POEMS.
And what are ye who strive with God,
Against the ark of His salvation,
Moved by the breath of prayer abroad, >
With blessings for a dying nation ?
What, but the stubble and the hay
To perish, even as flax consuming,
With all that bars His glorious way,
Before the brightness of His coming?
And thou, sad Angel, who so long
Hast waited for the glorious token,
That Earth from all her bonds of wrong
To Hberty and light has broken —
Angel of Freedom ! soon to thee
The sounding trumpet shall be given,
And over Earth's full Jubilee
Shall deeper joy be felt in Heaven 1
THE MORAL WARFARE.
When Freedom, on her natal day,
Within her war-rock'd cradle lay,
An iron race around her stood,
Baptized her infant brow in blood,
And, through the storm which round her swep^
Their constant ward and watching kept.
Then, where quiet herds repose,
The roar of baleful battle rose,
And brethren of a common tongue
To mortal strife as tigers sprung.
And every gift on Freedom's shrine
Was man for beast, and blood for wine !
Our fathers to their graves have gone ;
Their strife is past — their triumph won ;
But sterner trials wait the race
Which rises in their honor'd place —
A MORAL WARFARE with the Crime
And folly of an evil time.
lOO rVHITTIEIV S POEMS.
So let it be. In God's own might
We gird us for the coming fight,
And, strong in Him whose cause is ours
In conflict with unholy powers,
We grasp the weapons He has given, —
The Light, and Truth, and Love of Heaven !
MASSACHUSETTS.
Written on hearing that the Resohitions of the Legislature o!
Massachusetts on the subject of Slavery, presented by Hon. d
Gushing to the House of Representatives of the United States
have been laid on the table ilnread and unreferred, under the ia>
famous rule of " Patton's Resolution."
And have they spurn 'd i^jy word,
Thou of the old Tihrteen 1
Whose soil, where Freedom's blood firsl
pour'd,
Hath yet a darker green ?
Tread the weak Southron's pride and lusl
Thy name and councils in the dust ?
And have they closed thy mouth,
And fix'd the padlock fast ?
Slave of the mean and tyrant South I
Is this thy fate at last ?
Old Massachusetts ! can it be
That thus thy sons must speak of thee ?
,2 WIIITT/ER'S POEMS.
Call from the Capitol
Thy chosen ones again —
Unmeet for them the base control
Of Slavery's curbing reign!
Unmeet for necks like theirs to feel
The chafing of the despot's heel !
Call back to Quincy's shade
That steadfast son of thine ;
Go — if thy homage must be paid
To Slavery's pagod-shrine,
Seek out some meaner offering than
The free-born soul of that old man.
Call that true spirit back,
So eloquent and young;
In his own vale of Merrimack
No chains are on his tongue !
Better to breathe its cold, keen air,
Than wear the Southron's shackle there.
Ay, let them hasten home,
And render up their trust ;
Through them the Pilgrim state is dumb
Her proud lip in the dust .
Her counsels and her gentlest word
Of warning spurn'd aside, unheard !
WHITTIER'S POEMi,. , ,
Let them come back, and shake
The base dust from their feet ;
And with their tale of outrage wake
The free hearts whom they meet ;
And show before indignant men
The scars where Slavery's chain has been.
Back from the Capitol —
It is no place for thee !
Beneath the arch of Heaven's blue wall
Thy voice may still be free !
What power shall chain thy spirit there^
In God's free sun and freer air ?
A voice is calling thee,
From all the martyr-graves
Of those stern men, in death made fre^
Who could not live as slaves.
The slumberings of thy honor'd dead
Are i or thy sake disquieted!
The curse of Slavery comes
Still nearer, day by day;
Shall thy pure altars and thy homes '
Become the Spoiler's prey?
Shall the dull tread of fetter'd slaves
Sound o'er thy old and holy graves?
I04
WHITTIEK\S POEMS.
Pride of the old Thirteen !
That curse may yet be stay'd —
Stand thou, in Freedom^s strength, between
The Hving and the dead ;
Stand forth, for God and Liberty
In one strong effort worthy thee I
Once more let Faneuil Hall
By freemen's feet be trod,
And give the echoes of its wall
Once more to Freedom's God I
And in the midst, unseen, shall stand
The mighty fathers of thy land.
Thy gather'd sons shall feel
The soul of Adams near,
And Otis with his fiery zeal,
And Warren's onward cheer ;
And heart to heart shall thrill as when
They moved and spake as living men.
Fling, from thy Capitol,
Thy banner to the light, '
And, o'er thy Charters sacred scroll,.
For Freedom and clic Right,
Breathe once again thy vows, unbroken —
Speak once again as thou hast spoken.
WHITTIER'S POEMS. 105
On thy bleak hills, speaks out !
A WORLD thy words shall hear;
And they who listen round about,
In friendship, or in fear.
Shall know thee still, when sorest tried,
' Unshaken and unterrified ? " *
* " Massachussets has held her way right onward, unshaken,
unseduced, unterrified."— iji^^r^ of C. Gushing in the House ei
Representathies of the US., t8j6.
THE FAREWELL
03 A VIRGINIA SLAVE MOTHER TO HER DAUGHTERS SOLD
INTO SOUTHERN BONDAGE,
Gone, gone — sold ana gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
Where the slave-whip ceaseless swings,
Where the noisome insect stings,
Where the Fever Demon strews
Poison with the falling dews,
Where the sickly sunbeams glare
Through the hot and misty air, —
Gone, gone — sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
From Virginia's hills and waters, —
Woe is me, my stolen daughters !
Gone, gone — sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
There no mother's eye is near them,
There no mother's ear can hear them,
I07
WHITTIEH'S POEMS.
Never, when the torturing lash
Seams their back with many a gash,
Shall a mother's kindness bless them,
Or a mother's arms caress them.
Gone, gone — sold and gone.
To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
From Virginia's hills and waters,^
Woe is me, my stolen daughters !
Gone, gone — sold and gone.
To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
Oh, when weary, sad, and slow.
From the field at night they go.
Faint with toil, and rack'd with pain,
To their cheerless homes ao[ain —
There no brother's voice shall greet them —
There no father's welcome meet them.
Gone, gone — sold and gone.
To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
From Virginia's hills and waters, —
Woe is me,. my stolen daughters 1
Gone, gone — sold and gone.
To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
From the tree whose shadow lay
On their childhood's place of play
lo8 WHITTIER'S POEMS,
From the cool spring where they drank—
Rock, and hill, and rivulet bank —
From the solemn house of prayer,
And the holy counsels there — -
Gone, gone — sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
From Virginia's hills and waters, —
Woe is me, my stolen daughters I
Gone, gone — sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone-
Toiling through the weary day.
And at night the Spoiler's prey.
Oh, that they had earlier died,
Sleeping calmly, side by side.
Where the tyrant's power is o'er.
And the fetter galls no more !
Gone, gone — sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
From Virginia's hills and waters,—
Woe is me, my stolen daughters I
Gone, gone — sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
By the holy love He beareth —
By the bruised reed He spareth —
WIIITTIER'S POEMS.
Oh, may He, to whom alone
All their cruel wrongs are known,
Still their hope and refuge prove,
With a more than mother's love.
Gone, gone — sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
From Virginia's hills and waters,—
Woe is me, my stolen daughters!
109
J.
ADDRESS,
Written for the opening of " Pennsylvania Hall," dedicated to
Free Discussion, Virtue, Liberty, and Independence, on the 15th
of the 5th month, 1838.
Not with the splendors of the days of old,
The spoil of nations, and " barbaric gold " —
No weapons wrested from the fields of blood.
Where dark and stern th' unyielding Roman
stood,
And the proud Eagles of his cohorts saw
A world, war-wasted, crouching to his law —
Nor blazon'd car — nor banners floating gay,
Like those which swept along the Appian way.
When, to the welcome of imperial Rome,
The victor warrior came in triumph home.
And trumpet-peal, and shoutings wild and high
Stir'd the blue quiet of th' Italian sky ;
But calm, and grateful, prayerful and sincere,
As Christian freemen, only, gathering here,
We dedicate our fair and lofty Hall,
Pillar and arch, entablature and wall,
WHITTIEK'S POEMS. \\\
As Virtue's shrine — as Liberty's abode —
Sacred to Freedom, and to Freedom's God !
Oh! loftier Halls, 'neath brighter skies than
these.
Stood darkly mirror'd in the ^gean seas,
Pillar and shrine — and life-like statues seen,
Graceful and pure the marble shafts between,
Where glorious Athens from her rocky hill
Saw Art and Beauty subject to her will- —
And the chaste temple, and the classic gVove — •
The hall of sages — and the bowers of love.
Arch, fane, and column, graced the shores,
and gave
Their shadows to the blue Saronic wave ;
And statelier rose, on Tiber's winding side.
The Pantheon's dome — the Coliseum's pride—
The Capitol, whose arches backward flung
The deep, clear cadence of the Roman tongue,
Whence stern decrees, like words of fate, went
forth
To the awed nations of a conquer d earth.
Where the proud Csesars in their glory came,
And Brutus lighten'd from his lips of flame I
Yet in the porches of Athena's halls
And in the shadows of her stately walls,
J-
, , i WHITTIEK'S POEMS.
Lurk'd the sad bondman, and his tears of woe
Wet the cold marble with unheeded flow ;
And fetters clank'd beneath the silver dome
Of the proud Pantheon of imperious Rome.
Oh ! not for him — the chain'd and stricken
slave —
By Tiber's shore, or blue ^gina's wave,
In the throng'd forum, or the sages' seat,
The bold lip pleaded, and the warm heart beat
No soul of sorrow melted at his pain,
No tear of pity rusted on his chain 1
But this fair Hall^ to Truth and Freedom
given,
Pledged to the Right before all earth and
Heaven,
A free arena for the strife of mind,
To caste, or sect, or color unconfined,
Shall thrill with echoes, such as ne'er of old
From Roman Hall, or Grecian Temple roll'd ;
Thoughts shall find utterance, such as never
yet
The Propylea or the Forum met.
Beneath its roof no gladiator's strife
Shall win applauses with the waste of life ;
No lordly lictor urge the barbarous game —
No wanton Lais glory in her shame.
WHITRTER'S POEMS. 113
But here the tear of sympathy shall flow,
As the ear listens to the tale of woe ;
Here, in stern judgment of the oppressor's
wrong,
Shall strong rebukings thrill on Freedom's
tongue —
No partial justice hold th' unequal scale —
No pride of caste a brother's rights assail —
No tyrant's "mandates echo from this wall,
Holy to Freedom and the Rights of All !
But a fair field, where mind may close with
mind,
F"ree as the sunshine and,the chainless wind ;
Where the high trust is fix'd on Truth alone,
And bonds and fetters from the soul are
thrown ;
Where wealth, and rank, and worldly pomp^
and might,
Yield to the presence of the True and Right.
And fitting is it that this Hall should stand
Where Pennsylvania's Founder led his band,
From thy blue waters, Delaware ! — to press
The virgin verdure of the wilderness.
Here, where all Europe with amazement saw
The soul's high freedom trammel'd by no
law ;
ti4
WHITTIEK'S POEMS.
Here, where the fierce and war-like forest-
men
Gather'd in peace, around the home of Penn,
Awed by the weapons Love alone had given,
Drawn from the holy armory of Heaven ;
Where Nature's voice against the bondman's
wrong
First found an earnest and indignant tongue j
Where Lay's bold message to the" proud, was
borne.
And Keith's rebuke, and Franklin's manly
scorn —
Fitting it is that here, where Freedom first
From her fair feet shook off the old world's
dust,
Spread her white pinions to our Western
blast.
And her free tresses to our sunshine cast.
One Hall should rise redeem'd from Slavery's
ban —
One Temple sacred to the Rights of Man 1
Oh ! if the spirits of ±e parted come,
Visiting angels, to th ir olden home ;
If the dead fa her:: of the land* look forth
From their far dwellings, to the things qf
earth-
WHITTIER'S POEMS.
"S
Is it a dream, that with their eyes of love,
They gaze now on us from the bowers above f
Lay's ardent soul — and Benezet the mild,
Meek-hearted Woolman, — and that brother-
band,
The sorrowing exiles from their '>' Father-
, LAND,",
Leaving their homes in Krieshiem's bowers
of vine.
And the blue beauty of their glorious Rhine,
To seek amidst our solemn depths of wood
Freedom from man and holy peace with God ;
Who first of all their testimonial gave
Against tli' oppressor, — for the outcast slave,— '
Is it a dream that such as these look down.
And with their blessing our rejoicings crown ?
Let us rejoice, that, while the Pulpit's door
Is bar'd against the pleaders for the poor ; '
While the Chtirch, wrangling upon points of
faith,
Forgets her bondmen suffering unto death
While crafty Traffic and the lust of Gain
Unite to forge Oppression's triple chain,
One door is open, and one temple free —
A resting-place for hunted Libertv I
f 1 6 WHITTIER'S POEMS.
Where men may speak, unshackled and un-
awed,
High words of Truth, for Freedom and for
God.
And when thlat Truth its perfect work hath
done,
And rich with blessings o'er our land hath
gone;
When not a slave beneath his yoke shall pine.
From broad Potomac to the far Sabine ;
When unto angel-lips at last is given
The silver trump of Jubilee in Heaven ;
And from Virginia's plains — Kentucky's
shades.
And through the dim Floridian everglades,
Rises, to meet that angel-trumpet's sound,
The voice of millions from their chains un.
bound —
Then, though th-s Hall be crumbling in decay^
Its strong walls blending with the common
clay,
Yet, round the ruins of its strength shall stand
The best and noblest of a ransom'd land —
Pilgrims, like those who throng around the
shrine
Of Mecca, or of holy Palestine I —
WHITTIEK'S POEMS. ill
A prouder glory shall that ruin own •
Fhan that which lingers round the Parthenon.
Here shall the child of after years be taught
The work of Freedom which his fathers
wrought —
Told of the trials of the present hour,
Our weary strife with prejudice and power, —
How the high errand quicken'd woman s soul,
And touch 'd her lip as with the living coal —
How Freedom's martyrs kept their lofty faith,
True and unwavering, unto bonds and death. —
The pencil's art shall sketch the ruin'd Hall, '
The Muses' garland crown its aged wall,
And History's pen for after times record
Its consecration unto Freedom's God 1
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.
The Poems which follow are not devoted to the cause of Emanci
pation, but have beeh included in this collection at the request of
some of the author's friends. Many of them, in their passage
from one nev/spaper or scrapbook to another , had become mutilated
and imperfect • and, in some instances, changed from their original
rhjthm and sentiment, as entirely as the Palmer of Marmion :
" The very mother that him bare
Would not haveknown her child,"
and their publication in this form seemed necessary as a matter of
self-defence.
PALESTINE.
Blest land of Judea ! thrice hallowed of song
Where the holiest of memories pilgrim-like
throng ;
In the shade of thy palms, by the shores of
thy sea,
On the hills of thy beauty, my heart is with
thee.
• 1 2 2 WHITTIE/i'S POEMS.
With the eye of a spirit I look on that shore.
Where pilgrim and prophet have linger'd be-
fore ;
With the glide of a spirit I traverse the sod
Made bright by the steps of the angels of God.
Blue sea of the hills ! — in my spirit I hear
Thy waters, Genesaret, chime on my ear:
Where the Lowly and Just with the people
sat down,
And thy spray on the dust of His sandals was
thrown.
Beyond are Bethulia s mountains of green,
And the desolate hills of the wild Gadarene ;
And I pause on the goat-crags of Tabor to see
The gleam of thy waters, O dark Galilee !
Hark, a sound in the valley ! where, swollen
and strong,
Thy river, O Kishon, is sweeping along ;
Where the Canaanite strove with Jehovah in
vain, [the slain.
And thy torrent grew dark with the blooa of
There, down from his, mountains stern Zebulon
came,
And Naph tali's stag, with his eye-balls of flame,
.. T tiMm^i*l-m\
WHITTIER'S POEMS. 1:3
And the chariots of Jabin roU'd harmlessly on,
For the arm of the Lord was Abinoam's son !
There sleep the still rocks and the caverns
which rang
To the song which the beautiful prophetes;^
sang,
When the princes of Issachar stood by hex
side,
' And the shout of a host in its triumph replied-
Lo, Bethlehem's hill-site before me is seen,
With the mountains around, and the valleys
between ;
There rested the shepherds of Judah, and
there
The song of the angels rose sweet on the air.
And Bethany's palm trees in beauty still throw
Their shadows at noon on the ruins below ;
But where are the sisters who hasten'd to
greet
The lowly Redeemer, and sit at His feet ?
I tread where the twelve in their way-faring
trod;
I stand where they stood with the chosen of
God
124 WHITTIER'S POEMS.
Where His blessing was heard and His lessons
were taught,
Where the blind were restored and the heal-
ing was wrought.
Oh, here with His flock the sad Wanderer
came — [same —
.There hills He toiled over in grief, are the
The founts where He drank by the way-side
still flow,
■ And the same airs are blowing which breathed
on his brow '
And throned on her hills sits Jerusalem yet,
But with dust on her forehead, and chains on
her feet ;
For the crown of her pride to the mocker hath
gone,
And the holy Shechinah is dark where it
shone.
But wherefore this dream of the earthly abode
Of Humanity clothed in the brightness of
God?
Were my spirit but turned from the outward
and dim,
It could gaze, even now, on the presence of
Him!
IVHITTIER'S POEMS.
"S
Not in clouds and in terrors, but gentle as
when,
In love and in meekness. He moved among
men;
And the voice which breathed peace to the
waves of the sea,
In the hush of my spirit would whisper to me '
And what if my feet may not tread where He
stood, [flood,
Nor my ears hear the dashing of Galilee's
Nor my eyes see the cross which He bow'd
him to bear,
Nor my knees press Gethsemane's gardenjof
prayer.
Yet Loved of the Father, Thy Spirit is near
To the meek, and the lowly, and penitent
here ; [now,
And the voice of Thy love is the same, even
As at Bethany's torAb, or on Olivet's brow.
Oh, the outward hath gone! — but, in glory
and power,
The SPIRIT suryiveth the things of an hour;
Unchanged, undecaying, its Pentecost flame
On the heart's secret altar is burning the
same
J--
CHRIST IN THE TEMPEST.
Storm on the heaving waters ! — The vast sky
Is stooping with its thunder. Cloud on cloud
Rolls heavily in the darkness, like a shroud
Shaken by midnight's Angel from on high,
Through the thick sea-mist, faintly and afar,
Chorazin's watch-light glimmers like a star.
And, momently, the ghastly cloud-fires play
On the dark sea-wall of Capernaum's bay,
And tower and turret into light spring forth
Like spectres starting from the storm-swept
earth ;
And, vast and awful, Tabor's mountain form,
Its Titan forehead naked to the storm.
Towers for one instant, full and clear, and then
Blends with the blackness and the cloud again.
And it is very terrible ! — The roar
Ascendeth unto heaven, and thunders back.
Like the response of demons, from the
black
WHITTIEI^S POEMS. 127
Rifts of the hanging tempest — yawning o'er
The wild waves in their torment. Hark! — the
cry
Of strong man in peril, piercing through
The uproar of the waters and the sky,
As the rent bark one moment rides to view,
On the tall billows, with the thundercloud
Closing around, above her, like a shroud !
He stood upon the reeling deck — His form
Made visible by the lightning, and His brow
Pale, and uncover'd to the rushingr storni,
Told of a triumph man may never know —
Power underived and mighty — " Peace — be
STILL ! "
The great waves heard Him, and the storm's
loud tone
Went moaning into silence at his will ;
And the thick clouds, where yet th^ light
ning shone,
And slept the latent thunder, roll'd away.
Until no trace of tempest lurk'd behind,
Changing, upon the pinions of the wind,
To stormless wanderers, beautiful and gay.
Dread Ruler of the tempest ! Thou before
Whose presence boweth the uprisen storm—
128 WHITTIEK'S POEMS.
To whom the waves do homage round the
shore
Of many an Island empire ! — if the form
Of the frail dust beneath Thine eye, may claim
Thy infinite regard — oh, breathe upon
The storm and darkness of man's soul the
same
Quiet, and peace, and humbleness which came
O'er the roused waters, where Thy voice
had gone
A minister of power — to conquer in Thy name I
THE FEMALE MARTYR.
Mary G , aged i8, a " Sister of Charity," died in one ot
our Atlantic cities, during the prevalence of the Indian cholera,
while in voluntary attendance upon the sick.
" Bring out your dead ! " the midnight street
Heard and gave back the hoarse, low call ;
Harsh fell the tread of hasty feet —
Glanced through the dark the coarse white
sheet — «
Her cofKn and her pall.
"What — only one!" the brutal hackman
said,
As, with an oath, he spurn'd away the dead.
How sunk the inmost hearts of all,.
As roll'd that dead-cart slowly by,
With creaking wheel and harsh foot-fall I
The dying turn'd him to the wall,
To hear it and to die ! —
Onward it roll'd ; while oft its driver stay'd,
And hoarsely clamor'd, " Ho ! — bring out your
dead,"
,30 WHITTIEIVS POEMS.
It paused beside the burial-place ;
" Toss in your load ! " — and it was done.- -
With quick hand and averted face,
Hastily to the grave's embrace
They cast them, one by one —
Stranger and friend — the evil and the just,
Together trodden in the church-yard dust !
And thou, young martyr ! — thou wast there —
No white-robed sisters round thee trod —
Nor holy hymn, nor funeral prayer
Rose through the damp and noisome air,
Giving thee to thy God ;
Nor flower, nor cross, nor hallow'd taper gave
Grace to the dead, and beauty to the grave!
Yet gentle sufferer! — there shall be.
In every heart of kindly feeling,
A rite as holy paid to thee
As if beneath the convent-tree
Thy sisterhood were kneeling.
At vesper hours, like sorrowing angels, keep-
ing [ing.
Their tearful watch around thy plafce of sleep-
For thou wast one in whom the light
Of Heaven's own love was kindled well,
WHITTIER'S POEMS -fj
Enduring with a martyr's might.
Through weary day and wakeful night,
Far more than words may tell :
Gentle, and meek, and lowly, and unknown —
Thy mercies measured by thy God alone I
Where manly hearts were failing, — ^where
The throngful street grew foul with death,
O high soul'd martyr !— thou wast there,
Inhaling from the loathsome air, ,
Poison with every breath.
Yet shrinking not from offices of dread
For the wrung dying, and the unconscious
dead.
And, where the sickly taper shed
Its light through vapors, damp, confined,
Hush'd as a seraph's fell thy tread —
A new Electra by the bed
Of suffering human-kind !
Pointing the spirit, in its dark dismay,
To that pure hope which fadeth not away.
Innocent teacher of the high
And holy mysteries of Heaven !
How turn'd to thee each glazing eye,
In mute and awful sympathy,
132
WHITTIER'S POEMS.
As thy praj^ers were given ;
And the o'er-hovering Spoiler wore, the while,
An angel's features — a deliverer's smile !
A blessed task! — and worthy one ,
Who, turning from the world, as thou.
Ere being's pathway had begun
To leav6 its spring-time flower and sun.
Had seal'd her early vow —
Giving to God her beauty and her youth,
Her pure affections and her guileless truth.
Earth may not claim thee. Nothing here
Could be for thee a meet reward ; •
Thine is a treasure far more dear —
Eye hath not seen it, nor the ear
Of living mortal heard, —
The joys prepared — the promised bliss
above —
The holy presence of Eternal Love!
Sleep on in peace. The earth has not
A nobler name than thine shall be.
The deeds by marshal manhood wrought,
The lofty energies of thought,
The fire of poesy — ^
WHITTIEK'S POEMS. 133
These have but frail and fading honors ; —
thine
Shall Time unto Eternity consign.
Yea — and, when thrones shall crumble down,
And human pride and grandeur fall, —
The herald's line of lonar renown — .
The mitre and the kingly crown —
Perishing glories all!
The pure devotion of thy generous heart
Shall live in Heaven, of which it was a part
** KNOWEST THOU THE ORDINANCES OF HEAVEN ? " —
Job xxxviii. 33.
Look unto heaven!
The still and solemn stars are burning there,
Like altars lighted in the upper air,
And to the worship of the great God given,
•Where the pure spirits of the unsinning dead,
Redeem'd and sanctified from Earth, might
shed.
This holiness of prayer.
Look ye above !
The earth is glorious with its summer wreath ;
The tall trees bend with verdure ; and, be-
neath
Young flowers are blushing like unwhisper'd
love.
Yet these will change — Earth's glories be no
niore.
And all her bloom and greenness fade before
The ministry of Death.
WHITTIER'S POEMS.
133
Then gaze not there.
God's constant miracle — the star-wrought sky
Bends o'er ye, lifting silently on high,
As with an Angel's hand, the soul of prayer ;
And Heaven's own language to the pure of
Earth,
Written in stars at Nature's mighty birth,
Burns on the gazing eye.
Oh ! turn ye, then,
And bend the knee of worship ; and the eyes
Of the pure stars shall smile, with glad
surprise, • v
At the deep reverence of the sons of men.
Oh ! bend in worship, till those stars grow dim,
And the skies vanish, at the thought of Him
Whose light beyond them liesl
HYMN.
FROM THE FRENCH OF LAMARTINE.)
, A HYMN more, O my lyre I
Praise to the God above,
Of joy and life and love,
Sweeping its strings of fire!
Oh ! who the speed of bird and wind
And sunbeam's glance will lend to me,
That, soaring upward, I may find
My resting-place and home in Thee ? —
Thou, whom my soul, midst doubt and gloom,
Adoreth with a fervent flame —
Mysterious spirit ! unto whom
Pertain nor sign nor namel
Swiftly my lyre's soft murmurs go.
Up from the cold and joyless earth.
Back to the God who bade them flow,
Whose moving spirit sent them forth.
WHITTIEK'S POEMS.
»37
But as for me, O God ! for me,
The lowly creature of Thy will,
Liqgering and sad, I sigh to thee,
An earth-bound pilgrim still I
Was not my spirit born to shine
Where yonder stars and suns are glowing?
To breathe with them the light divine,
From God's own holy altar flowing?
To be, indeed, where'er the soul
In dreams hath thirsted for so lone — ■
A portion of Heaven's glorious whole
Of loveliness and sonar ?
'5
Oh ! watchers of the stars at night.
Who breathe their fire, as we the air —
Suns, thunders, stars, and rays of light,
Oh ! say, is He — the Eternal, there ?
Bend there around His awful throne
The seraph's glance, the angel's knee ?
Or are thy inmost depths His own,
O wild and mighty sea ?
Thoughts of my soul, how swift ye go
Swift as the eagle's glance of fire,
Or arrows from the archer's bow,
To the far aim of your desire I
138 WHITTIER'S POEMS.
Thought after thought, ye thronging rise,
Like spring-doves from the startled wood,
Bearing hke them your sacrifice »
Of music unto God !
And shall these thoughts of joy and love
Come back again no more to me ? —
Returning like the Patriarch s dove.
Wing-weary from the eternal sea,
To bear within my longing arms
,The promise-bough of kindlier skies,
Pluck'd from the green, immortal palms
Which shadow Paradise ?
All-moving Spirit ! — freely forth
At thy command the strong wind goes ;
Its errand to the passive earth,
Nor art can stay, nor strength oppose,
Until it folds its weary wing
Once more within the hand divine ;
So, weary from its wandering,
My spirit turns to Thine !
Child of the sea, the mountain stream,
From its dark caverns, hurries on.
Ceaseless, by night and morning's bea
By evening's star and noontide's sun,
WHlTTlJiR'S POiLM:^,
139
Until at last it sinks to rest,
O'erwearied, in the waiting sea,
And moans upon its mother's breast — .
So turns my soul to Thee !
O Thou who bid'st the torrent flow,
Who lendest wings unto the wind —
Mover of all things!' where art Thou?
Oh, whither shall I go to find
The secret of Thy resting place ?
Is there no holy wing for me.
That, soaring, I may search the space
Of highest Heaven for Thee ?
Oh, would I were as free to rise
As leaves on Autumn's whirlwind borne —
The arrowy light of sunset skies,
Or sound, or ray, or star of morn
Which melts in heaven at twilight's close,
Or aught which soars uncheck'd and free
Through Earth and Heaven ; that I might lose
Myself in finding Thee !
FROM THE FRENCH OF LAMARTINEt
When the breath divine is flowing,
Zephyr-like o'er all things going,
And as. the touch of viewless fingeirs,
Softly on my soul it lingers,
Open to a breath the lightest,
(JTonscious of a touch the slightest —
As some calm stili lake, whereon
Sinks the snowy-bosom'd swan,
And the glistening water-rings
Circle round her moving wings :
When my upward gaze is turning
Where the stars of heaven are burning
Through the deep and dark abyss —
Flowers of midnight's wilderness,
Blowing with the evening's breath
Sweetly in their Maker's path :
When the breaking day is flushing
All the }Iast, and light is gushing
Upwaid through the horizon's haze,
WHJTTIER'S POEMS.
141
Sheaf-like, with its thousand rays
Spreading, until all above
Overflows with joy and love,
And below, on earth's green bosom,
All is changed to Hght and blossom :
When my waking fancies over
Forms of brightness flit and hover.
Holy as the seraphs are,
Who by Zion's fountains wear
On their foreheads, white and broad,
" Holiness unto the Lord ! "
When, inspired with rapture high,
It would seem a single sigh
Could a world of love create —
That my life could know no date,
And my eager thoughts could fill
Heaven and Earth, o'erflowing still !
Then, O Father ! — Thou alone.
From the shadow of Thy throne.
To the sighing of my breast
And its rapture answerest.
All my thoughts, which, upward winging.
Bathe where Thy own light is springing-^
All my yearnings to be free
Are as echoes answering Thee I
-I-
142 WHITTIER'S POEMS.
Seldom upon lips of mine
Father ! rests that name of Tliine-
Deep within my inmost breast,
In the secret place of mind,
Like an awful Presence shrined,
Doth its dread Idea rest !
Hush'd and holy dwells it there —
Prompter of the silent prayer.
Lifting up my spirit's eye
And its faint but earnest cry,
' From its dark and cold abode.
Unto Thee, my Guide and God I
THE FAMILIST'S HYMN.
The " Pilgrims" of New England, even in their wilncrness
home, were not exempted from the sectarian contentions which ag-
itated the mother country after the downfall of Charles the First,
and i-f the Established Episcopacy. The Quakers, Baptists, and
Catholics were banished, on pain of death, from the Massaciiusetts
Colony. One Samuel Gordon, a bold and eloquent declaimer, af-
ter preaching for a time in Boston, against the doctrines of the
Puritans, and declaring that their churches were mere human de-
vices, and their sacrament and baptism an abomination, was driven
out of the State's jurisdiction, and compelled to seek a residence
among the savages. He gathered round him a considerable; num-
ber of converts, who, like the primitive Christians, shared all
things in common. His opinions, however, were so troublesome
to the leading clergy of the Colony, that they instigated an attack
upon his " Family " by an armed force, which seized upon the
principal men in it, and brought them into Massachujelts, where
they were sentenced' to be kept at hard labor in several towns (one
only in each town), during the pleasure of the General Court, they
being forbidden under severe penalties to utter any of their relig-
ious sentiments, except to such ministers as might labor for their
conversion. They were unquestionably sincere in their opinions,
and whatever may have been their errors, deserve to l)e ranked
among those who have in all ages suffered for the freedom of con-
science.
Father ! to thy suffering poor
Strength and grace and faith impart,
And with Thy own love restore
Comfort to the broken heart!
144 WHITTIER'S POEMS.
Oh, the failing ones confirm
Witli a holier strength of zeal! —
Give Thou not the feeble worm
Helpless to the Spoilers heel !
Father ! for Thy holy sake
We are spoil'd and hunted thus ;
Joyful, for Thy truth we take
Bonds and burthens unto us :
Poor, and weak, anci rob'd of all,
Weary with our daily task.
That Thy truth may never fall
Through our weakness. Lord, we ask.
Round our fired and wasted homes
Flits the forest-bird unscared.
And, at noon, the wild beast comes
Where our frugal meal was shared ;
For the song of praises there
Shrieks the crow the livelong day,
For the sound of evening prayer
Howls the evil beast of prey!
Sweet the songs we loved to sing
Underneath Thy holy sky —
Words and tones that used to bring
Tears of joy in every eye, —
'4S
WHJTTIER'S POEMS.
Dear the wrestling hours of prayer,
When we gather'd knee to knee,
Blanieless youth and hoary hair,
' Bow'd, O God, alone to Thee.
As Thine early children, Lord,
Shared their wealth and daily bread,
Even so, with one accord,
We, in love, each other fed.
Not with us the miser's hoard,
Not with us his grasping hand ;
Equal, round a common board.
Drew our meek and brother band I
Safe our quiet Eden lay
When the war-hoop stir'd the land,
And the Indian turn'd away
From our home his bloody hand.
Well that forest-ranger saw,
That the burthen and the curse
Of the white ma 's cruel law
Rested also upon us.
Torn apart, and driven forth
To our toiling hard and long,
Father ! from the dust of earth
Lift we still our grateful song I
1 46 WRITTIER'S POEMS.
Grateful — that in bonds we share
In Thy love which maketh free;
Joyful— that the wrongs we bear,
Draw us nearer, Lord, to Thee 1
Grateful ! — that, where'er we toil —
By Wachuset's wooded side,
On Nantucket's sea-worn isle,
Or by wild Neponset's tide —
Still, in spirit, we are near.
And our evening hymns, which rise'
Separate and discordant here.
Meet and mingle in the skies !
Let the scoffer scorn and mock.
Let the proud and evil priest
Rob the needy of his flock.
For his wine- cup and his feast, —
Redden not Thy bolts in store
Through the blackness of Thy skies?
For the sighing of the poor
Wilt Thou not, at length, arise ?
Worn and wasted, oh, how long
Shall Thy trodden poor complain !
In Thy name they bear the wrong,
In Thy cause the bonds of pain !
WHITTIEIVS POEMS.
t47
Melt Oppression's heart of steel,
Let the haughty priesthood see,
And their blinded followers feel.
That in us they mock at Thee!
In Thy time, O Lord of hosts,
Stretch abroad that hand to save
Which of old, on Egypt's coasts.
Smote apart the Red Sea's wave !
Lead us from this evil land,
From the Spoiler set us free.
And once more our gather'd band.
Heart to heart, shall worship Thee!
THE CALL OF THE CHRISTIAN.
Not always as the whirlwind's rush
On Horeb 's mount of fear,
Not always as the burning bush
To Midian 's shepherd seer,
Nor as the awful voice which came
To Israel's prophet bards,
Nor as the tongues of cloven flame,
Nor gift of fearful words —
Not always thus, with outward sign
Of fire or voice from Heaven,
The message of a truth divine —
The call of God is given !
Awakening in the human heart
Love for the true and right —
Zeal for the Christian's " better part,'
Strength for the Christian's fight
WHITTIEK'S POEMS. 1,49
Nor unto manhood's heart alone
The holy influence steals :
Warm with a rapture not its Own,
•The heart of woman feels !
As she who by Samaria's wall
The Saviour's errand sought —
As those who with the fervent Paul
And meek Aquila wrought.
Or those meek ones whose mart5Tdom
Rome's gather'd grandeur saw :
Or those who in their Alpine home
Braved the Crusader's war,
When the green Vaudois, trqmbling, heard,
Through all its vales of death,
The martyr's song of triumph pour'd
From woman's failing breath.
Oh, gently, by a thousand things
Which o'er our spirits pass,
Like breezes o'er the harp's fine stringa.
Or vapors o'er a glass.
Leaving their token strange and new
Of music or of shade.
The summons to the right and trub
And MERCIFUL is made.
ISO
WHITTIER'S POEMS.
Oh, then, if gleams of Truth and Light
Flash o'er the waiting mind,
Unfolding to our mental sight
The wants of human kind ;
If, brooding over human grief,
The earnest wish is known
To soothe and gladden with relief
An anguish not our own :
Though heralded with nought of fear,
Or outward sigh, or show ;
rhough only to the inward ear
It whispers soft and low;
Though dropping, as the manna fell,
Unseen — yet from above —
Holy and gentle — heed it well !
The call to truth and love I
THE FROST SPIRIT.
He comes — he comes— the Frost Spirit comes 1
You may trace his footsteps now
On the naked woods and the blasted fields
and the brown hill's wither'd 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 —
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 atmosphere into
marble statues grow !
'5^
WHITTIER'S POEMS.
He comes — becomes — the Frost Spirit comes!
— on the rushing Northern blast,
And the dark Norwegian pines have bow'd as
his fearful breath went past.
With an unsQorch'd wing he has hurried on,
where the fires of Hecla glow
On the darkly beautiful sky above and the
ancient ice below.
He comes — he comes — the Frost Spirit comes 1
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,
Shall bow again to their winter chain, and in
mournful silence pass."
He comes — he come — 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
firelight dances high.
And laugh at the shriek of the baffled Fiend
as his sounding wing goes by !
THE WORSHIP OF NATURE.
" It hath beene as it were especially rendered unto mee and made
plaine and legible tp my understandynge that a great worshipp is
going on among the thyngs of God."— Gralt.
The Ocean looketh up to Heaven,
As 't were a Hying thing,
The homage of its waves is given
In ceaseless worshipping.
They kneel upon the slooping sand,
As bends the human knee, .
A beautiful and tireless band,
The Priesthood of the Sea !
They pour the glittering treasures out
Which in the deep have birth,
And chant their awful hymns about
The advancing hills of earth.
The green earth sends its incense up
From every mountain shrine,
1 5 4 WHITTIEIi'S POEMS.
From every flower and dewy cup
That greeteth the sunshine.
The mists are Hfted from the rills
Like the white wing of prayer,
They lean above the ancient hills
As doinsf homasre there.
The forest tops are lowly cast
O'er breezy hill and glen,
As if a prayerful spirit pass'd
On Nature as on men.
The clouds weep o'er the fallen world
E'en as repentant love ;
Ere to the blessed breeze unfurl'd
They fade in light above.
The sky is as a temple's arch.
The blue and wavy air
Is glorious wilh the spirit-march
Of messengers of prayer.
The gentle moon — the kindling sun —
The many stars are given,
As shrines to burn earth's incense on —
The altar-fires of Heaven I
LINES,
Written in the Common-place Book of a young lady.
" Write, write ! " Dear Cousin, since thy
word,
Like that my ancient namesake heard
On Patmos, may riot be denied,
I offer for thy page a lay
Breathing of Beauty pass'd away —
Of Grace and Genius. Love and Truth,
All which can add a charm to youth,
To Virtue and to Heaven allied.
Forgive me, if the lay be such
As may not suit thy hours of gladness;
Forgive me, if it breathe too much
Of mourning and of sadness.
It may be well that tears, at whiles.
Should take the place of Folly's smiles,
When 'neath some Heaven-directed blow,
Like those of Horeb's rock, they flow ;
For sorrows are in mercy' given
156 WfflTTIEK'S POEMS.
To fit the chasten'd soul for Heaven ;
Prompting, with woe and weariness,
Our yearning for that better sky,
Which, as the shadows close on this,
Grows brighter to the longing eye.
For each unwelcome blow may break,
Perchance, some chain which binds us here ;
And clouds around the heart may make
The vision of our Faith more clear ;
As through the shadowy veil of even
The eye looks farthest into Heaven,
On gleams of star and depths of blue
The fervid sunshine never knew 1
-" The parted spirit,
Knoweth it not our sorrow f Answereth not
Its blessing to our tears ? "
The circle is broken — one seat is forsaken, —
One bud from the tree of our friendship is
shaken —
One heart from among; us no lonsrer shall thrill
With the spirit of gladness, or darken with ill.
Weep ! — Lonely and lowly, are slumbering
now
The light of her glances, the pride of her
brow.
WinTTIEK>S POEMS.
tS7
Weep ! — Sadly and long shall we listen in vain
To hear the soft tones of her welcome again.
Give our tears to the dead ! For humanity's
claim
From its silence and darkness is ever the
same ; [bliss
The hope of that World whose existence is
May not stifle the tears of the mourners of this.
For, oh ! if one glance the freed spirit can throw
On the scene of its troubled probation below,
Than the pride of the marble — the pomp of
the dead —
To that glance will be dearer the tears which
we shed.
Oh, who can forget the rich light of her smile,
Over lips moved with music and feeling the
while —
The eye's deep enchantment, dark, dream-like,
and clear.
In the glow of its gladness — ^the shade of its
tear.
And the charm of her features, while over thr
whole
Plav'd the hues of the heart and the sutishinn
ot soul, —
158 WHITTIEK'S POEMS.
And the tones of her voice, like the music
which seems
Murmur'd low in our ears by the Angel of
dreams !
But holier and dearer our memories hold
Those treasures of feeling, more precious than
gold—
The love and the kindness, — the pity which
gave
Fresh hopes to the living and wreaths for the
grave —
The heart ever open to Charity's claim,
Unmoved from its purpose by censure and
blame.
While vainly alike on her eye and her ear
Fell the scorn of the heartless, the jesting and
jeer.
For, though spotless herself, she could sorrow
for them
Who sullied with evil the spirit's pure gem ;
And a sigh or a tear could the erring reprove.
And the sting of reprof was still tempered by
love.
WHITTIER'S POEMS. ,55
As a cloud of the sunset, slow melting in
heaven,
As a star that is lost when the daylight is
. - given,
As a glad dream of slumber, which wakens in
bliss.
She hath pass'd to the world of the holy from
this.
She hath pass'd ! — but, oh ! sweet as the flow-
rets that bloom
From her last lonely dwelling — the dust of her
tomb —
The charm of her virtues, as Heaven's own
breath.
Shall rise like an incense from darkness and
death.
THE WATCHER.
"And Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, took rackcloth, and
spread! t for her upon the rock, from the beginning of harvest until
water dropped upon them out of Heaven, and suffered neither the
birds of the air to rest on them by day, nor the beasts of the field
by night." — 2 Sam. xxi. lo.
Tall men and kingly-brow'd ! — they led them
forth
Bound for the sacrifice. It was high noon ;
And ancient Gibeah, emptied of her life,
Rose silently before the harvest sun
Her dwellers had gone out before the walls,
With a stern purpose ; and her maidens lean'd
Breathless for its fulfilment, from the hills,
Uncheer'd by reaper's song. The harvest, lay
Stinted and sere upon their parched tops.
The streams had perish'd in their goings on ;
And the deep fountains fail'd. The fervent sun,
Unchasten'dby a cloud, for months had shone
A lidless eye in heaven ; and all the sky
WHITTIER'S POEMS. i6i
Glow'd as a furnace, and the prodigal dew
With the scorch'd earth held no companion-
ship.
A curse was over Israel. Unjudged crime
Had wrought it in the elements. Her soil
Was unbless'd as the heathen's ; and the
plagues
Of those who know not God, and bow then
down ■•
To a strange worship, }iad been meted her.
The sacrifice was finish'd. Gibeon roll'd
Back like a torrent through the city. gates
Her gather'd thousands ; and her victims lay
Naked beneath the brazen arch of heaven, -.^^
On the stain'd Rock of Sacrifice. The sun
Went down his heated pathway with a slow p
And weary progress, as he loved to gaze ,,/.
On the dark horror cf his burning noon — ?,
The sacrifice of Innocence for Guilt,
Whose blood had sfent its sleepless murmur
"P .i A
To the Avenger's ear, until fierce wrath
Burn'd over earth and heaven, and Vengeance
held
The awful mastery of the elements.^ > . ( ,, jj ,, ^
i6j whittier's poems.
Who stealeth from the city, in the garb
Which tokens the heart's sorrow, and which
seems
Around her wasted form to shadow forth
The visitation of dark grief within ?
Lo ! — she hath pass'-d thfe valley, and her foot
Is on the Rock of Sacrifice — and now
She stoopeth over the unburied dead.
And moves her lip, but* speaks not. It is
strange
And very fearful ! The descending sun
Is pausing like a fire-wing'd Angel on
The bare hills of the West, and, fierce and
red.
His last rays fall aslant the place of blood,
Coloring its dark stains deeper. Lo ! she
kneels
To cover, with a trembling hand, the cold
And ghastly work of death — those desecrate
And darken'd temples of the living soul !
Her task was finish'd ; and she went away
A little distance, and, as night stole on
With dim star-light and shadow, she sat down
Upon a jutting fragment of the rock —
A solitary watcher. The red glow
That wrestled with the darkness, and sent up
WHITTIER'S POEMS. 163 •
Its spear-like lines of light until they waned
Into the dark blue zenilh, pass'd away,
And, from the broad and shadow'd West, the
stars
Shone through substantial blackness. Mid-
night came ; [through
The wind was groaning on the hills and
The naked branches of their perishing trees.
And strange sounds blended with it. The
gaunt wolf,
Scenting the place of slaughter, with his long
And most offensive howl did ask for blood ;
And the hyena sat upon the cliff,
His red eye glowing terribly ; and low,
But frequent and most fearfully, his growl
Came to the watcher's ear. Alone she sat,
Unmoving as her resting-place of rock.
Fear for herself she felt not — every tie
That once took hold on life with aught of love
Was broken utterly. Her eye was fix'd.
Stony and motionless, upon the pall
Which veil'd her princely dead. And this
was love
In its surpassing power — yea, love as strong
As that which Mnds the peopled Universe,
And pure as angel-worship, when the just
And beautiful of Heaven are bow'd in prayer 1
l64 WHITTIER'S POEMS.
The night stole into morning, and the sun,
Red and unwelcome, rode without a cloud,
And there was Rizpah still, woe-worn and
pale ;
And yet in her dark eye and darker hair,
And in the marble and uplifted brow,
And the much wasted figure, might be seen
A wreck of perfect Ijeauty, such as bow'd
The throned one of Israel at her feet.
Low as the trampled Philistine had knelt
Before his mailed presence. Not a tear
Glisten'd on eye or cheek, but still she gazed
On the dark veil of sackcloth with a strange
And fixed earnestness. The sky again
Redden'd with heat, and the unmoisten'd earth
Was like the ashen surface of the husli'd
But perilous volcano. Rizpah bore
The fever of noon-time, with a stern
And awful sense of duty nerving her,
In her devotedness. She might not leave
The high place of her watching for the shade
Of cluster'd palm-trees ; and the lofty rocks.
Casting their grim and giant shadows down.
Might not afford her shelter ; for the sweep
Of heavy wings went over her like clouds
Crossing the sunshine, and most evil birds.
Dark and obscene, — tlie jaguars of the air I —
WHITTIEIPS POEMS. 165
From all the hills had gather'd. Far and shy
The sombre raven sat upon his rock,
And his vile mate did mock him. The vast
wing
Of the great eagle, stooping from the sun,
Winnow'd the cliffs above her !
Day by daj'.
Beneath the scorching of the unveil'd sun,
And the unweeping solitude of night,
Pale Rizpah kept her vigils ; and her prayer
Went up at morn and eventide, that Earth
Might know the gentle visitings of rain
And be accurs'd no more. And when at last
God thunder'd in the heavens, and clouds
came up
From their long slumber, and the great rain
fell
And the parch'd earth drank deeply, Rizpah
knew
Her prayers were answer'd, and she knelt
again
In earnest gratitude ; and when the storm
Roird off before the sunshine, kindly hands
Convey 'd away her wasted charge, and gave
The sons of Saul a sepulchre with him.
THE CITIES OF THE PLAIN.
" Away from the ruin ! — Oh, hurry ye on,
While the sword of the Angel yet slumbers
undrawn !
Away from the doom'd and deserted of God^
Away, for the Spoiler is rushing abroad! "
The warning was spoken — the righteous had
gone,
And the proud ones of Sodom were feasting
alone ;
All gay was the banquet — the revel was long
With the pouring of wine and the breathing
of song.
'Twas an evening of beauty. The air was
perfume,
The earth was all greenness, the trees were all
bloom ;
And softly the delicate viol was heard,
WHJTT/F.R'S POEMS. 167
Like the murmur of love or the notes of a
bird.
And beautiful creatures moved down in the
dance,
With the magic of motion and sunshine of
glance ;
And white arms wreath 'd lightly, and tresses
fell free,
As the plumage of birds in some tropical tree.
And the shrine of the idol was lighted on
high,
For the bending of knee and the homage of
eye;
And the worship was blended with blas-
phemy's word,
And the wine-bibbcr scoff'd at the name of
the Lordl
Hark ! the growl of the thunder — the quaking
of earth !
Woe — woe to the worship, and woe to the
mirth !
The black sky has open'd — there's flame in
the air —
The red arm of vengeance is lifted and bare !
l68 WfflTT/EJi'S POEMS.
And the shriek of the dying rose wild where
the song
And the low tone of love had been whisper'd
along ;
For the fierce flames went lightly o'er palace
and bower,
Like the red tongues of demons, to blast and
devour !
Down — down, on the fallen, the red ruin
rain'd
And the reveler sank with his wine-cup un-
drain'd ;
The foot of the dancer, the music's loved
thrill,
And the shout and the laughter grew suddenjy
still.
The last throb of angliish was fearfully given ;
The last eye glared forth in its madness on
Heaven !
The last groan of horror rose wildly and vain,
And death brooded over the oride of the
Plain! '
THE CRUCIFIXION.
Sunlight upon Judea's hills I
And on the waves of Galilee —
On Jordon's stream and on the rills
That gathered to the sleeping sea !
Most freshly from the green wood springs
The light breeze on its scented wings ;
And gayly quiver in the sun
The cedar tops of Lebanon !
A few more hours — a change hath come
Dark as a brooding thunder-cloud !
The shouts of wrath and joy are dumb,
And proud knees unto earth are bo,w'd :
A change is on the hill of Death,
The hekned watchers pant for breath,
And turn with wild and maniac eyes
From the dark scene of sacrifice !
170
WHITTIER'S POEMS.
That Sacrifice ! — the death of Him —
The High and ever Holy One!
Well may the conscious Heaven grow dim,
And blacken the beholding Sun \
The wonted light had fled away,
Night settles on the middle day,
And Earthquake from his cavern'd bed
Is wakins: with a thrill of dread !
'o
The dead are waking underneath !
Their prison door is rent away!
And, ghastly with the seal of death,
They wander in the eye of day !
The temple of the Cherubim —
The House of God — is cold and dim;
A curse is on its trembling walls,
Its mighty veil asunder falls !
Well may the cavern-depths of Earth
Be shaken, and her mountains nod ;
Well may the sheeted dead come forth
To gaze upon a suffering God !
Well may the temple-shrine grow dim.
And shadows veil the Cherubim,
When He, the chosen one of Heaven,
A sacrifice for guilt is given !
WMlTTIEK'S POEMS. i-ji
And shall the sinful heart, alone,
Behold unmoved th' atoning hour,
When Nature trembles on her throne.
And Death resigns his iron power?
Oh, shall the heart — 'Whose sinfulness
Gave keenness to His sore distress,
And added to His tears of blood —
Refuse its trembling gratitude 1
THE CITY OF REFUGE.
Joshua, chapter xx.
" Away from thy people, thou shedder of
blood —
Away to the refuge appointed Kjf God!
Nay, pause not to look for thy household or
kin,
For Death is behind thee, thou worker of sin.
" Away ! — look not back, though that sorrow-
ful one, [son,
The mother who bore thee, shall wail for her
Nor stay when thy wife, as a beautiful blossom,
Shall clasp thy fair child to her desolate
bosom.
" Away, with thy face to the refuge afar
In the glow of the sun — in the eye of the star ;
Though the Simoom breathe o'er thee, op-
pressive and warm.
Rest not by the fountain nor under the palm
WHITTIER'S POEMi,, 173
"Away! for the kinsman of him thou hast
slain
Has breathed on thy head the dark curses of
Cain ; path —
The cry of his vengeance shall follow thy
The tramp of his footstep, the shout of his
Wrath."
And the slayer sprang up as the warnmg was
said,
And the stones of the altar rang out to his
tread ;
The wall of his household was lost on his ear —
He spoke not, he paused not, he turn'd not *
to hear,
He fled to the desert — he turn'd him not back
When the rush of the sand-storm grew loud
in his track, glad,
Nor paused till his vision fell, grateful and
On the green hills of Gilead — -the v/hite tents
of Gad.
Oh, thus, when the crimes and the errors of
Earth
Have driven her children as wanderers forth,
Xo the bow'd and the broken of spirit is given
The hope of a refuge — the refuge of Heaven \
ISABELLA OF AUSTRIA.
" Isabella, Infanta of Parma, and consort of Joseph of Austrfa,
predicted her own death, immediately after her marriage with the
Emperor. Amidst the gayety and splendor of Vienna and Pres-
burg, she was reserved and melancholy; she believed that Heaven
had given her a view of the future, and that her child, the nanie-
sake of the great Maria Theresa, would perish with her. Her pre-,
diction was fulfilled."
Midst the palace-bowers of Hungary, — im-
perial Presburg's pride, —
With the noble-born and beautiful assembled
at her side,
She stood, beneath the summer heaven, — the
soft winds sighing on.
Stirring the green and arching boughs, like
dancers in the sun.
The beautiful pomegranate's gold, the snowy
orange-bloom,
The lotus and the creeping vine, the rose'?
meek perfume,
WHITTIER'S POEMS. 1 7 5
The willow crossing with its green some
statue's marble hair, —
All that might charm th' exquisite sense, or
light the soul, was there.
But she — a monarch's treasured one — lean'd
«
gloomily apart.
With her dark eye tearfully cast down, and a
shadow on her heart.
Young, beautiful, and dearly loved, what
sorrow hath she known ?
Are not the hearts and swords of all held
sacred as her own ?
Is not her lord the kingliest in battle-field or
bower .? —
The foremost in the council-hall, or at the
banquet-hour }
Is not his love as pure and deep as his own
Danube's tide .?
And wherefore in her princely home weeps
Isabel, his bride }
She raised her jewel'd hand and flung her
veiling tresses back,
Bathing its snovgy tapering within their glossy
black. —
A tear fell on the orange leaves ; — rich gem
and mimic blossom.
176 WHITTIER'S POEMS.
And fringed robe shook fearfully upon her
sighing bosom ; v
" Smile on, smile on," she murmur'd low.
" for all'is joy around,
Shadow and sunshine, stainless sky, soft airs
and blossom'd grqund ;
'T is meet the light of heart should smile
when nature's brow is fair.
And melody and fragrance meet, twin sisters
of the air !
" But ask not me to share with you the beauty
of the scene —
The fountain-fall, mosaic walk, and tessellated
green ;
And point not to the mild blue sky, or glorious
summer sun ;
I know how very fair is all the hand of God
hath done —
The hills, the sky, the sun-lit cloud, the foun-
tain leaping forth,
The swaying trees, the scented flowers, the
dark green robes of earth —
I love them, still ; yet I have learn'd to turn
aside from all, •
And never more my heart must own their
sweet but fatal thrall 1
WHITTIER'S POEMS. jjj
"And I fcould love the noble one whose
mighty name I bear,
And closer to my bursting heart his hallow'd
image wear;
And I could watch our sweet young flower,
unfolding day by day,
And taste' of that unearthly bliss which
mothers only may;
But no, I may not cling to earth — that voice
is in my ear,
That shadow lingers by my side — :the death-
wail and the bier,
The cold and starless night of death where
day may never beam.
The silence and the loathsomeness, the sleep
which hath no dream !
" O God ! to leave this fair bright world, ana,
niore than all, to know
The moment when the Spectral One shall
deal his fearful blow ;
To know the day, the very hour ; to feel the
tide roll on ;
To shudder at the gloom before, and weep the
sunshine gone ;
To count the days, the few short days, of light
and life and breathi —
178 WaiTTIER'S POEMS.
Between nfie and the noisome grave — ^the
voiceless home of death, —
Alas ! — if, knowing, feehng this, I murmur at
my doom.
Let not thy frowning, O my God ! lend dark-
ness to the tomb.
" Oh, I have borne my spirit up, and smiled
amid the chill
Remembrance of my certain doom, which
lingers with me still :
I would not cloud our fair child's brow, nor
let a tear-drop dim
The eye that met my wedded lord's, lest it
should sadden him.
But there are moments when the gush of feel-
ing hath its way ;
That hidden tide of unnamed woe nor fear
nor love may stay.
Smile on, smile on, light-hearted ones, your
sun of joy is high ;
Smile on, and leave the doom'd of Heaven
alone to weep and die."
******
A. funeral chant was wailing . through
Vienna's holy pile ;
A. coffin with its gorgeous pall was borne
along the aisle ;
WBITTIER'S POEMS. lyg
The banners of a kingly race waved high
above the dead ;
A mighty band of mourners came — a king was
at its head,
A youthful king, -w^ith mournful tread and dim
and tearful eye —
He had not dream'd that one so pure as his
fair bride could die ;
And sad and wild above he throng the funeral
anthem rung :
" Mourn for the hope of Austria, mourn for
' the loved and j?^oungl "
The wail went up from other lands — the
valleys of the Hun,
Fair Parma with its orange bowers and hills
of vine and sun ;
The lilies of imperial France dropp'd as the
' sound went by,
The long lament of cloister'd Spain was
mingled with the cry ;
The dwellers in Colorno's halls, the Slowak at
his cave, [brave —
The bow'd at the Escurial, the Magyar sternly
All wept the early-stricken flower, and burst
from every tongue :
" Mourn for the dark-eyed Isabel — mourn for
the loved and young I "
LINES,
Written on visiting a singular cave in Chester, N. H., known in
the vicinity by the name of " The DeviPs Den.^'
The moon is bright on the rocky hill,
But its dwarfish pines rise gloomily still, —
Fix'd, motionless forms in the silent air,
The moonlight is on them, but darkness is
there.
The drowsy flap of the owlet's wing.
And the stream's low gush from its hidden
spring,
And the passing breeze, in its flight betray'd
By the timid shiver of leaf and blade,
Half like a sigh and half a moan,
The ear of the listener catches alone,
*
A dim cave yawns in the rude hill-side,
Like the jaws of a monster open'd wide,
Where a few wild bushes of thorn and iern
Their leaves from the breath of the night-aii
turn;
WHITTIEIPS POEMS. x8l
And half with twining foliage cover
rhe mouth of that shadowy oavern over : —
Above it, the rock rests gloomy and high
Its rugged outline against the sky,
Which seems, as it opens on either hand,
Like some bright sea leaving a desolate land.
Below it, a stream on its bed of stone
From a rift in the rock comes hurrying down,
Telling for ever the same wild tale
Of its loftier home to the lowly vale ;
And over its waters an oak is bending,
Its boughs like a skeleton's arms extending —
A 'naked tree, by the lightning shorn,
With its trunk all bare ai d its branches torn ;
And the rocks beneath it, blacken'd and rent,
Tell where the bolt of the thunder went.
'T is said that this cave is an evil place —
The chosen haunt of the fallen race ; '
That the midnight traveler oft hath seen
A red flame treinble its jaws between,
And lighten and quiver the boughs among,
Like the fiery play of a serpent's tongue ;
That sounds of fear from its chambers swell —
The ghostly gibber, the fiendish yell;
l82 WfflTTIER-S POEMS.
That bodiless hands at its entrance wave, —
And hence they have named it The, Demon's
Cave !
The fears of man to this place have lent
A terror which Nature never meant ;
For who hath wander'd, with curious eye,
This dim and shadowy cavern by.
And known, in the sun or star-light, aught
Which might not beseem so lonely a spot, —
The stealthy fox, and the shy raccoon.
The night-bird's wing in the shining moon.
The frog's low croak, and, upon the hill,
The steady chant of the whippoorwill ?
Yet is there something to fancy dear
In this silent cave and its lingering fear, —
-Something which tells of another age,
Of the wizard's wand, and the Sibyl's page,
Of the fairy ring and the haunted glen,
And the restless phantoms of murder'd men,
The grandame's tale and the nurse's song,
The dreams of childhood remember'd long;
And 1 love even now to list the tale
Of the Demon's Cave, and its haunted vale
THE FRATRICIDE.
In the recently published " History of Wyoming "—a valley
rendered classic ground by the poetry of Campbell — in an account
of the kttack of Brandt and Butler on the settlements in 1778, a
fearful circumstance is mentioned. A tory, who had joined the In-
dians and British, discovered his own brother, while pursuing the
Americans, and, deaf to his entreaties, deliberately presented his
rifle and shot him dea'd on the spot. The murderer fled to Canada.
He stood on the brow of the well known her,
Its few gray oaks moan'd over him still —
The last of that forest whicli cast the gloom
Of its shadow at eve o'er his' childhood's
home ; .
And the beautiful valley beneath him lay
With its quivering leaves, and its stream at
play.
And the sunshine over it all the while
Like the golden shower of the Eastern isle.
He knew the rock with its fingering vine,
And its gray top touch 'd by the slant sun-
shine,
1^4 ii'hiTflEI^S POP.MS.
And the delicate stream which crept beneath
Soft as the flow of an infant's breath ;
And the flowers which lean'd to the West
wind's sigh, ^
Kissing each ripple which glided by ;
And he knew every valley and wooded swell)
For the visions of childhood are treasured
well-
Why shook the old man as his eyes glanced
down
That narrow ravine where the rude cliffs
frown,
.With their shaggy brows and their teeth of
stone,
And their grim shade back from the sunlight
thrown ?
What saw he there save the dreary glen,
Where the shy fox crept from the eye of men,
And the great owl sat in the leafy limb
That the hateful sun might not look on him ?
Fix'd, glassy, and strange was that old maxi's
eye.
As if a spectre were stealing by,
And glared it still on that narrow dell
WfflTtlEK'S POMMS. 1^5
Where thicker and browner the twilight fell ;
Yet at every sign of the fitful wind,
Or stirring of leaves in the wood behind,
His wild glance wander'd the landscape o'er.
Then fixed on that desolate dell once more.
Oh, who shall tell of the thought which ran
Through the dizzied brain of that gray old
man?
His childhood's home — and his father's toil —
And his sister's kiss — and his mother's smile —
And his brother's laughter and gamesome
mirth, '
At the village school and the winter hearth — ■
The beautiful thoughts of his early time.
Ere his heart grew dark with its later crime.
And darker and wilder his visions came
Of the deadly feud and the midnight flame,
Of the Indian's knife with its slaughter red.
Of the ghastly forms of the scalpless dead.
Of his own fierce deeds in that fearful hour
When ■ the terrible Brandt was forth in
power. —
And he clasp'd his hands o'er his burning eye
To shadow the vision which glided by.
l86 WHITTIEK'S POEMS.
It came with the rush of the battle-storm —
With a brother's shaken and kneeUng form,
And his prayer for Hfe when a brother's arm
Was Hfted above him for mortal harm,
And the fiendish curse, and the groan of
death,.
And the welling of blood, and the gurgling
breath,
And the scalp torn off while each nerve could
feel
The wrenching hand and the jagged steel 1
And the old man groan'd — for he saw, again,
The mangled corse of his kinsman slain,
As it lay where his hand had hurl'd it then,
At the shadow'd foot of that fearful glen! —
And it rose erect, with the death-pang grim.
And pointed its bloodied finger at him ! —
And his heart grew cold — and the curse of
Cain
Burn'd like a fire in the old man's brain.
Oh, had he not seen that spectre rise
On the blue of the cold Canadian skies ? —
From the lakes which sleep in the ancient
wood,
It had risen to whisper its tale of blood,
MiiadaabrfMH
WHITTZER'S POEMS. 187
And follow'd his bark to the sombre shore,
And glared by night through the wigwam
door ;
And here — on his own famiHar hill —
It rose on his haunted vision still!
Whose corse was that which the morrow's
sun,
Through the opening boughs, look'd calmly
on?
There where those who bent' o'er that rigid
face
Who well in its darken'd lines might trace
The features of him who, a traitor, fled
From a brother whose blood himself had shed,
And there — on the spot where he strangely
died —
They made the grave of the Fratricide I
SUICIDE POND.
'T is a dark and dismal little pool, and fed by
tiny rills,
And bosom'd in waveless quietude between
two barren hills ;
There is no tree on its rugged marge, save a
willow old and lone,
Like a solitary mourner for its sylvan sisters
gone.
The plough of the farmer turneth not the
sward of its gloomy shore.
Which bears even now the same gray moss
which in other times it bore ;
And seldom or never the tread of man is heard
in that lonely spot.
For v.^ith all the dwellers around that pool its
story is tinforgot.
And why does the traveler turn aside from
that dark and silent pool,
WHITTIER'S POEMS. 189
Though the sun be burning above his head,
and the willow's shade be cool ?
Or glance with fear to its shadowy brink, when
night rests darkly there,
And down, through its sullen and evil depths
the starg of the midnight glare ?
Merrily whistles the cow-boy on — but he
hushes his music when
He hurHes his cows, with a sidelong glance
from that cold forsaken glen !
Laughing and mirthful the young girl comes,
with her gamesome mates, from school.
But her laugh is lost and her lip is white as
she passes the haunted pool !
'T is said that a young, a beautiful girl, with a
brow and with an eye, —
One like a cloud in the moonlight robed, and
one like a star on hieh ! —
One who was loved by the villagers all, and
whose smile was a gift to them,
Was found one morn in that pool as cold as
the water-lily's stem !
Ay, cold as the rank and wasting weeds, wmch
lie in the pool's dark bed,
The villagers found that beautiful one, in the
slumber of the dead.
igo WHITTIEK'S POEMS.
She had strangely whisper'd her dark design "
in a young companion's ear,
But so Wild and vague that the listener smiled,
and knew not what to fear.
And she went to die in that loathsome pool
when the summer dav was done,
With her dark hair curl'd on her pure white
form and her fairest garments on ;
With the ring On her taper finger still, and
her necklace of ocean pearl.
Twined as in mockery round ,the neck of that
suicidal girl.
And why she perish'd so strangely there no
mortal tongue can tell —
She told her story to none, and Death retains
her sfe'cret well !
And the willow, whose mossy and aged boughs
o'er the silent water lean,
Like a sad and sorrowful mourner of the beau-
tiful dead, is seen!
But oft, our village maidens say, when the
summer evenings fall.
When the frog is calling from his pool to the
cricket in the wall ;
WHITTSER'S POEMS.
=f9t
When the night-hawk's wing dips lightly down
to that dull and sleeping lake,
'And slow through its green and stagnant
mass the shoreward circles break —
At a time like this, a misty form — as log be-
neath the moon —
Like a meteor glides to the startled view, and
vanishes as soon ;
Yet weareth it ever a hutnan shape, and ever
a human cry
Comes faintly and low on the still night-air, as
when the despairing die !
THE FOUNTAIN.
On the declivity of a bill, in Salisbury Essex County, is a beauti-
ful fountain of clear water, gushing out from the very roots of a
ma-jestic and venerable oak. It is about two miles from the juno
tion of the Powwow River with the Merrimack. ,
Traveler ! on thy journey toiling
By the swift Powwow,
With the summer sunshine falling
On thy heated brow
Listen, while all else is still,
To the brooklet from the hill.
Wild and sweet the flowers are blowing
By that streamlet's side.
And a greener verdure showing
Where its waters glide —
Down the hill-slope murmuring on,
Over root and mossy stone.
Where yon oak his broad arms flingeth
O'er the sloping hill,
Beautiful and freshly springeth
That soft-flowing rill,
, . WHITTIER'S POEMS. igi
Through its dark roots wreath'd and bare,
Gushing up to sun and air.
Brighter waters sparkled never
In that magic well,
Of whose gift of life for ever
Ancient legends tell, —
In the lonely desert wasted,
And by mortal lip untasted.
Waters which the proud Castilian *
Sought with longing eyes,
Underneath the bright pavilion
Of the Indian skies ;
Where upon his forest way
Bloom'd the flowers of Florida.
Years ago a lonely stranger,
With the dusky brow ^
Of the outcast forest-ranger,
Cross'd the swift Powwow;
And betook him to the rill.
And the oak upon the hill.
O'er his face of moody sadness
For an instant shone
• De Soto, in the sixteenth century, penetrated into the wilds oi
the new world in search of gold and the fountain of perpetua}
youth.
194
WHITTIEK'S POEMS.
Something like a gleam of gladness,
As he stoop'd him down
To the fountain's grassy side
And his eager thirst supplied.
With the oak its shadow throwing
O'er his mossy seat,
And the cool, sweet waters flowing
Softly at his feet.
Closely by the fountain's rim
That lone Indian seated him.
Autumn's earliest frost had given
To the woods below
Hues of beauty, such as Heaven
Lendeth to its bow ;
And the soft breeze from the West
Scarcely broke their dreamy rest.
Far behind was Ocean striving
With his chains of sand ;
Southward sunny glimpses giving,
'Twixt the swells of land,
Of its calm and silvery track,
Roll'd the tranquil Merrimack.
Over village, wood and meadow,
Gazed that stranger man
WHITTIEICS POEMS. 1 9 .,
Sadly, till the twilight shadow
Over all things ran,
Save where spire and Westward pane
Flash'd the sunset back again.
Gazing thus upon the dwelling
Of 'his warrior sires,
Where no lingering trace was telling
•• Of their wigwam fires,
Who the gloomy thoughts might know
Of that wandering child of woe ?
Naked lay, in sunshine glowing,
Hills that once had stood
Down their sides the shadows throwing
Of a mighty wood,
Where the deer his covert kept.
And the eagle's pinion swept !
Where the birch canoe had glided
Down the swift Powwow,
Dark and gloomy bridges strided
Those clear waters now ;
And where once the beaver swam,
Jar'd the wheel and frown'd the dam.
196 WHITTIEIPS POEMS.
For the wood-birds' merry singing,
And the hunter's ch'eer,
Iron clang and hammer's ringing
Smote upon his ear ;
And the thick and sullen smoke
From the blacken'd forges broke.
Could it be, his fathers ever,
Loved to linger here ?
These bare hills^ — this' conquer'd river-
Could they hold them dear,
With their native loveliness
Tamed and tortured into this ?
Sadly, as the shades of even
Gather'd o'er the hill.
While the western half of Heaven
Blush'd with sunset still,
From the fountain's mossy seat
Turn'd the Indian's weary feet.
Year on year hath flown for ever,
But he came no more
To the hill-side or the river
Where he came before.
But the villager can tell
Of that strange man's visit well.
WHITTI^K'S POEMS. 15^
And the merry children, laden,
With their fruits or flowers —
Roving boy and laughing maiden,
In their school-day hours,
Love the simple tale to tell
Of the Indian and his well.
PENTUCKET.
The village of Haverhill, on the Merrimack, called by the
Indians Pentucket, was for nearly seventy years a frontier town,
and during thirty years endured all the horrors of savage war-
fare. In the year 1708, a combined body of French and Indians,
under the command of De Challions, and Hertel de Rouville, the
infamous and bloody Backer of Deerfield, made an attack upon the
village, which at that time contained only thirty houses. Sixteen
of the villagers were massacred, and a still larger number made
prisoners. About thirty of the enemy also fell, and among them
Hertel de Rouville. The minister of the place, Benjamin Rolfe,
was killed by a shot through his own door.
How sweetly on the wood-girt town
The mellow light of sunset "shone !
Each small, bright lake, whose waters still
Mirror the forest and the hill,
Reflected from its waveless breast
The beauty of a cloudless West,
Glorious as if a glimpse were given
Within the western gates of Heaven
Left, by the spirit of the star
Of sunset's holy hour, ajar!
WHITTIER'S POEMS. i^p
Beside the river's tranquil flood
The dark and low-wall'd dwellings stood,
Where many a rood of open land
Stretch'd up and down on either hand,
With corn-leaves waving freshly green
The thick and blacken'd stumps between ;
The wild, untravel'd forest spread,
Behind, unbroken, deep and dread.
Back to those mountains, white and cold.
Of which the Indian trapper told,
Upon whose summits never yet
Was mortal foot in safety set.
Quiet and calm, without a fear
Of danger darkly lurking near.
The weary laborer left his plough —
The milk-maid carol 'd by her cow —
From cottage door and household hearth
Rose songs of praise, or tones of mirth.
At length the murmur died away,
And silence on that village lay —
So slept Pompeii, tower and hall,
Ere the qu ck earthquake swallow'd all,
Undreaming of the fiery fate
Which made its dwellings desolate !
Hours pass'd away. By moonlight sped
The Merrimack along his bed.
200 WHITTIEIVS POEMS.
Bathed in the pallid lustre, stood
Dark cottage-wall and rock and wood,
Silent, beneath that tranquil beam,
As the hush'd grouping of a dream.
Yet on the still air crept a sound —
No bark of fox — no rabbit's bound —
No stir of wings — nor waters flowing —
Nor leaves in midnight breezes blowing.
Was that the tread of many feet.
Which downward from the hill-side beat ?
What forms were those which darkly stood
Just on the margin of the wood? —
Charr'd tree-stumps in the moonlight dim,
Or paling rude, or leafless limb ?
No — through the trees fierce eye-balls glow'd
Dark human forms in moonshine show'd,
Wild from thqir native wilderness.
With painted limbs and battle-dress !
A yell, the dead might wake to hear,
Swell'd on the night air, far and clear —
Then smote the Indian tomahawk
On crashing door and shattering lock —
Then rang the rifle-shot — and then
The shrill death-scream of stricken men —
Sunk the red axe in woman's brain,
And childhood's cry arose in vain —
WHITTIER'S POEMS. 901
Bursting through roof and window came
Red, fast and fier e, the kindled flame ;
And blended fire and moonlight glared
Over dead corse and weapons bared.
The morning sun look'd brightly through
The river willows, wet with dew.
No sound of combat fill'd the air, —
No shout was heard, — nor gunshot there:
Yet still the thick and sullen smoke
From smouldering. ruins slowly broke;
And on the green sward many a stain,
And, here and there, the mangled slain,
Told how that midnight bolt had sped,
Pentucket, on thy fated head !
Even now, the villager can tell
Where Rolfe beside his hearth-stone fell,
Still show the door of wasting oak
Through which the fatal death-shot broke
And point the curious stranger where
De Rouville's corse lay grim and bare —
Whose hideous head, in death still fear'd,
Bore not a trace of hair or beard —
And still; within the churchyard ground,
Heaves darkly up the ancient mound,
Beneath whose grass-grown surface lies
The victims of that sacrifice.
THE Missionary.
" It is an awful, an arduous thing to root out every affection
for earthly things, so as to live only for another world. I am now
far, very far, from you all ; and as often as I look around and see
the Indian scenery, I sigh to think of the distance which separates
us." — Letters of Henry Martyn from India,
"Say, whose is this fair picture, which the
light
From the unshutter'd window rests upon
Even as a Hngering halo ? — Beautiful !
The keen, fine eye of manhood, and a lip
Lovely as that of Hylas, and impress'd
With the bright signet of some brilliant
thought —
That broad expanse of forehead, clear and
high,
Mark'd visibly with the characters of mind.
And the free locks around it, raven black,
Luxuriant and unsilver'd — who was he ? "
A friend, a more than brother. In the spring
And glory of his being he went forth
WHITT TEH'S POEMS. 203
From the embraces of devoted friends,
From ease and quiet happiness, from more —
From the warm heart that loved him with a
love
Holier then earthly passion, and to whom
The beauty of his spirit shone above
The charms of perishing nature. He wen
forth ,
Strengthen'd to suffer — gifted to subdue
The might of human passion- — to pass on
Quietly to the sacrifice of all
The lofty hopes of boyhood, and to turn
The high ambition written on that brow,
From its first dream of power and human
frame,
Unto a task of seeming lowliness —
Yet God-like in its purpose. He went forth
To bind the broken-spiritr— to pluck back
The heathen from the wheel of Juggernaut —
To place the spiritual image of a God
Holy and just and true, before the eye
Of the dark-minded Brahmin — and unseal
The holy pages of the Book of Life,
Fraught with sublimer mysteries than all
The sacred tomes of Vedas — to unbind
The widow from her sacrifice — and save
The perishing infant from the worship'd
river I
204 WHITTIER'S POEMS.
" And, lady, where is he ? " He slumbers
well
Beneath the shadow of an Indian palm,
There is no stone above his grave. The
wind,
Hot from the desert, as it stirs the leaves
Of neighboring bananas, sighs alone
Over his place of slumber.
" God forbid
That he should die alone ! " — Nay, not alone.
His God was with him in that last dread
hour —
His great arm underneath him, and His
smile
Melting into a spirit full of peace.
And one kind friend, a human friend, was
near — [prayers
One whom his teachings and his earnest
Had snatch'd as from the burning. He alone
Felt the last pressure of his failing hand,
Caught the last glimpses of his closing eye,
And laid the green turf over him with tears,
And left him with his God.
" And was it well,
Dear lady, that this noble mind should cast
Its rich gifts on the waters ? — That a heart
WHITTIER'S POEMS.
205
Full of all gentleness and truth and love
Should wither on the suicidal shrine
Of a mistaken duty ? If I read
Aright the fine intelligence which fills
That amplitude of brow, and gazes out
Like an indwelling spirit from that eye,
He might have borne him loftily among -"
The proudest of his land, and with a step
Unfaltering ever, steadfast and secure,
Gone up the paths of greatness,- — bearing still
A sister spirit with him, as some star,
Pre-eminent in Heaven, leads steadily up
A kindred watcher, with its fainter beams
Baptized in its great glory. Was it well
That all this promise of the heart and mind
Should perish from the earth, and leave no
trace,
Unfolding like the Cereus of the clime
Which hath its sepulchre, but in the night
Of pagan desolation — ^was it well ? "
Thy will be done, O Father! — it was well.
What are the honors of a perishing world
Grasp'd by a palsied finger ? — the applause
Of the unthoughtful multitude which greets
The dull ear of decay? — the wealth that loads
The bier with costly drapery, and shines
2o6 WHITTIEWS POEMS.
In tinsel on the coffin, and builds up
The cold substantial monument ? Can these
Bear up the sinking spirit in that hour
Wheii heart and flesh are failing, and the
grave
Is opening under us ? Oh, dearer then
The memory of a kind deed done to him
Who was our enemy, one grateful tear
In the meek eye of virtuous suffering,
One smile call'd up by unseen charity
On the wan cheek of hunger, or one prayer
Breathed from the bosom of the penitent — -
The stain'd with crime and outcast, unto whom
Our mild rebuke and tenderness of love
A merciful God hath bless'd.
" But, lady, say,
Did he not sometimes almost sink beneath
The burden of his toil, and turn aside
To weep above his sacrifice, and cast
A sorrowing glance upon his childhood's
home —
Still green in memory ? Clung not to his
heart
Something of early hope uncrucified,
Of earthly thought unchasten'd ? Did he bring
Life's warm affections to the sacrifice —
WffirriER'S POEMS.
20)
Its loves, hopes, sorrows — and become as one
Knowing no kindred but a perishing world,
No love but of the sin-endangered soul.
No hope but of the winning back to life
Of the dead nations, and no passing thought
Save of the errand wherewith he was sent
As to a martyrdom ? "
Nay, though the heart
Be consecrated to the holiest work
Vouchsafed to mortal effort, there will fae
Ties of the earth aroiind it, and, through all
Its perilous devotion, it must keep
Its own humanity. And it is well.
Else why 'wept He, who with our nature veil'd
The spirit of a God, o'er lost Jerusalem,
And the cold grave of Lazarus } And why
In the dim garden rose his, earnest prayer,
That from his lips the cup of suffering
Might pass, if it were possible .''
My friend
Was of a gentle nature, and his, heart
Gush'd like a river-fountain of the hills,
Cieaseless and lavish, at a kindly smile,
A word of welcome, or a tone of love.
Freely his letters to his friends disclosed
2o8 IVfflTTTER'S POEMS.
His yearnings for the quiet haunts of home —
For love and its companionship, and all
The blessings left behind him ; yet above
Its sorrows and its clouds his spirit rose,
Tearful and yet triumphant, taking hold
Of the eternal promises of God,
And steadfast in its faith. Here are some
lines
Penn'd in his lonely mission-house, and sent
To a dear friend of his who even now
Lingers above them with a mournful joy,
Holding them well nigh sacred — as a leaf
Plucked from the record of a breaking heart:
^ AN EVENING IN BURMAH.
A night of wonder ! — piled afar
With ebon feet and crests of snow,
Like Himalayah's peaks, which bar
. The sunset and the sunset's star
From half the shadow'd vale below,
Volumed and vast the dense clouds lie.
And over them, and down the sky.
Broadly and pale the lightnings go.
Above, the pleasant moon is seen,
Pale journeyer to her own loved West!
IVfflTTIER'S POEMS.
209
Like some bright spirit sent between
The earth and heaven, she seems to lean
Wearily on the cloud and rest;
And light from her unsullied brow
That gloomy cloud is gathering now
Along each wreath'd and whitening crest
And what a strength of light and shade
Is chequering all the earth below! —
And, through the jungle's verdant braid
Of tangled vine and wild reed made,
What blossoms in the moonlight glow ! —
The Indian rose's loveliness,
The ceiba with its crimson dress.
The myrtle with its bloom of snow.
And flitting in the fragrant air,
Or nestling in the shadowy trees,
A thousand bright-hued birds are there —
Strange plumage quiveiing, wild and rare.
With every faintly-breath ing breeze ;
And, wet with dew from roses shed,
The Bulbul droops her weary head,
Forgetful of her melodies.
Uprising from the orange leaves
The tall pagoda's turrets glow ;
O'er graceful shaft and fretted eaves
tlO WHITTIER'S POEMS.
Its verdant web the myrtle weaves,
And hangs in flowering wreaths below;
And where the cluster'd palms eclipse
The moonbeams, from its marble lips
The fountain's silver waters flow.
Yes, all is lovely — earth and air —
As aught beneath the sky may be ;
And yet my thoughts are wandering where
My native rocks lie bleak and bare —
A weary way beyond the sea.
The yearning spirit is not here ;
It lingers on a spot more dear
Than India's brightest bowers to me.
Methinks I tread the well-known street —
The tree my childhood loved is there.
Its bare-worn roots are at my feet,
And through its open boughs I meet
White glimpses of the place of prayer —
And unforgotten eyes again
Are glancing through the cottage pane,
Than Asia's lustrous eyes more fair.
What though, with every fitful gush
Of night-wind, spicy odors come ;
And hues of beauty glow and flush
From matted vine and wild rose-bush :
WHITTIEH'S POEMS. 2 - 1
And music's sweetest, faintest hum
Steals through the moonHght, as in dreams,-
Afar from all my spirit seems
Amid the dearer scenes of home!
A holy name — the name of home ! —
Yet where, O wandering heart, is thine ?
Here where the dusky heathen come
To bow before the deaf and dumb —
Dead idols of their own design,
Where deep in Ganges' worship'd tide
The infant sinks — and on its side
The widow's funeral altars shine !
Here, where 'mid light and song and flowers
The priceless soul in ruin lies —
Lost — dead to all those better powers
Which link a fallen world like ours
To God's own holy Paradise ;
Where open sin and hideous crime
Are like the foliage of their clime —
The unshorn growth of centuries !
Turn, then, my heart — thy home is here ;
No other now remains for thee : —
The smile of love, and friendship's tear,
The tones that melted on thine ear,
SI 2 WHITTIEK'S POEMS.
The mutual thrill of sympathy,
The welcome of the household band,
The pressure of the lip and hand,
Thou may'st not hear, nor ffeel, nor see.
God of my spirit ! — Thou alone,
Who watchest o'er my pillowed head,
Whose ear is open to the moan
And sorrowing of thy child, hast known
The grief which at my heart has fed, —
The struggle of my soul to rise
Above its earth-born sympathies, —
The tears of many a sleepless bed !
Oh, be Thine arm, as it hath been,
In every test of heart and faith —
The Tempter's doubt — the wiles of men —
The heathen's scoff — the bosom sin —
A helper and a stay beneath,
A strength in weakness 'mid the strife
And anguish of my wasting life —
My solace and my hope in death 1
-L
STANZAS,
Suggested by the letter of a friend.
I SEE thee still before me, even
As when we parted.
When o'er my blue eye's brilliant heaven
A tear had started ;— »
And a slight tremor in thy tone,
Like that of some frail harp-string blown
By fitful breezes, faint and low.
Told, in that brief and sad farewell,
All that affection's heart may tell.
And more than words can show I
Yet, thou art with the dreamless dead
Quietly sleeping,
Around the marble at thy head
The wild grass creeping! —
How many thoughts, which but belong
Unto the living and the young,
2 14 WmTTIES'S POEMS.
Have whisper'd from my heart of thee.
When thou wast resting calmly there,
Shut from the blessed sun and air —
From life and love and me 1
Why did I leave thee ? — Well I knew
A flower so frail
Might sink beneath the Summer dew.
Or soft Spring gale :
I knew how delicately wrought,
With feeling and intensest thought,
Was each sweet lineament of thine ; —
And that thy heavenward soul would gain
An early freedom from its chain,
Was there not many a sign ?
There was a brightness in thine eye,
Yet not of mirth —
A light whose clear intensity
Was not of earth !
Along thy cheek a deepening red
Told where the feverish hectic fed,
And, yet, each fearful token gave
A newer and a dearer grace
To the mild beauty of thy face.
Which spoke not of the gravel
WfflTTIER'S POEMS. 21S
Why did I leave thee ? — Far away
They told of lands
Glittering with gold, and none to stay
The gleaner's hands.
For this I left thee — ay, and sold
The riches of my heart for gold !
For yonder mansion's vanity —
For green verandas, hung with flowers,
For marbled fount and orange bowers,
And grove and flowering tree.
Vain — worthless, all! The lowliest spot
Enjoy'd with thee,
A richer and' a dearer lot
Would seem to me :
For well I knew that thou couldst find
Contentment in thy spotless mind
And in my own unchanging love.
Why did I leave thee ? — Fully mine
The blessing of a heart like thine,
What could I ask above ?
Mine is a selfish misery —
I cannot weep
For one supremely blest, like thee,
With Heaven's sleep ;
The passion and the strife of time
2 1 6 WffirT/ES'S POEMS.
Can never reach that sinless clime,
Where the redeem 'd of spirit dwell ! —
Why should I weep that thou art free
From all the grief which maddens me ?—
Sainted and loved — Farewell 1
LINES ON A PORTRAIT.
How beautiful ! — That brow of snow,
That glossy fall of fair brown tresses,
The blue eye's tranquil heaven below,
The hand whereon the fair cheek presses,
Half-shadow'd by a falling curl
Which on the temple's light reposes —
Each finger like a line of pearl
Contrasted with the cheek's pure roses!
There, as she sits beneath the shade
By vine and rose-wreath 'd arbor made.
Tempering the light which, soft and warm,
Reveals her full and matchless form,
In thoughtful quietude, she seems ,
Like one of Raphael's pictur'd dreams,
VV here blend in one all radiant face
The woman's warmth — the angel's grace !
Well — I can gaze upon it now,
As on some cloud of autumn's even,
2l1 WHITTIEIPS POEMS.
Bathing its pinions in th ' glow
And glory of the sunset heaven — -
So holy and so far away
That love without desire is cherish'd,
Like that which lingers o'er the clay
Whose warm and breathing life has perish'd
While yet upon its brow is shed
The mournful beauty of the dead !
And I can look on her as one
Too pure for aught save gazing on —
An Idol in some holy place,
Which man may kneel to, not caress—^
Or melting tone of music heard
From viewless lip, or unseen bird. '
I know her not. And what is all
Her beauty to a heart like mine,
While memory yet hath power to call
Its worship from a stranger-shrine ?
Still midst the weary din of life
The tones I love my ear has met ;
Midst lips of scorn and brows of strife
The smiles I love are lingering yet!
The hearts in sunand shadow known —
The kind hands lingering in our own —
The cords of strong affection spun
By early deeds of kindness done—
WHITTIER'S POEMS.^ ,15
The blessed sympathies which bind
The spirit to its kindred mind, —
Oh, whd would leave these tokens tried
For all the stranger-world beside ?
STANZAS.
" Art thou beautiful? — Live then in accordance with the curious
make and frame of thy creation ; and let the beauty of thy person
teach thee to beautify thy mind with holiness, the ornament of the
beloved of God." — William Penn.
Bind up thy tresses, thou beautiful one,
Of brown in the shadow and gold in the sun !
Free should their delicate lustre be thrown
O'er a forehead more pure than the Parian
stone —
Shaming the light of those Orient pearls
Which bind o'er its whiteness thy soft wreath-
ing curls.
'fc>
Smile — for thy glance on the mirror is thrown,
And the face of an angel is meeting thine
own !
Beautiful creature — I marvel not
That thy cheek a lovelier tint hath caught;
And the kindling light of thine eye hath told
Of a dearer wealth than the miser's gold.
WHITTIER'S POEMS. 221
Away, away — there is danger here —
A terrible phantom is bending near;
Ghastly and sunken, his rayless eye
Scowls on thy loveliness scornfully —
With no human look — with no human breath.
He stands beside thee, — the haunter, Death !
Fly ! but, alas ! he will follow still,
Like a moonlight shadow, beyond thy will ;
In thy noon-day walk — in thy midnight sleep,
Close at Ihy hand will that phantom keep —
Still in thine ear shall his whispers be —
Wo, that such phantom should follow thee!
In the lighted hall where the dancers go,
Like beautiful spirits, to and fro ;
When thy fair arms glance in their stainless
white,
Like ivory bathed iri still moonlight ;
And not one star in the holy sky
Hath a clearer light than thine own blue eye ■'
Oh, then — even then — he will follow thee.
As the ripple follows the bark at sea ;
In the soften'd light — in the turning dance —
He will fix on thine his dead, cold glance^
The chill of his breath on thy cheek shall
linger,
222 WHITTIER'S POEMS.
And thy warm blood shrink from his icy
finger !
And yet there is hope. Embrace it now,
While thy soul is open as thy brow ;
While thy heart is fresh— while its feelings
still
Gush clear as the unsoil'd mountain-rill —
And thy smiles are free as the airs of spring,
Greeting and blessing each breathing thing.
•
When the after cares of thy life shall come,
When the bud shall wither before its bloom ;
When thy soul is sick of the emptiness
And changeful, fashion of human bliss ;
And the weary torpor of blighted feeling
Over thy heart as ice is stealing —
Then, when thy spirit is turn'd above,
By the mild rebuke of the Chastener's love ;
When the hope of that joy in thy heart is
stirr'd.
Which eye hath not seen, nor ear hath heard, —
Then will that phantom of darkness be
Gladness, and Promise, and Bliss to thee.
TO THE MEMORY OF J. O. ROCK-
WELL.
The turf is smooth above him ! and this rain
Will moisten the rent roots, and summon back
The perishing life of its green-bladed grass,
And the crush'd flower will lift its head again
Smilingly unto Heaven, as if it kept
No vigil with the dead.
Well — it is meet
That the green grass should tremble, and the
flowers
Blow wild about his resting-place. His mind
Was in itself a flower, but half disclosed—
A bud of blessed promise, which the storm
Visited rudely, and the passer by
Smote down in wantonness. — But we may
trust
That it hath found a dwelling, where the sun
Of«a more holy clime will visit it.
And the pure dews of mercy will descend,
Through Heaven's own atmosphere, upon its
head.
224
WHITTIER'S POEMS.
His form is now before me, with no trace
Of death in its fine lineaments, and there
Is a faint crimson on his youthful cheek,
And his free lip is softening with the smile
Which in his eye is kindling. ' I can feel
The parting pressure of his hand, and hear
His last " God bless you ! " — strange — that he
is there
Distinct before me like a breathing thing,
Even when I know that he is with the dead,
And that the damp earth hides him, I would
not
Think of him otherwise — his image lives
Within my memory as he seem'd before
The curse of blighted feeling, and the toil
And fever of an uncongenial strife, had left
Their traces on his aspect,
Pea^e to him
He wrestled nobly with the weariness
And trials of our being — smiling on,
While poison mingled with his springs of life,
And wearing a calm brow, while on his heart
Anguish was resting like a hand of fire —
Until at last the agony of thought
Grew insupportable, and madness came
Darkly upon him, — and the sufferer died t
H^j rTIER'S POEMS.
325
Nor died he unlamented ! To hi& grave
The beautiful and gifted shall go up,
And muse upon the sleeper. And young lips
Shall murmur in the broken tones of grief —
His own sweet melodies — and if the ear
Of the freed spirit heedeth aught beneath
The brightness of its new inheritance,
It may be joyful to the parted one
To feel that earth remembers him in love I
THE UNQUIET SLEEPER.
The Hunter went forth with his dog and gun
In the earliest glow of the golden sun ; —
The trees of the forest bend over his way,
In the changeful colors of Autumn gay ;
For a frost had fallen the night before.
On the quiet greenness which Nature wore.
A bitter frost ! — for the night was chill.
And starry and dark, and the wind was still,
And so when the sun looked out on the hills,
On the stricken woods and the frosted rills,
The unvaried green of the landscape fled,
And a wild, rich robe was given instead.
We know not whither the hunter went.
Or how the last of his days was spent;
For the moon grew nigh — ^but he came not
■ back,
Weary and faint from his forest track ;
And his wife sat down to her frugal board,
Peside the empty seat of her lord-
Wjr/TT/ER'S POEMS. S2y
And the day passed on, and the sun came
down
To the hills of the west, like an angel's crown,
The shadows lengthened from wood and hill.
The mist crept up from the meadow-rill,
Till the broad sun sank, and the red light
rolled
All over the west, like a wave of gold I
Yet he came not back — though the stars gave
forth
Their wizard light to the silent Earth ;
And his wife looked out from the lattice dim
In the earnest manner of fear for him ;
And his fair-haired child on the door-stone
stood
To welcome his father back from the wood 1
He came not back ! — ^yet they found him soon.
In the burning light of the morrow's noon,
In the fixed and visionless sleep of death,
Where the red leaves fell at the soft wind's
breath ;
And the dog, whose step in the chase was
fleet,
Crouched silent and sad at the Hunter's feet
228 vrffirriER's poems.
He slept in death ; — but his sleep was one
Which his neighbors shuddered to look upon;
For his brow was black, and his open eye
Was red with the sign of agony :
And they thought, as they 'gazed on his
features grim,
'That an evil deed had been done on him.
They buried him where his fathers laid.
By the m.ossy mounds in the grave-yard shade,
Yet whispers of doubt passed over the dead,
And beldames muttered while prayers were
said;
And the hand of the sexton shook as he
pressed
The damp earth down on the Hunter's breast
The seasons passed — and the Autumn rain
And the colored forests returned asain :
'T was the very eve that the Hunter died,
The winds waii'd over the bare hill-side,
And the wreathing limbs of the forest shook
Their red leaves over the swollen brook.
There came a sound on the night-air then.
Like a spirit-shriek, to the homes of men,
WHITTIEK'S POEMS, 223
And louder and shriller it rose again,
Like the fearful cry of the mad with pain ;
And trembled alike the timid and brave,
For they knew that it came from the Hunter a
grave '
And every year when Autumn flings
Its beautiful robe on created things.
When Piscataqua's tide is turbid with rain
And Cocheco's woods are yellow again,
That cry is heard from the grave-yard eart>.
Like the howl of a demon struggllnjj forth '
METACOM.
Red as the banner which enshrouds
The warrior-dead when strife is done.
A broken mass of crimson clouds
Hung over the departed sun.
The shadow of the western hill
Crept swiftly down, and darkly still,
As if a sullen wave of night
Were rushing on the pale twilight.
The forest-openings grew more dim,
As glimpses of the arching blue
And waking stars came softly through
The rifts of many a giant limb.
Above the wet and tangled swamp ,
White vapors gathered thick and damp,
And through their cloudy-curtaining
Flapped many a brown and dusky wing-
Pinions that fan the moonless dun.
But fold them at the rising sun I
WHITTIER'S POEMS.
231
Beneath the closing veil of night,
And leafy bough and curling fog.-
With his few warriors ranged in sight —
Scarred relics of his latest fight —
Rested the fiery Wampanoag.
He leaned upon his loaded gun,
Warm with its recent work of death,
And, save the struggling of his breath
That, slow and hard, and long-suppressed,
Shook the damp folds around his breast,
An eye, that was unused to scan
The sterner moods of that dark man.
Had deemed his tall and silent form
With hidden passion fierce and warm.
With that fixed eye, as still and dark
As clouds which veil their lightning spark —
That of some forest-champion
Whom sudden death had passed upon —
A giant frozen into stone.
Son of the throned Sachem,: — thou.
The sternest of the forest kings, —
Shall the scorned pale-one trample now,
Unambushed, on thy mountain's brow-
Yea, drive his vile and hated plow
Among thy nation's holy things,
Crushing the warrior-skeleton
In scorn beneath his armed heel, »
(►5J3 WHITTJEK'S POEMS.
And not a hand be left to deal
A kindred vengeance fiercely back,
And cross in blood the Spoiler's track ?
He started, — ^for a sudden shot
Came booming through the forest-
trees^
The thunder of the fierce Yengeese :
It passed away, and injured not;
But, to the Sachem's brow it brought
1 1 e token of his lion thought.
He stood erect — his dark eye burned,
As if to meteor-brightness turned ;
And o'er his forehead passed the frown
Of an archangel stricken down,
Ruined and lost, yet chainless still —
Weakened of power but strong of will I
It passed — a sudden tremor came
Like ague o'er his giant frame, —
It was not terror — he had stood
For hours, with death in grim attend-
ance.
When moccasins grew stiff with blood,
And through the clearing's midnight
flame,
Dark, as a storm, the Pequod came,
WHITTIEKS POEMS.
233
His red right arm their strong depend-
ence — ^
When thrilling through the forest gloom
The onset cry of " Metacom ! "
Rang on the red and smoky air! —
No — it was agony which passed
Upon his soul — the strong man's last
And fearful struggle with despair.
He turned him to his trustiest one —
The old and war-tried Annawon —
" Brother "- — the favored warrior stood
In hushed and listening attitude —
*' This night the Vision-Spirit hath
Unrolled the scroll of fate before me;
And ere the sunrise cometh, Death
Will wave his dusky pinion o'er-me! '
Nay, start not — well I know thy faith :
Thy weapon now may keep its sheath ;
But when the bodeful morning breaks,
And the green forest widely wakes
Unto the roar of Yengeese thunder,
Then, trusted brother, be it thine
To burst upon the foeman's line
And rend his serried strength asunder.
Perchance thyself and yet a few '
Of faithful ones may struggle through,
234 • WHITTIER'S POEMS.
And, rallying on the wooded plain,
Offer up in Yengeese blood
An offering to the Indian's God."
Another shot — a sharp, quick yell,
And then the stifled groan of pain.
Told that another red man fell, —
And blazed a sudden liorht aa^ain
Across that kingly brow and eye.
Like lightning on a cloudy sky, —
And a low growl, like that which thrills
The hunter of the Eastern hills.
Burst through clenched teeth and rigid
lip-
And when the Monarch spoke again.
His deep voice shook beneath its rein.
And wrath and grief held fellowship,
" Brother ! methought when as but now
I pondered on rny nation's wrong,
With sadness on his shadowy brow
My father's spirit passed along I
He pointed to the far southwest.
Where sunset's gold was growing dim,
And seemed to beckon me to him.
And to the forests of tlte blest !—
My father loved the Yengeese, when
WniTTIER'S POEMS. 235
^ They wert but children, shelterless •
For his gre^t spirit at distress
Melted to woman's tenderness —
Nor was it given him to know
That children whom he cherished then
Would rise at length, like armed men.
To work his people's overthrow.
Yet thiis it is ; — the God before
Whose awful shrine the pale ones bow
Hath frowned upon and given o'er
The red man to the stranorer now! — ■
A few more moons, and there will be
No gathering to the council-tree ;
The scorched earth, the blackened log,
The naked bones of warriors slain,
Be the sole relics which remain
Of the once mighty Wampanoag I
The forests of our huntinQ;-]and
With all their old and solemn green,
Will bow before the Spoiler's axe,
The plough displace the hunter's tracks,
And the tall Yensfeese altar stand
Where the Great Spirit's shrine hath been I
*• Yet, brother, from this awful hour
The dying curse of Metacom
Shall linger with abiding power
236 WniTTIEK'S POEMS.
Shall pour a darker tide than rain —
The sea shall catch its blood-red stain
And broadly" on its banks shall gleam
The steel of those who should be brothers — ■
Yea, those whom once fond parent nursed
Shall meet in strife, like fiends accursed,
And trample down the once loved form.
Upon the spoilers of ray home.
The fearful veil of things to come
By Kitchtan's hand is lifted from
The shadows of the embryo years ;
And I can see more clearly through
Than ever visioned Powwow did,
For all the future comes unbid
yet welcome to my tranced view,
As battle-yell to warrior-ears 1
From stream and lake and hunting-hill
Our tribes may vanish like a dreamj
And even my dark curse may seem
Like idle winds when Heaven is still —
No bodeful harbinger of ill,
But fiercer than the downright thunder
When yawns the mountain-rock asunder,
And riven pine and knotted oak
Are reeling to the fearful stroke,
That curse shall work its master's will 1
The bed of yon blue mountain stream
WHITTIEIVS POEMS. 837
While yet with breathing passion warm.
As fiercely as they would another's 1 "
The morning star sat dimly on
The lighted eastern horizon —
The deadly glare of leveled gun '
Came streaking through the twilight haze,
And naked to its reddest blaze
A hundred warriors sprang in view ;
One dark red arm was tossed on hiarh —
One giant shout came hoarsely through
The clangor and the charging cry,
Just as across the scattering gloom,
Red as the naked hand of Doom,
The Yengeese volley hurtled by —
The arm — the voice of Metacom ! —
One piercing shriek — one vengeful yell.
Sent like an arrow to the sky,
Told when the hunter-monarch fell I
THE MURDERED LADY.
A DARK-HULLED brig at atichor rides
Within the still and moonlit bay,
And round its black, portentous sides
The waves like living creatures play!
And close at hand a tall ship lies,
A voyager from the Spanish Main,
Laden -vitJi gold and merchandise —
She'll ne'er return again 1
The fisher in his seaward skiff
Creeps stealthily along the shore
Within the shadow of the cliff,
Where keel had never ploughed before ;
He turns him from that stranger bark
And hurries down the silvery bay,
Where like a denion still and dark,
She watches o'er her prey.
WHITTIEK'S POEMS. 239
The midnight came. — A dash of oars
Broke on the ocean-stiliness then.
And swept toward the rocky shores
The fierce wild forms of outlawed men — ;
The tenants of this fearful ship,
Grouped strangely in the pale moonlight —
Dark, iron brow and bearded lip,
Ghastly with storm and fight.
They reach the shore, — but who is she,
The white-robed one. they bear along ?
She shrieks — she struggles to be free —
God shield that gentle one from wrong
It may not be, — those pirate men
Along the hushed, deserted street
Have borne her to a narrow glen
Scarce trod by human feet.
And there the ruffians murdered her,
When not an eye, save Heaven's, beheld, —
Ask of the shuddering villager
What. sounds upon the night air swelled;
Woman's long shriek of mortal fear —
Her wild appeal to hearts of stone,
The oath — the taunt, — ^the brutal jeer —
The pistol-shot — the groan 1
240
WfflTTIER'S POEMS.
With shout and jest and losel song,
From savage tongues which knew no rein.
The stained with murder passed along
And sought their ocean-home' again ;
And all the nisfht their revel came
In hoarse and sullen murmurs on, —
A yell rang up — a burst of flame — ■
The Spanish ship was gone !
The morning light came red and fast
Along the still and blushing sea;
The phantoms of the night had passed —
That ocean-robber— where was she ?
Her sails were reaching from the wiad,
Her crimson banner-folds were stirred ;
jflnd ever and anon behind
. Her shouting crew were heard.
Then came the village-dwellers forth
And sought with fear the fatal glen ;
The stain of blood — the trampled earth —
Told where the deed of death had been.
They found a grave — a new-made one —
With bloody sabres hollowed out,
And shadowed from the searching sun
By tall trees round about.
WHITTIER'S POEMS.
24*
They left the hapless stranger there ;
They knew her sleep would be as wKl
As if the priest had poured his prayer
Above her, with the funeral-bell.
The few poor rites which man can pay
And felt not by the lonely sleeper ;
The deaf, unconscious ear of clay
Heeds not the living weeper.
They tell a tale — those sea-worn men
Who dwell along that rocky coast—
Of sights and sounds within the glen,
Of midnight shriek and gliding ghost
And oh ! if ever from their chill
And dreamless sleep the dead arise,
That victim of unhallowed ill
Might wake to human eyes !
They say that often when the mom
Is struggling with the gloomy even.
And over moon and stars is drawn
The curtain of a clouded heaven,
Strange sounds swell up the narrow glen
As if that robber-crew was there —
The hellish laugh — the shouts ot men —
And woman's dying prayer !
THE WEIRD GATHERING.
A TRUMPET in the darkness blown —
A peal upon the air — ■
The church-yard answers to its tone
With boding shriek and wail and groan-
The dead are gliding there 1
It rose upon the still midnight,
A summon,s long and clear —
The wakeful shuddered with affright —
The dreaming sleeper sprang upright
And pressed his stunning ear.
The Indian, where his serpent eye
Beneath the green-wood shone,
Startled, and tossed his arms on high,
And answered, with his own wild cry,
The sky's unearthly tone.
WIIITTIER'S rOEMS. ,43
Tl^e wild birds rose in startled flocks
As the long trumpet swelled ;
And loudly from their old, gray rock§
The gaunt, fierce wolf and caverned fox
In mutual terror yelled.
There is a >vlld and haunted glen
'Twixt Saueus and Naumkeasj: —
'T is said of old that wizard-men
And demons to that spot have been
To consecrate their league.
A fitting place for such as these —
That small and sterile plain,
So girt about withtall old trees
Which rock and groan in every breeze,
Like spirits cursed with pain.
It was the witch's trysting-place,
The wizard's chosen ground,
Where the accursed of human race
With demons gathered, face to face,
By the midnight trumpet's sound.
And there that night the trumpet rang
And rock and hill replied,
e44 WHITTIEIVS POEMS.
And down the glen strange shadows sprang.
Mortal and fiend — a wizard gang —
Seen dimly side by side.
They gathered there from every land
That sleepeth in the sun, —
They came with spell and charm in hand,
Waiting their Master's high cdmmand —
Slaves to the Evil One!
From islands of the far-off seas —
From Hecla's ice and flame —
From where the loud and savage breeze
Growls through the tall Norwegian tre^s
Seer, witch, and wizard came !
And from the sunny land of palms
The negro hag was there —
The Gree-gree, with his Obi charms —
The Indian, with his tattooed arms
And wild and streaming hair.
The Gypsy, with her fierce, dark eyes,
The worshipper of flame —
The searcher out of mysteries
Above a human sacrifice —
All — all — together came I
WHITTIEK'S POEMS. 24S
Nay, look not down that lighted dell
Thou startled traveler ! —
Thy christian eye should never dwell
On gaunt, gray witch and fiend of hell
And evil Trumpeter 1
But the traveler turned him frdm his way,
For he heard the reveling,
And saw the red light's wizard ray
Among the dark-leafed branches play,
Like an unholy thing.
He knelt him on the rocks and cast
A fearful glance ben^^ath ;
Wizard and hag before him passed,
Each wilder, fiercer than the last, —
His heart grew cold as death!
Wo. saw thfe dark-browed Arumpeter,
In human shape was he ;
And witch and fiend and sorcerer.
With shriek and laugh and curses, were
Assembled at his knee.
And lo ! beneath his straining glance
A light form stole along —
246 WHITTIEIPS POEMS.
Free, as if moving to the dance,
He saw her fairy steps advance
Toward the evil throng.
The light along her forehead played —
A wan, unearthly glare ;
Her cheek was, pale beneath the shade
The wildness of her tresses made.
Yet nought of fear was there I
Now God have mercy on thy brain
Thou stricken traveler!
Look on thy victim once again.
Bethink thee of her wrongs and pain —
Dost thou remember her ?
The traveler smote his burning brow, —
For he saw the wronged one there —
He knew her by her forehead's snow,
And by her large blue eye below
And by her wild, dark hair.
Slov/ly, yet firm she held her way,—
The wizard's song grew still —
The sorcerer left his elfish play,
And hideous imp and beldame gray
Waited the stranger's wilL
WHJTTIER'S POEMS. 147
A voice came up that place of fear —
The Trumpeter's hoarse tone -.
" Speak — who art thou that comest here
With brow baptized and christian ear
Unsummoned and alone? "
One moment, and a tremor shook
Her light and graceful frame, —
It passed, and then her features took
A fiercer and a haughtier look
As thus her answer came : —
" Spirits of evil —
Workers of doom !—
Lo ! to your revel
For vengeance I come —
Vengeance on him
W^ho has blighted my fame!
Fill his cup to the brim
With a curse without name!
Let his, false heart inherit
The madness of mine,
And I yield ye my spirit
And bow at your shrine ! '*
A sound -- a mingled laugh and yell,
Went howling fierce and far ;
i_48. WHlTtlEk'S POEMS,
A redder, light shone through the 'dell,
As if the very gates of hell
Swung suddenly ajar.
" Breathe then thy curse, thou daring one,"
A low, deep voice replied :
" Whate'er thou askest shall be done,
The burthen of thy doom upon
The false one shall abide."
The maiden stood erect — her brow
Grew dark as those around her,
As burned upon her lip that vow
Which christian ear may never know, —
And the dark fetter bound her !
Ay, there she stood — the holy Heaven
Was looking down on her —
An Angel from her bright home driven —
A spirit lost and doomed and given
To fiend and sorcerer !
And changed — how changed I — her aspect
grew
Fearful and elfish there ;
The warm tinge from her cheek withdrew,
And one dark spot of blood-red hue
Burned on her forehead fair.
WtilT.TlEK'S POEMS. 349
Wild from her eye of madness shone
The baleful fire within,
As with a shrill and lifted tone
She made her fearful purpose known
Before the powers of sin : —
* Let my curse be upon him —
The faithless of heart !
Let the smiles that have won hinj
In fro-<vning depart !
Let his last, cherished blossom
Of sympathy die,
And the hoi^es of his bosom
In shadows go by!
Ay, curse him — but keep
The poor boon of his breath
Till he sigh for the sleep
And the quiet of death !
Let a viewless one haunt him
With whisper and jeer,
And an evil one daunt him
With phantoms of fear!
Be the fiend unforgiving
That follows his tread I
Let him walk with the living.
Yet gaze on the dead ! "
iSo WHITTIBS'S POEMS.
She ceased. The doomed one felt the spell
Already on his brain ;
He turned him from the wizard-dell ;
He prayed to Heaven ; he cursed' at hell ; —
He wept — and all in vain. '
The night was one of mortal fear ;
The mornino- rose to him
Dark as the shroudings of a bier^
As if the blessed atmosphere,
Like his own soul, was dim.
He passed among his fellow-men
With wild and dreamy air,
For, whispering in his ear again
The horrors of the midnight glen.
The demon found him there. i
And when he would have knelt and prayed
Amidst his household band,
An unseen power his spirit stayed,
And on his moving lip was laid
A hot and burning hand !
WfflTTJES'S POEMS. zjj
The lost one in the solitude
Of dreams he gazed upon,
And when the holy morning glowed
Her dark eye shone, her wild hair flowed
Between him and the sun !
His brain grew wild, — and then he died;
Yet, ere his heart grew cold,
To the gray priest who at his side
The strength of prayer and blessing tried.
His fearful tale was told.
They've bound the witch with many a
thong —
The holy priest is near her ;
And ever as she moves along,
A murmuirtises fierce and strong
From those who hate and fear her.
She's standing up for sacrifice
Beneath the gallows-tree; '
The silent town beneath her lies,
Above her are the summer skies,
Far off the quiet sea.
853 WaiTTIEK'S POEMS.
So'young — so frail — so very fair-
Why, should the victim die ?
Look on her brow! — the red stain there
Burns underneath her tangled-hair — _
And mark her fiery eye I
A thousand eyes are looking up
In scorn and hate to her ;
A bony hand hath coiled the rope,
And yawns upon the green hill's slope
The witch's sepulchre !
5-, ■■ ,.- •'.■ O
Ha! she hath spurned both priest and bjook-
Ker hand is tossed on high —
Pfeir curse is loud, she will not brook
The impatient crowd's abiding look —
Hark ! how she shrieks to die 1
Up — up — one struggle — all is done I
One crroan — the deed is wrous;ht!
Wo for the wronged and fallen one I —
Her corpse is blackened in the sun,
Her spirit — trace it not !
THE BLACK FOX.
It was a cold and cruel night,
Some fourscore years ago,
The clouds across the winter sky
Were scudding to and fro ;
The air above was cold and keen,
The earth was white below.
Around an ancient fireplace
A happy household drew ;
The husband and his own goodwife,
And children not a few ;
And bent above the spinning-wheel
The aged grandame too.
The fire-light reddened all the room,
It rose so high and strong,
And mirth was in each pleasant eye
Within that household throng ;
And while the grandame turned her wheel
The good man hummed a song.
854 WHITTIEK'S POEMS.
At length spoke up a fair-haired girl,
Some seven summers old,
^ " Now grandame, tell the tale again
Which yesterday you told ;
About the Black Fox and the men
Who followed him so bold."
" Yes, tell it," said a dark-eyed boy,
And " Teirit,"'said his brother;
" Just tell the story of the Fox,
We will not ask another."
And all the children gathered close
Around their old grandmother.
Then lightly in her withered hands
The grandame turned her reel,
And when the thread was wound a nay
She set aside her wheel,
And smiled with that peculiar joy
The old and happy feel.
" 'T is more than sixty years ago
Since first the Fox was seen —
'T was in the winter of the year.
When not a leaf was green,
Save where the dark old hemlock stood
The naked oaks between.
WHITTIER'S POEMS. aSS
" My father saw the creature first,
One bitter winter's day —
It passed so near that he could see
Its fiery eyeballs play,
And well he knew an evil thing,
And foul, had crossed his way.
" A hunter like my father then
We never more shall see —
The mountain-cat was not more swift
Of eye and foot than he :
His aim was fatal in the air
And on the tallest tree.
" Yet close beneath his ready aim
The Black Fox hurried on,
And when the forest echoes mocked
The sharp voice of his gun,
The creature gave a frightful yell
Long, loud, but only one.
" And there was something horrible
And fiendish in that yell ;
Our good old parson heard it once,
And I have heard him tell
That it might well be likened to
A fearful cry from hell.
456 WHITTIER'S poems:
" Day after day that Fox was seen
He prowled our forests through,
Still gliding wild and spectre-like
Before the hunter's view ;
And howlinor louder than the storm
When savagely it blew.
" The Indians, when upon the wind
That howl rose long and clear,
Shook their wild heads mysteriously
And muttered, as in fear ;
Or veiled their eyes, as if they knew
An evil thing was near.
" They said it was a Fox accurst
By Hobomocko's will,
That it was once a mighty chief
Whom battle might not kill,
But whOj for some unspoken crime,
Was doomed to wander still.
" That every year, when all the hills
Were white with winter snow.
And the tide of Salmon River ran
The gathering ice below.
His howl was heard and his forni was seen
Still hurrying to and fro.
tVHITTIER'S POEMS. j--
" At length two gallant hunter youths,
The boast and pride of all —
The gayest in the hour of mirth
The first at danger's call,
Our playmates at the village school,
Our partners at the ball —
" Went forth to hunt the Sable Fox
Beside that haunted stream,
Where i^ so long had glided like
The creature of a dream,
Or like unearthly forms that dance
Under the cold moonbeam !
" They went away one winter day,
When all the air was white.
And thick and hazed with falling snow,
And blinding to the sight ;
They bade us never fear for them,
They would return by night.
" The night fell thick and darkly down,
And still the storm blew on ;
And yet the hunters came not back.
Their task was yet undone ;
Nor came they with their words of cheer,
Even with the morrow's sun.
258 WHITTIER'S POEMS.
" And then our old men shook their heads,
And the red Indians told
Their tales of evil sorcery
Uiitil our blood ran cold, —
The stories of their Powwow seers
And withered hags of old.
" They told us that our hunters
Would never more return —
That they would hunt for evermore
Through tangled swamp and fern,
And that their last and dismal fate
No mortal e'er might learn.
" And days and weeks passed slowly on.
And yet they came not back.
Nor evermore by stream or hill
Was seen that form of black —
Alas ! for those who hunted still
Within its fearful track !
" But when the winter passed away,
And early flowers began
To bloom along the sunned hill-side.
And where the waters ran.
There came unto my father's door
A melancholy man.
WHITTIERS POEMS. 259
" His form, had not the sign of years,
And yet his locks were white,
And in his deep and restless eye
There was a fearful light ;
And from its glance we turned away
As from an adder's sight.
" We placed our food before that man,
So haggard and so wild, —
He thrust it from his lips as he
Had been a fretful child ;
And when we spoke with words of cheer,
. Most bitterly he smiled,
" He smiled, and then a gush of tears.
And then a fierce, wild look.
And then he murmured of the Fox
Which haunted Salmon Brook,
Until his hearers every one
With nameless terror shook.
'' He turned away with a frightful cry,
And hurried madly on,
As if the dark and spectral thing
Before his path had gone :
We called him back, but he heeded not
The kind and warning tone.
j6o whittier's poems.
" He came not back to us again,
But the Indian hunters said
That far, wherfe the howling wilderness
Its leafy tribute shed,
'They found our missing hunters —
Naked and cold and dead.
" Their grave they made beneath the shade
Of the old and solemn wood,
Where oaks by Time alone hewn down
For centuries had stood.
And left them without shroud or prayer
In the dark solitude.
" The Indians always shun that grave —
The wild deer treads not there —
The green grass is not trampled down
By catamount or bear —
The soaring wild-bird turns away,
Even in the upper air.
" For people said that every year,
When winter snows are spread
All over the face of the frozen earth.
And the forest leaves are shed.
The Spectre Fox comes forth and howls
Above the hunters' bed."
THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.
Gray searcher of the upper air!
There's sunshine on thy ancient walls — ■
A crown upon the forehead bare —
A flashing on thy water-falls —
A rainbow glory in the cloud,
Upon thy awful summit bowed,
Dim relic of the recent storm!
And music, from the leafy shroud
Which wraps in green thy giant form,
Mellowed and softened from above,
Steals down upon the listening ear,
Sweet as the maiden's dream of love,
With soft tones melting on her ear.
The time has been,' gray mountain, when
Thy shadows veiled the red man's home ;
And over crag and serpent den,
And wild gorge, where the steps of men
762 WHITTIEIPS POEMS.
In chase or battle might not come.
The mountain eagle bore on high
The emblem of the free of soul ;
And midway in the fearful sky-
Sent back the Indian's battle-cry,
Or answered to the thunder's roll.
The wigwam fires have all burned out —
The moccasin hath left no track —
Nor wolf nor wild-deer roam about
The Saco or the Merrimack.
And thou that liftest up on high
Thine awful barriers to the sky,
Art not the haunted mount of old,
When on each crag of blasted stone
Some mountain-spirit found a throne,
And shrieked from out the thick cle-y4~^ld,
And answered to the Thunderer's cry
When rolled the cloud of tempest Sy.
And jutting rock and riven branCA
Went down before the avalanc>'>^
The Father of our people tbei
Upon thy awful summit t">d.
And the red dwellers of tK- glen
Bowed down before t'A<; Indian's God.
Tii'4r«>, -"vb^r Jii* ■v-ionw veiled the sky,
WfflTTIEK'S POEMS. 263
The Thunderer's voice was long and loudi
And the red flashes of His eye
Were pictured on the o'erhanging cloud.
The Spirit moveth there no more*
The dwellers of the hill have gone,
The sacred groves are trampled o'er,
And footprints mar the altar-stone.
The white man climbs thy tallest rock
And hangs him from the mossy steep,
Where, trembling to the cloud-fire's shock,
Thy ancient prison- walls unlock.
And captive waters leap to light.
And dancing down from height to height, ,
Pass onward to thfe far-off deep.
Oh, sacred to the Indian seer,
Gray altar of the days of old!
Still are thy rugged features dear,
As when unto my infant ear
The legends of the past were told.
Tales of the downward sweeping flood,
When bowed like reeds thy ancient wood, —
Of armed hand and spectral form.
Of giants m their misty shroud,
And voices calling long and loud
In the drear pauses of the storm !
264 WHITTIER'S POEMS
Farewell I The red man's face is turned
Toward another hunting ground ;
For where the council-fire has burned,
And o'er the sleeping warrior's mound "
Another fire is kindled now :
Its light is on the white man's brow !
The hunter race have passed away —
Ay, vanished like the morning mist.
Or dew-drops by the sunshine kissed, —
And wherefore should the red man stay ?
THE INDIAN'S TALE.
The War-God did not wake the strife
The strong men of our forest land,
No red hand grasped the battle-kiiife
At Areauski's high command: —
We held no war-dance by the dim
And red light of the creeping flame ;
Nor warrior yell, nor battle hymn
Upon the midnight breezes came.
There was no portent in the sky,
No shadow on the round, bright sun,
With light and mirth and melody
The long, fair summer days came on.
We were a happy people then,
Rejoicing in our hunter mood ;
No foot-prints of the pale-faced men
Had marred our forest solitude.
266 WHITTIER'S POEMS.
The land was ours — this glorious land —
With all its wealth of wood and streams;.
Our warriors strong of heart and hand,
Our daughters beautiful as dreams.
When wearied at the thirsty noon,
We knelt us where the spring gushed up, •
To taste our Father's blessed boon —
Unlike the white man's poison cup.
There came unto my father's hut
A wan, weak creature of distress ;
The red inan's door is never shut
Against' the lone and shelterless.
And when he knelt before his feet.
My father led the stranger in ;
He gave him of his hunter meat —
Alas ! it was a deadly sin !
The stranger's voice was not like ours —
His face at first was sadly pale,
Anon 'twas like the yellow flowers
Which trembled in the meadow gale :
And when he laid him down to die,
And murmured of his fatherland,
My mother wiped his tearful eye,
My father held his burning hand!
WHITTIER'S POEMS. 267
He died at last — the funeral yell
Rang ujaward from his burial sod,
And the old Powwah knelt to tell
The tidings to the white man's God !
The next day came — my father's brow
Grew heavy with a fearful pain,
He did not take his hunting-bow —
He never sought the woods again !
He died even as the white man died;
My mother, she was smitten too ;
My sisters vanished from my side.
Like diamonds from the sunlit dew.
And then we heard the Powwahs say
That God had sent his angel forth
To sweep our ancient tribes away,
And poison and unpeople Earth.
And it was so : from day to day
The Spirit of the Plague went on —
And those at morning blithe and gay
Were dying at the set of sun.
They died — our free, bold hunters died — •
The living might not give them graves.
Save when along the water-side
They cast t^em to the hurrying waves.
l68 WHITTIER'S POEMS.
The carrion crow, the ravenous beast,
Turned loathing from the ghastly dead ;
Well might they shun the funeral feast
By that destroying angel spread 1
One after one the red men fell,
Our gallant war-tribe passed away,
And I alone am left to tell
The story of its swift decay.
Alone^alone — a withered leaf,
Yet clinging to its naked bough ;
The pale race scorn the aged chief,
And I will join my fathers now.
The spirits of my people bend
At midnight from the solemn West,
To me their kindly arms extend.
To call me to their home of rest!
THE SPECTRE SHIP.
The morning light is breaking forth
All over the dark blue sea,
And the waves are changed — they are rich
with gold
As the morning waves should be,
And the rising winds wandering out
On their seaward pinions free.
The bark is ready, the sails are set.
And the boat rocks on the shore —
Say why do the passengers linger yet ?
Is not the farewell o'er ?
Do those who enter that gallant ship
Go forth to return no more ?
A wailing rose by the water-side,
A young, fair girl was there.
With a face as pale as the face of Death
When its cofifin-lid is bare ;
And an eye as strangely beautiful
As a star in the upper air.
r
270
WHITTIER'S POEMS.
She leaned on a youthful stranger's arm —
A tall and silent one —
Who stood in the very midst of the crowd
Yet uttered a word to none ;
He gazed on the sea and the waiting shipi
But he gazed on them alone !
The fair girl leaned on the stranger's arm,
And she wept as one in fear,
But he heeded not the plaintive moan
And the dropping of the tear ;
His eye was fixed on the stirring sea,
Cold, darkly and severe !
The boat was filled — the shore was left —
The farewell word was said —
But the vast crowd lingered still behind
With an overpowering dread ;
They feared that stranger and his bride,
So pale and like the dead.
And many said that an evil pair
Among their friends had gone,—
A demon with his human prey,
From the quiet graveyard drawn ;
And a prayer was heard that the innocent
Might escape the Evil One.
WHITTISR'S I>OEMS. ,271
Away — the good ship sped away,
Out on the broad high seas,
The sun upon her path before —
Behind, the steady breeze —
AjiJ Acre, was nought in sea or sky
Of fearfui auguries.
The day passed on— A® sunlight fell
All slantwise from the west,
And then the heavy cloud of storm
Sat on the ocean's breast ;
And every swelling billow mourn'tf
Like a living thing distressed.
The sun went down among the cJ'Du^^
Tinging with sudden goW^ '
The pall-like shadow of tJ'.e storm,
On every mighty fold —
And then theligKcting's eye look'd fort'.
And the red thunder rolled.
The storm came down upon the sea,
In its surpassing dread,
Rousing the whit(; and broken surge
Above its rocky bed,
As if the deep was stirred beneath
A giant's viewless tread.
2^2 WfflTTTER'S POEMS.
All night the hurricane went on,
And all along the shore
The smothered cry of shipwreck'd men
Blent with the ocean's roar;
The gray-haired man had scarcely known
So wild a night before.
Morn rose upon the tossing sea,
The tempest's work was done,
And freely over land and wave
Shone out the blessed sun ;
But where was she — that merchant bark-
Where had the good ship gone ?
Men gathered on the shore to watch
The billows' heavy swell.
Hoping, yet fearing much, some frail
Memorial might tell
The fate of that disastrous ship — ■
Of friends they loved so well.
None came — the billows smoothed away,
And all vvas strangely calm.
As if the very sea had felt
A necromancer's charm ;
And not a trace was left behind
Of violence and harm.
WHITTIEK'S POEMS. 273
The twilight came with sky of gold,
And curtaining of night —
And then a sudden cry rang out,
*' A ship — thie ship in sight! "
And lo ! tall masts grew visible
Within the fading light.
Near and more near the ship came on,
With all her broad sails spread —
The night grew thick, but a phantom light
Around her path was shed.
And the gazers shuddered as on she came,
For against the wind she sped.
They saw by the dim and baleful glare
Around that voyager thrown,
The upright forms of the well-known crew.
As pale and fixed as stone ;
And they called to them, but no sound came
back
Save the echoed cry alone.
The fearful stranger youth was there,
And clasped in his embrace
The pale and passing sorrowful
Gazed wildly in his face.
Like one who had been wakened from
The silent burial-place.
374 WHITTIER'S POEMS.
A shudder ran along the crowd,
And a holy man knelt there,
On the wet sea-sand, and offered up
A faint and trembling prayer,
That God would shield his people from
The spirits of the air!
And lo ! the vision passed away —
The spectre ship— the crew —
The. stranger and his pallid bride,
Departed from their view ;
And nought was left upon the waves
Beneath the arching blue.
It passed away, that vision strange.
Forever from their sight.
Yet long shall Naumkeag's annals tell
The story of that night — •
The phantom bark— the ghostly Crew—
The pale, encircling light.
THE SPECTRE WARRIORS.
"Away to your arms! for the foemen aie
here,
The yell of the red man is loud on the earl
Oh — on to the garrison — ^soldiers away,
The moccasin's track shall be bloody to-day.".
The fortress is reached, they have taken their
stand.
With war-knife in girdle, and rifle in hand ; —
Their wives are behind them, the savage be-
fore —
Will the Puritan fail at his hearth-stone and
door ?
There's a yell in the forest, unearthly and
dread.
Like the shriek of a fiend o'er the place of the
dead;
Again — how it swells through the forest afar —
Have the tribes of the fallen uprisen to war?
276 WHITTIER'S POEMS.
Ha — ^look ! they are coming— not cautious and
slow,
In the serpent-like mood of the blood-seeking
foe,
Nor stealing in shadow nor hiding in grass,
But tall and uprightly and sternly they pass-
" Be ready ! " — the watchword has passed on
the wall —
The maidens have shrunk to the innermost
hall—
The rifles are leveled — each head is bowed
low — ■
Each eye fixes' steady — God pity the foe !
They are closely at hand ! Ha ! the red flash
has broke
From the garrisoned wall through a curtain
of smoke,
There's a yell from the dying — that aiming
was true — "
The red man no more shall his hunting pursue !
Look, look to the earth, as the smoke rolls
away,
Do the dying and dead on the green herbage
lay?
WHITTIER'S POEMS. 277
What mean those wild glances ? no slaughter
is there —
The red man has gone like the mist on the air !
Unharmed as the bodiless air he has gone
From the war-knife's edge and the ranger's
long gun,
And the Puritan warrior has turned him away
From the weapons of war, and is kneeling to
pray!
He fears that the Evil and Dark One is near,
On an errand of wrath, with his phantoms
of fear; [vain—
And he knows that the aim of his rifle is
That the spectres of evil may never be slain [
He knows that the Powwah has cunning and
skill
To call up the Spirit of Darkness at will ;
To waken the dead in their wilderness-graves,
And summons the demons of forest and waves.
And he layeth the weapons of battle aside,
And forgetteth the strength of his natural
pride, [door,
And he kneels with the priest by his garrisoned
That the spectres of evil may haunt him no
morel
THE LAST NORRIDGEWOCK.
She stood beneath the shadow of an oak,
Grim with uncounted winters, and whose
boughs
Had sheltered in their youth the giant forms
Of the great chieftain's warriors. She was
fair,
Even to a white man's vision — and she wore
A blended grace and dignity of mien
Which might befit the daughter of a king —
The queenliness of nature. She had all
The magic of proportion which might haunt
The dream of some rare painter, or steal in
Upon the musings of the sanctuary
Like an unreal vision. She was dark, —
There was no play of crimson on her cheek,
Yet were her features beautiful. Her eye
Was clear and wild — and brilliant as a beam
Of the live sunshine ; and her long, dark hair
Sway'd in rich masses to the unquiet wind.
WHITTIER'S POEMS. ^79 _
The West was glad with sunset. Overall
The green hills and the wilderness there fell
A great and sudden glory. Half the sky
Was full of glorious»tints, as if the home
And fountain of the rainbow were revealed ;
And through its depth of beauty looked the
star
Of the blest Evening, like an angel's eye.
The Indian watched the sunset, and her eye
Glistened one moment ; then a tear fell down,
For she was dreaming of her fallen race —
The mighty who had perished — for her creed
Had taught her that the spirits of the brave
And beautiful were gathered in the West —
The red man's Paradise ; — and then she sang
Faintly her song of sorrow, with a low
And half -hushed tone, as if she knew that
those '
Who listened were unearthly auditors,
A.nd that the dead had bowed themselves to
hear.
" The moons ot autumn wax and wane, the
sound of swelling floods
Is borne upon the mournful wind, and broadly
on the woods
28s WfflTTIER'S POEMS.
The, colors of the changing leaves — the fair,
frail flowers of frost,
Before the round and yellow sun most beauti-
ful are tossed. ■<
The morning breaketh with a clear, bright
penciling of sky,
And blushes through its golden clouds as the
great sun goes by ;
And evening lingers in the West^more
beautiful than dreams
Which whispers of the Spirit-land, its wilder-
ness and streams !
" A little time — another moon — the forest
will be sad —
The streams will mourn the pleasant light
which made their journey glad ;
The morn will faintly lighten up, the sunlight
glisten cold.
And wane into the western sky without its
autumn gold.
' A nd yet I weep not for the sign of desola-
tion near —
The ruin of my hunter race may only ask a
tear, —
The wailing streams will laugh again, the
naked trees put on
WHITTIEK'S POEMS. 281
The beauty of their summer green beneath
the summer sun ;
The autumn cloud will yet again its crimson
draperies fold,
The star of sunset smile again — a diamond
set in gold I
But never for their forest lake, or for their
mountain path,
The mighty of our race shall leave the hunt-
ing-ground of Death.
" I know the tale my fathers told — the legend
of theii'fame —
The glory of our spotless race before the pale
ones came —
When asking fellowship of none, by turns the
foe of all,
The death-bolts of our vengence fell, as Heav- '
en's own lightnings fall ;
When at the call of Tacomet, my warrior-sire
of old.
The war-shout of a thousand men upon the
midnight rolled ;
And fearless and companionless our warriors
strode alone.
And from the big lake to the sea the green
earth was their own. ,
282 WHITTIER'S POEMS.
" Where are they now ? Around their changed
and stranger-peopled home,
Full sadly o'er their thousand graves the
flowers of autumn bloom-r—
The bow of strength is buried with the calumet
and spear,
4nd the spent arrow slumbereth, forgetful of
the deer ! [o'er,
The last canoe is rotting by the lake it glided
When dark-eyed maidens sweetly sang its wel-
come from the shore.
The foot-prints of the hunter race from all the
hills have gone —
Their offering to the Spirit-land have left the
altar-stone — ■ [token —
The ashes of the council-fire have no abiding
The song of war has died away — the Powwah's
charm is broken —
The startling war-whoop cometh not upon the
loud, clear air — ■
The ancient woods are vanishing — the pale
men gather there.
•* And who is left to mourn for this ? — a solitary
one.
Whose life is waning into death like yonder
setting sun 1
WHITTIER'S POEMS. 283
A broken reed, a faded flower, that lingereth
behind,
To mourn above its fallen race, and wrestle
with the wind!
Lo ! from the Spirit-land I hear the voices of
the blest ;
The holy faces of the loved are leaning from
the West. ^
The mighty and the beautiful — the peerless
ones of old —
The call me to their pleasant sky and to their
thrones of gold ;
Ere the spoilers' eye hath found me, when
there are none to save —
Or the evil-hearted pale-face made the free of
soul a slave ;
Ere the step of air grow weary, or the sunhy
eye be dim, .
The father of my people is calling me to him.''
THE AERIAL OMENS.
A LIGHT IS troubling Heaven ! — A strange,
dull glow
Is trembling like a fiery veil between
The blue sky and the earth ; and the far stars
Glimmer but faintly through it. Day hath left
No traces of its presence, and the blush
With which it welcomed the embrace of Night
Has faded from the sky's blue cheek, as fades
The blush of human beauty when the tone
Or look which woke its evidence of love
' Hath passed away foreve'r. Wherefore then
Burns the strange fire in Heaven ? — It is as if
Nature's last curse — the terrible plague of fire,
Were working in her elements, and the sky
Consuming like a vapor.
Lo — a change !
The fiery flashes sink, and all along
The dim horizon of the fearful North
Rests a broad crimson, like a sea of blood
WHITTIEEHS POEMS.
285
Untroubled by a wave. And lo — above,
Bendeth a luminous arch of pale, pure white,
Clearly contrasted with the blue above
And the dark red beneath it. Glorious !
How like a pathway for the sainted ones —
The pure and beautiful intelligences
Who minister in Heaven, and offer up
Their praise as incense ; or, like that which
rose
Before the pilgrim-prophet, when the tread
Of the most holy angels brightened it,
And in its dream the haunted sleeper saw
The ascending and descending of the blest !
Another change. Strange, fiery forms uprise
On the wide arch, and take the throngful
shape
Of warriors gathering to the strife on high,—
A dreadful marching of infernal shapes.
Beings of fire with plumes of bloody red.
With banners flapping o'er their crowded
ranks,
And long swords quivering up against the
skyl
And now they meet and mingle ; and the eai
Listens with painful earnestness to catch
The ring of cloven helmets and the groan
g86 wmrriES's poems.
Of the down-trodden. But there comes no
sound,
Save a low, sullen rush upon the air,
Such as the unseen wings of spirits make,
Sweeping the void above us. All is still.
Yet falls each red sword fiercely, and the hoof
Of the wild steed is crushing on the breast
Of the o'erthrown and vanquished. 'Tis a
strange
And awful conflict — an unearthly war!
It is as if the dead had risen up
To battle with each other — the stem strife
Of spirits visible to mortal eyes.
Steed, plume, and warrior vanish one by ond
Wavering and changing to unshapely flame;
And now across the red and fearful sky
A long bright flame is trembling, like the
sword
Of the great Angel at the guarded gate
Of Paradise, when all the sacred groves
And beautiful flowers of Eden-land blushed
red
Beneath its awful shadow ; and the eye
Of the lone outcast quailed before its glare,
As from the immediate questioning of God.
WHITTIES'S POEMS.
287
And men are gazing on that troubled sky
With most unwonted earnestness, and fair
And beautiful brows are reddening in the light
Of that strange vision of the upper air;
Even as the dwellers of Jerusalem,
The leag'uered of the Roman, when the sky
Of Palestine was thronged with fiery shapes,
And from Antonio's tower the mailed Jew
Saw his own image pictured in the air.
Contending with the heathen ; and the priest
Beside the Temple's altar veiled his face
From that most horrid phantasy, and held
The censer of his worship with a hand
Shaken by terror's palsy.
It has passed —
And Heaven is quiet ; and its stars
Smile down serenely. There is not a stain
Upon its dream-like loveliness of blue —
No token of the fiery mystery
Which made the evening fearful. But thi
hearts
Of those who gazed upon it, yet retained
The shadow of its awe — the chilling fear
Of its ill-boding aspect. It is deemed
A revelation of the things to come —
Of war and its calamities — the storm
288 WHITTIEK'S POEMS.
Of the pitched battle, and the midnight strife
Of heathen inroad — the devouring flame,
The dripping tomahawk, the naked knife,
The swart hand twining with the silk<!:n Iccks
Of the fair girl — the torture, and the bonds
Of perilous captivity with thoae
Who know not 'mercy, an-J witli ''/'.KX/r TWrjee
Is sweeter tK»p the c'.r:e:ii"j!r.e'ji r/j (A •'J.e.
MOG MEGONE.
MOGG MEGONE.
PART 1.
Who stands on that cliff, like a figure of
stone,
Urimoving and tall in the light of the sky.
Where the spray of the cataract sparkles oti
'high,
All lonely and sternly, save Mogg Megone?
How close to the verge of the rock is he.
While beneath him the Saco its work is
doing,
Hurrying down to its grave, the sea,-
And slow through the rock its patliway
hewing !
Far down, through the mist of the falling
river,
Which rises up like an incense ever.
The splintered points of the crags are seen,
With the water howling and vexed between.
292 WHITTIER'S POEMS.
While the scooping whirl of the pool beneath
Seems an open throat, with its granite teeth |
But Mogg Megone never trembled yet'
Wherever his eye or his foot was set.
He is watchful : each form in the moonlight
dim,
Of rock or of tree, is seen of him :
He listens ; each sound from afar is caught,
The faintest shiver of leaf and limb :
But he sees not the, waters, which foam and
fret.
Whose moonlit spray has his moccasin wet, —
And the roar of their rushing, he hears it not
The moonlight, through the open bough
Of the gray beech, whose naked root
Coils like a serpent at his foot,
Falls, checkered, on the Indian's brow.
His head is bare, save only where
Waves in the wind one lock of hair,
Reserved for him, whoe'er he be,
More mighty than Megone in strife.
When, breast to breast and knee to kne^
Above the fallen warrior's life
Gleams, quick and keen, the scalping-knife.
Megone hath his knife and hatchet and gun.
WHITTIER'S POEMS.
293
And his gaudy and tasseled blanket on :
His knife hath a handle with gold inlaid,
And magic words on its polished blade, —
'Twas the gift of Castine to Mogg Megone,
For a scalp or twain from the Yengeese torn :
His gun was the gift of the Tarrantine,
And Modocawando's wives had strung
The brass and the beads, which tinkle and
shine
On the polished breech, and broad bright line
Of beaded wampum around it hung.
What seeks Megone ? His foes are near, —
Gray Jocelyn's eye is never sleeping,
And the garrison lights are burning clear,
Where Philip's men their watch are keep-
ing-
Let him hie him away through the dank river
fog,
Never rustling the boughs nor displacing
the rocks.
For the eyes and the ears which are watching
for -Mogg,
Are keener than those of the wolf or the
fox.
He starts, — there's a rustle amons: the leaves :
Another, — the click of his gun is heard I —
294 WHITTIEUrS POEMS,
A footstep — is it the step of Cleaves,
With Indian blood on his English sword?
Steals Harmon down from the sands of York,
With hand of iron and foot of cork ?
Has Scamman, versed in Indian wile,
For vengeance left his vine-hung isle?
Hark ! at that whistle, soft and low.
How lights the eye of Mogg Megonel
A smile gleams o'er his dusky bro\y, —
" Boon welcome, Johnny Bonython I "
Out steps, with cautious foot and slow,
And quick, keen glances to an fro,
The haunted outlaw, Bonython 1
A low, lean, swarthy man is he, .
With blanket-garb and buskined knee,
And nought of English fashion on ;
For he hates the race from whence he sprung,
And he couches his words in the Indian
tongue.
" Hush, — let the Sachem's voice be weak ;
The water-rat shall hear hipi speak, —
The owl shall whoop in the white man's ear,
That Mogg Megone, with his scalps, is here ! "
He pauses, — dark, over cheek and brow,
A flush, as of shame, is stealing now :
WHITTIER'S POEMS.
29.1
" Sachem ! " he says, " let me have the land,
Which stretches away upon either hand,
As far about as my feet can stray
In the half of a gentle summer's day,
From the leeping brook to the Saco River,—
And the fair-haired girl, thou hast sought of
me,
Shall sit in the Sachem's wigwam, and be
The wife of Mogg Megone forever."
There's a sudden light in the Indian's glance,
A moment's trace of powerful feeling, —
Of love or triumph, or both perchance,
Over his proud, calm features stealing.
" The words of my father are very good ;
He shall have the land, and water, and wood ;
And he who harms the sagamore John,
Shall feel the knife of Mogg Megone ;
But the fawn of the Yengeese shall sleep on
my breast.
And the bird of the clearing shall sing in my
nest."
" But, father ! "— and the Indian's hand
Falls gently on the white man's arm,
And, with a smile as shrewdly bland
As the deep voice is slow and calm, —
" Where is my father's singmg-bird,—
agS
WHITTIEWS POEMS.
The sunny eye, and sunset hair?
I know I have my father's word,
And that his word is good and fair ;
But will my father tell me where
Megone shall go and look for his bride ? —
For he sees her not by her father's side."
The dark, stern eye of Bonythoii
Flashes over the features of Mogg Megone,
In one of those glances which search within ;
But the stolid calm of the Indian alone
Remains where the trace of emotion has
been,
" Does the Sachem doubt ? Let him go with
me,
And the eyes of the Sachem his bride s,hall
see." •
Cautious and slow, with pauses oft,
And watchful eyes and whispers soft,
The twain are stealing through the wood,
Leaving the downward-rushing flood.
Whose deep and solemn roar behind
Grows fainter on the evening wind.
Hark ! — is that the angry howl
Of the wolf, the hills among ? — -
Or the hooting of the owl,
WHJT. -JEK'S POEMS.
297
On his leafy cradle swung ? —
Quickly glancing, to and fro,
Listening to each sound they go :
Round the columns of the pine.
Indistinct, in shadow, seeming
Like some old and pillared shrine ;
With the soft and white moonshine,
Round the foliage-tracery shed
Of each column's branching head.
For its lamps of worship gleaming!
And the sounds awakened there,
In the pine-leaves fine and small.
Soft and sweetly musical,
By the fingers of the air.
For the anthem's dying fall
Lingering round some temple's wall 1
Is not Nature's worship thus,
Ceaseless ever, going on ?
Hath it not a voice for us
In the thunder, or the tone
Of the leaf -harp faint and small,
Speaking to the unsealed ear
Words of blended love and fear.
Of the mighty Soul of all ?
Nought had the twain of thoughts like these
As they wound along through the crowded
trees,
298 WHITTIEIVS POEMS.
Where never had rung the axeman's stroke
On the gnarled trunk of the rough-barked
oak;
CHmbing the dead tree's mossy log,
Breaking the mesh of the bramble fine,
Turning aside the wild grape vine,
And lightly crossing the quaking bog
Whose surface shakes at the leap of the frog,
And out of whose pools the ghostly fog
Creeps into the chill moonshine 1
Yet, even that Indian's ear had heard
The preaching of the Holy Word:
Sanchekantacket's isle of sand
Was once his father's hunting land,
Where zealous Hiacoomes stood, —
The wild apostle of the wood.
Shook from his soul the fear .of harm,
And trampled on the Pawwaw's charm;
Until the wizard's curses hung
Suspended on his palsying tongue,
And the fierce warrior, grim and tall,
Trembled before the forest Paul !
A cottage hidden in the wood, —
Red through its scams a light is glowing.
On rock and bough and tree-trunk rude,
A narrow lustre throwing.
WHITTIEK'S POEMS. 299
" Who's there ? " a clear, firm voice demands :
" Hold, Ruth,— 't is I, the Sagamore ! "
Quick, at the summons, hasty hands
Unclose the bolted door;
And on the outlaw's daughter shine
The flashes of the kindled pine.
Tall and erect the maiden stands,
Like some young priestess of the wood,
Some creature born of Solitude,
And bearing still the wild and rude,
Yet noble trace of Nature's hands.
Her dark-brown cheek has caught its sta,in
More from the sunshine than the rain ;
Yet, where her long fair hair is parting,
A pure white brow into light is starting;
And, where the folds of her mantle sever,
Are a neck and bosom as white as ever
The foam-wreaths rise on the leaping river.
But, in the convulsive quiver and grip
Of the muscles around her bloodless lip,
There is something painful and sad to see{
And her eye has a glance more sternly wild
Than even that of a forest child
In its fearless and untamed freedom should
be.
300 WJT/TTIEJi'S ."OEMS.
Oh ! seldom in hall or court are seen
So queenly a form and so noble a mien,
As freely and smiling she welcomes them
there I
Her outlawed sire and Mogg Megone :
" Pray, father, how does thy hunting fare ?
And, Sachem, say, — does Scamman wear,
In spite of thy promise, a scalp of his own ? "
Careless and light is the maiden's tone;
But a fearful meaning; lurks within
Her glance, as it questions the eye of Me-
gone, —
An awful meaning of guilt and sin ! —
The Indian hath opened his blanket, and
there
Hangs a human scalp by its long damp hair 1
Now God have mercy 1 — that maiden's fingers
Are touching the scalp where the blood still
lingers.
Turning up to the light its soft brown hairl
What an evil triumph her eye reveals I
What a baleful smile on her pale face steals 1
Tls the soul of a fiend in a form so fair? '
Nay — traces of feeling are visible now.
In that quivering lip r\.nd that writhing. brow I
But who shall measure the 'hvughts within.
WniTTIER'S POEMS. jor
Of hatred and love, of passion and sin ?
Does not the eye of her mind glance back
On the glooni and quiet of her stormy track ?
The traitor's lip by her kisses met —
The traitor's hand by her fond tears wet—
The trustless hopes on his promise built —
The gust of passion— the hell of guilt ! —
The warm embrace, when her tresses fair
Mingled themselves with that scalp's brown
hair —
And idly and fondly her small hand played
In dalliance sweet with its light and shade !
And what are those tears which her wild eyes
dim.
But tears of sorrow and love for him ? —
For him who drugged her cup with shame,
With a curse for h^r heart and a blight for
her name ?
For whom her vengeance hath tracked so
• long,
'Feeding its torch with the thought of wrong ?
Oh ! woman wronged, can cherish hate
More deep and dark than manhood may;
_ But, when the mockery of Fate
Hath left Revenge its chosen way,
And the fell curse, which years have nursed,
303
WHITTIER'S POEMS.
Full on the spoiler's head hath burst, —
When all her wrong, and shame, and pain.
Burns fiercely on his heart and brain, —
Still lingers something of the spell
Which bound her to the traitor's bosona, —
Still, midst the vengeful fires of hell,
Some flowers of old affection blossom.
And while her hand is nerved to strike,
She weeps above her victim, like
The Roman, when his dagger gave
His Caesar to a bloody grave.
John Bonython's eye-brows together are drawn
With a fierce expression of wrath and scorn, —
He hoarsely whispers, " Ruth, beware I
Is this the time to be playing the fool, —
Crying over a paltry lock of hair.
Like a love-sick girl at school ? —
Curse on it ! — an Indian can see and hear:
Away, — and prepare our evening cheer 1 "
How keenly the Indian is watching now
Her tearful eye and her varying brow.
With a serpeiit eye, which kindles and
burns,
Like a fiery star in the upper air :
On sire and daughter his fierce glance turns : —
'' Has my old white father a scalp to spare ?
WHITTIEIPS POEMS.
3°3
For his young one loves the pale brown hair
Of the scalp of a Yengeese dog, far more
Than Mogg Megone, or his wigwam floor:
Go, — Mogg is wise : he will keep his land,—
And Sagamore John, when he feels with his
hand.
Shall miss his scalp where it grew before."
The moment's gust of grief is gone, —
The lip is clenched, — the tears are still, —
God pity thee, Ruth Bonython!
With what strength of will
Are nature's feelings in thy breast,
As with an iron hand, repressed !
And how, upon that nameless wo,
Quick as the pulse can come and go.
While shakes the unsteadfast knee, and yet
The bosom heaves, — the eye is wet, —
Has thy dark spirit power to stay
The heart's own current on its way ?
And whence that baleful strength of guile.
Which over that still working brow
And tearful eye and cheek, can throw
The ghostly mockery of a smile ?
" Is the Sachem angry, — angry with Ruth,
Because she cries with an ache in her tcoth,
304 WHITTIEK'S POEMS.
Which would make a Sagamore jump and
And look about with a woman's eye ?
No, — Ruth will sit in the Sachem's door
And braid the mats for his wigwam floor;
And broil his fish and tender fawn,
And weave his wampum, and grind his corn, —
For she loves the brave and the wise, and
none
Are braver and wiser than Mogg Megone ! "
The Indian's brow is clear once more :
With grave calm face, and half-shut eye,
He sits upon the wigwam floor^
And watches Ruth go, by,
Intent upon her household care ;
And, ever and anon, the while
Or on the maiden, or her fare,
Which smokes in grateful promise there,
Bestows his quiet smile.
Ah, Mogg Megone ! — what dreams are thine,'
But those which love's own fancies dress, —
The sum of Indian happiness! —
A wigwam, where the warm sunshine
Looks in among the groves of pine, —
A stream, where, round thy light canoe,
The trout and salmon dart in view,
WHITTIEK'S POEMS.
305
And the fair girl, before thee now,
Spreading thy mat with hand of snow,
Or plying, in the dews of miorn,
Her hoe amidst thy patch of corn,
Or offering up, at eve, to thee,
Thy birchen dish of hominy 1
Frorh the rude board of Bonython,
Venison and suckatash have gone, —
For long these dwellers of the wood
Have felt the gnawing want of food.
But untasted of Ruth is the frugal cheer, —
With head averted, yet ready ear.
She stands by the side of her austere sire,
Feeding, at times, the unequal fire
With the yellow knots of the pitch-pine
tree,
Whose flaring light, as they kindle, falls
On the cottage-roof, and its black log walls,
And over its inmates three.
From Sagamore Bonython's hunting flask
The fire-water burns at the lip of Megone :
" Will the Sachem hear what his father shall
ask.?
Will he make his mark, that it may be
known.
On the speaking-leaf, that he gives the land,
3o6 fy/r/u^r.^sM's poems.
From the Sachem's own, to his father's hand ? "
The fire-water shines in the Indian's eyes,
As he rises, the white man's bidding to do :
" Wuttamuttata — weekan ! Mogg is wise, —
For the water he drinks is strong and new, —
Mogg's heart is great! — will he shut his hand,
"When his father asks for a little land ? "t—
With unsteady fingers the Indian has drawn
On the parchment the shape of a hunter's
bow,
" Boon water, — boon water, — Sagam^ore Jbhn I
Wuttamuttata, — weekan ! our hearts will
grow ! "
He drinks yet deeper, — he mutters low, —
He reels on his bear-skin to and fro.—
His head falls down on his naked breast, —
He struggle's and sinks to a drunken rest.
" Humph — drunk as a beast !" — and Bony-
thon's brow
Is darker than ever with evil thought —
•' The fool has signed his warrant ; but how
And when shall the deed be wrousfht ?
Speak, Ruth ! why, what the devil is there,
To fix thy gaze in that empty air? —
Speak, Ruth ! by my soul, if I thought that"
tear,
WfflTTIE/rS POEMS.
307
Which shames thyself and our purpose here,
Were shed for that cursed and pale-faced dog,
Whose green scalp hangs from the belt of
Mogg,
And whose beastly soul is in Satan's keep.
ing.—
This — this ! " — ^he dashes his hand upon
The rattling stock of his loaded gun, —
" Should send thee with him to do thy w^eep-
ing!"
" Father I " — the eye of Bonython
Sinks at that low, sepulchral tone,
Hollow and deep, as it were spoken , '
By the unmoving tongue of death, —
Or from some statue's lip had broken, —
A sound without a breath!
" Father 1 — my life I value less
Than yonder fool his gaudy dress;.
And how it ends it matters not,
By heart-break or by rifle-shot ;
But spare awhile the scoff and threat, —
Our business is not finished yet."
" True, true my girl, — I only meant
To draw up again the bow unbent.
Harm thee, my Ruth ! I only sought
3o8 WHITTIEIPS POEMS.
To frighten off thy gloomy thought ; —
Come,- -let's be friends ! " He seeks to clasp
His daughter's cold, damp hand in his.
Ruth startles from her father's grasp.
As if each nerve and muscle felt,
Instinctively, the touch of guilt,
Through all their subtle sympathies.
He points her to the sleeping Mogg :
" What shall be done with yonder dog ?
Scamman is dead, and revenge is thine, —
The deed is signed and the land is mine ;
And this drunken fool is of use no more*
Save as thy hopeful bridegroom, and sooth,
'T were christian mercy to finish him, Ruth,
Now, while he lies like a beast on our floor, —
If not for thine, at least for his sake,
Rather than let the poor dog awake
To drain my flask, and claim as his bride
Such a forest devil to run by his side, —
Such a Wetuomanit as thou wouldst
make!"
He laughs at his jest. Hush — wha,t is there ? —
The sleeping Indian is striving to rise,
With his knife in his hand, and glaring
eyes 1 —
-1
WHITTIEK'S POEMS. 309
• Wagh ! — Mogg will have the pale-face's hair,
For his knife is sharp, and his fingers can
help
The hair to pull and the skin to peel, —
Let him cry like a woman and twist like an
eel,
■ The great Captain Scamman must loose his
scalp !
And Ruth, when she sees it, shall dance with
Mogg."
^HiS eyes are fixed,— but his lips draw in, —
With a low, hoarse chuckle, and fiendish
grin,—
And he sinks again,, like a senseless log.
Ruth does not speak, — she does not stir ;
But she gazes down on the murderer,
Whose broken and dreamful slumbers tell
Too much for her ear of that deed of hell.
She sees the knife, with its slaughter red, .
And the dark finsrers clenchinsr the bear-skin
bed!
What thoughts of horror and madness whirl
Through the burning brain of that fallen girl I
John Bo'nython lifts his gun to his eye.
Its muzzle is close to the Indian's ear,-^-
gro WHITTIER'S POEMS.
But he drops it again. " Some one may be
nigh,
And I would not, that even the wolves
should hear."
He draws his knife from its dear-skin belt, —
Its edge with his fingers is slowly felt; —
Kneeling down on one knee, by the Indian s
side,
From his throat he opens the blanket wide;
And twice or thrice he feebly essays
A trembling hand with the knife to raise.
" I cannot,"-^he mutters, — " did he not save
My life from a cold and wintry grave,
When the storm came down from Agioochook,
And the north-wind howled, and the tree-tops
shook, —
And I strove, in the drifts of the rushing snow.
Till my knees grew weak and I could not go.
And I felt the cold to my vitals creep,
And my heart's blood stiffen, and pulses
sleep !
' I cannot strike him — Ruth Bonython t
In the devil's name, tell me — what's to be
done?"
Oh ! when the soul, once pure and high,
Is stricken down from Virtue's sky,
WHITTXEK'S POEMS.
As with the downcast star of morn,
Some gems of light are with it drawn, —
And, through its night of darkness, play
Some tokens of its primal day, —
Some lofty feelings linger still, —
The strength to dare, the nerve to meet
Whatever threatens with defeat
Its aU-indomitable will ! —
But lack the mean of mind and heart,
Though eager for the gains of crime,
Oft, at their chosen place and time,
The strength to bear their evil part ;
And, shielded by their very Vice,
Escape from Crime by Cowardice.
3"
Ruth starts erect, — with bloodshot eye,
And lips drawn tight across her teeth,
Showing their locked embrace beneath,
In the red fire-light : — " Mogg must die !
Give me the knife ! !' — The outlaw turns,
• Shuddering in heart and limb, away, —
But, fitfully there, the hearth-fire burns.
And he sees on the wall strange shadows
play.
A lifted arm, a tremulous blade.
Are dimly pictured in light and shade,
^ I i tVHiTTIEtVS POEMS.
Plunging down in the darkness. Hark
that cry !
Again — and again — he sees it fall, —
That shadowy arm down the lighted wall !
He hears qtiick footsteps — a shape flits
by!—
The door ori its rusted hinges creaks : —
" Rutlj — daughter Ruth ! " the outlaw shrieks.
But no sound comes back, — he is standing
alone
By the mangled corpse of Mogg Megone !
MOGG MEGONE.
PART II.
'T IS morning over Norridgewock, —
On tree and wigwam, wave and rock.
Bathed in the autumnal sunshine, stirred -
At intervals by the breeze and bird,
And wearing all the hues which glow
In heaven's own pure and perfect bow,
That glorious picture of the air.
Which summer's lisfht-robed angel forms
On the dark ground of fading storms,
With pencil dipped in sunbeams there, —
WHITTtER'S POEMS. 313
And, stretching out, on either hand.
O'er all that wide and unshorn land,
Till, weary of its gorgeousness,
The aching and the dazzled eye
Rests gladdened, on the calm blue sky —
Slumbers the mighty wilderness !
The oak, upon the windy hill.
Its dark green burthen upward heaves —
The hemlock broods above its rill, "
Its cone-like foliage darker still.
While the white birch's graceful stem,
And the' rough walnut bough receives '
The sun upon their crowded leaves,
Each colored like a topaz gem ;
And the tall maple wears with them
The coronal which autumn gives,
The brief, bright sign of ruin near,
The hectic of a dying year !
The hermit priest, who lingers now
On the Bald Mountain's shrubless brow,
The gray and thunder-smitten pile
Which marks afar the Desert Isle,
While gazing on the scene below,
May half forget the dreams of, home,
That nightly with his slumber come, —
The tranquil skies of Sunny France,
The peasant's harvest song and dance»
314 WHITTIER'S POEMS.
Tbe vines around the hillsides wreathing
The soft airs mid their clusters breathing,
The wings which dipped, the stars which
shone
Within thy bosom, blue Garrone I
And round the Abbey's shadowed wall,
At morning spring and even-fall,
Sweet voices in the still air singing, —
The chant of many a holy hymn, —
The solemn bell of vespers ringing, —
And hallowed torch-light falling dim
On pictured saint and seraphim !
For here beneath him lies unrolled.
Bathed deep in morning's flood of gold,
A vision gorgeous as the dream
Of the beatified may seem,
When, as his Church's legends say,
Borne upward in extatic bliss,
The rapt enthusiast soars away
Unto a brighter world than this :
A mortal's glimpse beyond the pale, —
A moment's lifting of the veil I
Far eastward o'er the lovely bay,
Penobscot's clustered wigwams lay
And gently from that Indian town
The verdant hill-side slopes adown,
WHITTIER'S POEMik
S»S
To where the sparkling waters play
Upon the yellow sands belovf ;
And shooting round the winding shores
Of narrow capes, and isle which lie
Slumbering to ocean's lullaby, —
With birchen boat and glancing oars,
The red men to their fishing go ;
While from -their planting ground is borne
The treasure of the golden corn,
By laughing girls, whose dark eyes glow
Wild through the locks which o'er them flow.
The wrinkled squaw, whose toil is done,
Sits on her bear-skin in the sun.
Watching the buskers, with a smile
For each full ear which swells the pile.
And th'e old chief, who never mere
May bend the bow or pull the oar,
Smokes grsvely in his wigw.^m diOfoy,
Or slowly shapes, with axe of stone,
The arrow-head from flint and bone.
•
Beneath the westward turning eye
A thousand wooded islands lie,—
Gems of waters ! — with each hue
Of brightness set in ocean's blue.
Each, bears aloft its tuft of trees
Touched by the pencil of the frost,
r
3 1 6 WIIITTIEK'S POEMS.
And, with the motion of each breeze,
A moment seen, — a moment lost, —
Changing and blent, confused and tossed,
The brighter with the darker crossed,
Their thousand tints of beauty glow
Down in the restless waves below,
And tremble in the sunny skies,
As if, from waving bough to bough,
Flitted the birds of paradise.
There sleep Placentia's group,— and there
Pere Breteaux marks the hour of prayer ;
And there, beneath the sea-worn cliff.
On which the Father's hut is seen,
The Indian stays his rocking skiff,
And peers the hemlock-boughs between.
Half trembling, as he seeks to look
Upon the Jesuit's Cross and Book.
There, gloomily against the sky
The Dark Isles rear their summits high ;
And Desert Rock, abrupt and bare,
Lifts its gray turrets in the air,
Seen from afar, like some strange hold
Built by the ocean kings of old ;
And, faint as smoke-wreath white and thin,
Swells in the north vast Katadin :
And, wandering from its marshy feet.
The broad Penobscot comes to meet
WSITTIEF^S rOEMS.
3^7
And mingle with his own bright bay.
Slow sweep hio dark and gathering floods,
Arched over by (.he ancient woods,
Which Time, in those dim solitudes,
Wielding the dull axe of Decay,
Alone hath ever shorn away.
Not thus, within the woods which hide
The beauty of thy azure tide,
And with their fallinq; timbers block
Thy broken currents, Kennebeck I
Gazes the white man on the wreck
Of the down-trodden Norridgewock. —
In one lone village hemmed at length,
In battle shorn of half their strength,
Turned, like the panther in his lair.
With his fast-flowing life-blood wet.
For one last struggle of despair.
Wounded and faint, but tameless yet I
Unreaped, upon the planting lands,
The scant, neglected harvest stands :
No shout is there, — no dance,^no song :
♦The aspect of the very child
Scowls with a meanins: sad and wild
Of bitterness and wrong.
The almost infant Norridgewock
Essays to lift the tomahawk ;
3i8
wmrTTEurs pozms.
And plucks his father's knife away,
To mimic, in his frightful play, i
The scalping of an English foe :
Wreathes on his lip a horrid smile,
Burns, like a snake's, his small eye, while
Some bough or sapling meets his blow.
The fisher, as he drops his line,
. Starts, when he sees the hazels quiver
Along the margin of the river,
Looks up and down the rippling tide,
And grasps the firelock at his side.
For Bomazeen from Tacconock
Has sent his runners to Norridgewock,
With tidings that Moulton and Harmon of
York
Far up the river have come :
They have left their boats, — ^they have entered
the wood,
And filled the depths of the solitude
With sound of the ransfer's drum.
o^
On the brow of a hill, which slopes to meet
The flowing river, and bade its feet, —
The bare-washed rock, and the drooping grass.
And the creeping vine, as the waters pass, —
A rude and unshapely chapel stands,
Built up in that wild by unskilled hands ;
WHITTIEIVS POEMS.
3'9
Yet the traveler knows it a place of prayer,
For the holy sign of the cross is there :,
And should he chance at that place to be,
Of a sabbath morn, or some hallowed day.
When prayers are made and masses are said,
Some for the livinj; and some for the dead,
Well might that traveler start to see
The tall dark forms, that take their way
From the birch canoe, on the river-shore,
And the forest paths, to that chapel door ;
And marvel to mark the naked knees
And the dusky foreheads bending there,
And, stretching his long thin arms o'er these,
In blessing and in prayer,
Like a shrouded spectre, pale and tall,
In his coarse, white vesture, Father R?U6-.
Two forms are now in that chapel dim,
' The Jesuit, silent and sad and pale,
Anxiously heeding some fearful tale,
Which a stranger is tellins: him.
That stranger's garb is soiled and torn,
And wet with dew and loosely worn;
Her fair neglected hair falls down
O'er cheeks with wind and sunshine brown ,
Yet still, in that disordered face,
320 WHITTIEIVS POEMS.
The Jesuit's cautious eye can trace
Those elements of former grace
Which, half effaced, seem scarcely less.
Even now, than perfect loveliness.
With drooping head, and voice so low,
That scarce it meets the Jesuit's ears,—
While through her clasped fingers flow,
From the hearts fountain, hot and slow,
Her penitential tears, —
She tells the story of the wo
And evil of her years, i
" Oh, Father, bear with me ; my heart
Is sick and death-like, and my brain
Seems girdled with a fiery chain.
Whose scorching links will never part,
And never cool again.
Bear with me while I speak, — but turn
Away that gentle eye, the while, —
The fires of guilt more fiercely burn
Beneath its holy smile ;
For half I fancy I can see
My mother's sainted look in thee.
" My dear lost mother ! sad and pale,
Mournfully sinking day by day.
And with a hold on life as frail
WH/TTIER'S POEMS. j2 1
As frosted leaves, that, thin and gray.
Hang feebly on their pa,rent spray,
And tremble in the gale ;
Yet watching o'er my childishness
With patient fondness, — not the less
For all the agony which kept
Her blue eye wakeful, while I slept ;
And checking every tear and groan
That haply might have waked my own,
And bearing still, without offence.
My idle words, and petulance ;
Reproving with a tear, — and, while
The tooth of. pain was keenly preying
Upon her very heart, repaying
My brief repentance with a smile.
" Oh, in her meek, forgiving eye
There was a brightness not of mirth, —
A light whose clear intensity
Was borrowed not of earth.
Along her cheek a deepening red
Told where the feverish hectic fed ;
And yet, each fatal token gave
To the mild beauty of her face
A newer and a dearer grace,
Unwarning of the grave.
'Twas like the hue which Autump gives
3J3 - WHITTIER'S POEMS.
To yonder changed and dying leaves.
Breathed over by his frosty breath ;
Scarce can the gazer feel that this
Is. but the spoiler's treacherous kiss,
The mocking-smile of Death !
" Sweet were the tales she used to tell,
When summer's eve was dear to us,
And, fading from the darkening dell,
The glory of the sunset fell
On giant Agamenticus, —
Even as an altar lighting up
The gray rocks of its rugged top, —
When, sitting by our cottage wall.
The murmur of the Saco's fall.
And the south wind's expiring sighs
Came, softly blending, on my ear,
With the low tones I loved to hear :
Tales of the pure, — the good,— the wise, —
The holy men and maids of old.
In the all-sacred pages told ; —
Of Rachel, stooped at Haran's fountains.
Amid her father's thirsty flock.
Beautiful to her kinsman seeming
As the bright angels of his dreaming,
On Padan-aran's holy rock ;
Qf gentle Ruth, — and .her who kept
WHITTIEIVS POEMS. 323
Her awful vigil on the mountains,
By Israel's virgin daughters wept ;
Of Miriam, with her maidens, singing
The song for grateful Israel meet,
While every crimson wave was bringing
The spoils of Egypt at her feet ;
Of her, — Samaria's humble daughter,
Who paused to hear, beside her well,
Lessons of love and truth, which fell
Softly as Shiloh's flowing water ;
And saw beneath his pilgrim guise,
The Promised One, so long foretold
By holy seer and bard of old,
Revealed before her wondering eyes.
" Slowly she faded. Day by day
Her step grew weaker in our hall,
And fainter, at each even-fall,
Her sad voice died away.
Yet on her thin, pale lip, the while,
Sat Resignation's holy smile : '
And even my father checked his tread,
And hushed his voice, beside her bed:
Beneath the calm and sad rebuke
Of her meek eye's imploring look.
The scowl of hate his brow forsook.
And, in his stern and gloomy eye.
324 WHITTIER'S POEMS.
At times, a few unwonted tears
Wet the dark lashes, which for years
Hatred and pride had kept so dry.
" Calm as a child to slumber soothed.
As if an angel's hand had smoothed
The still, white features into rest,
Silent and cold, without a breath
To stir the drapery on her breast.
Pain, with its keen and poisoned fang,
The horror of the mortal pang.
The suffering look her brow had worn,
The fear, the strife, the anguish gone, —
She slept at last in death !
" Oh, tell me, father, can the dead
Walk on the earth, and look on us,
And lay upon the living's head
Their blessing or their curse ?
For, oh, last night she stood by me,
A? I lay beneath the woodland tree ! "
The Jesuit crosses himself in awe, —
" Jesu ! what was it my daughter saw ? "
" She came to me last night.
The dried leaves did not feel her tread ;
She stood by me in the wan moonlight,
WHITTIER'S POEMS. 3 2
In the white robes of the dead I
Pale, and very mournfully
She bent her light form over me.
I heard no sound, — I felt no breath
Breathe o'er me from that face of death :
Its blue eyes rested on my own,
Rayless and cold as eyes of stone ;
Yet, in their fixed, unchanging gaze,
Something, which spoke of early days, —
A sadness in their quiet glare.
As if love's smile were frozen there, —
Came o'er me with an icy thrill ;
Gh God ! I feel its presence still I "
The Jesuit makes the holy sign, —
" How passed the vision, daughter mine ? "
" All dimly in the wan moonshine.
As a wreath of mistVill twist and twine,
And scatter^ and melt into the light, —
So scattering, — melting on my sight.
The pale, cold vision passed ;
But those sad eyes were fixed on mine
Mournfully to the last."
" God help thee, daughter, tell me why ,
That spirit passed before thine eye ! "
326 WHITTIEK'S POEMS.
" Father, I know not, save it be
That deeds of mine have summoned her
From the unbreathing sepulchre,
To leave her last rebuke with me.
Ah, wo for me ! my mother died
Just at the moment when I stood
Close on the verge of womanhood,
A child in everything beside ;
And when alas I needed most
Her gentle counsels, they were lost.
" My father lived a stormy life,
Of frequent change and daily strife ;
And, — God forgive him ! left his child
To feel, like him, a freedom wild ;
To love the red man's dwelling-place,
The birch boat on his shaded floods,
The wild excitement of the chase
Sweeping the ancient 'ft^oods,
The camp-fire, blazing on the shore
Of the still lakes, the clear stream, where
The idle fisher sets his wear, '
Or angles in the shade, far more
Than that restraining awe I felt
Beneath my gentle mother's care,
When nightly at her knee I knelt,
With childhood's simple prayer. >
WHITriEIPS POEMS.
327
" There came a change. The wild, glad mood
Of unchecked freedom passedi
Amid the ancient solitude
Of unshorn grass and waving wood,
And waters glancing bright and fast,
A softened voice was in my ear,
Sweet as those lalling sounds and fine
The hunter lifts his head to hear,
Now far and faint, now full and near —
The murmur of the wind-swept pine.
A manly form was ever nigh,
A bold, free hunter, with an eye
Whose dark, keen glance had power to
wake
Both fear and love, — to awe and charm ;
'Twas as the wizard rattlesnake,
Whose evil glances lure to harm —
Whose cold and small glittering eye.
And brilliant coil, and changing dye,
Draw, step by step, the gazer near.
With drooping wing and cry of fear,
Yet powerless all to turn away,
A conscious, but a willing prey !
" The world that I had known went by
As a vain shadow. — On my eye
There rose a new and dreamful one.
328 WHITTIER'S POEMS.
'Twas like the cloudy realms which lie
Shadowy and brief, on autumn's sky,
Before the setting sun.
Oh, Father, scarce to God above
With deeper trust, with stronger love,
No human heart was ever lent,
No human knee was ever bent,
Than I, before a human shrine,
As mortal and as frail as mine.
With heart, and soul, and mind, and form,
Knelt madly to a fellow-worm.
" Full soon, upon that dream of sin,
An awful light came bursting in.
The shrine was cold, at which I knelt —
The idol of that shrine was gone;
A humble thing of shame and guilt.
Outcast, and spurned and lone.
Wrapt in the shadows of my crime, '
With withering heart and burning brair.,
And tears that fell like fiery rain,
I passed a fearful time.
" There came a voice — it checked the tear —
In heart and soul it wrought a change ;—
My father's voice was in my ear ;
It whispered of revenge !
WHITTIER'S POEMS.
329
A new and fiercer feeling swept
Each lingering tenderness away :
And tiger passions, which had slept
In childhood's better day,
Unknown, unfelt, arose at length
In all their own demoniac strength.
" A youthful warrior of the wild,
By words deceived, by smiles beguiled,
Of crime the cheated instrument,
Upon our fatalr errands went
Through camp and town and wilderness
He tracked his victim ; and, at last.
Just when the tide of hate had passed.
And milder thoughts came warm and fast,
Exulting, at my feet he cast
The bloody token of success.
" Oh God ! with what an awful powei
I saw the buried past uprise,
And gather, in a single hour,
Its ghost-like memories !
And then I felt — alas ! too late —
That underneath the mask of hate,
That shame and guilt and wrong had
thrown
O'er feelings which they might not own,
330
V!'HITTIER''S POEMS.
The heart's wild love had known no
change ;
And still, that deep and hidden love,
With its first fondness, wept above
The victim of its own revenge !
There lay the fearful scalp, and there
The blood was on its pale brown hair !
I thought not of the victim's scorn,
I thought not of his baleful guile,
My deadly wrong, my outcast name,
Thp characters of sin and shame
On heart and forehead drawn ;
I only saw that victim's smile, —
The still, green places where we met, —
The moonlit branches, dewy wet ;
I only felt, I only heard
The greeting and the parting word, —
The smile, — the embrace, — the tone which
made
An Eden of the forest shade.
" And oh, with what a loathing eye.
With what a deadly hate, and deep,
I saw that Indian murderer lie
Before me in his drunken sleep!
What though for me the deed was done.
And words of, mine had sped him on !
WHITTIEK'S POEMS. 331
Yet when he murmured, as he slept,
The horrors of that deed of blood,
The tide of utter madness swept
O'er brain and bosom, like a flood.
And, father, with this hand of mine — "
" Ha ! what didst thou ? " the Jesuit cries
Shuddering, as smitten with sudden pain,
And shading, with one thin hand, hi&
eyes,
With the other he makes the holy sign —
" I smote him as I would a worm ; —
With heart as steeled, with nerves as firm :
He never woke again ! "
" Woman of sin and blood and shame,
Speak, — I would know that victim's name."
" Father," she gasped, " a chieftain, known
As Saco's Sachem, — Mogg Megone ! "
Pale priest ! What proud and lofty dreams.
What keen desires, what cherished schemes,
What hopes, that tirne may not recall,
Are darkened by that chieftain's fall !
Was he not pledged, by cross and vow,
To lift the hatchet of his sire,
And, round his own, the Church's foe,
To light the avenging fire ?
332
WHITTTER'S POEMS.
Who now the Tarrantine shall wake
For thine and for the Churcli's sake ?
Who summon to the scene
Of conquest and unsparing strife,
And vengeance dearer than his life,
The fiery-souled Castine ?
Three backward steps the Jesuit takes, —
His long, thin frame as ague shakes ;
Hate — fearful hate — is in his eye,
As from his lips these words of fear
Fall hoarsely on the maiden's ear, —
The soul that sinneth shall surely die ! "
She stands, as stands the stricken deer,
Checked midway in the fearful chase.
When bursts, upon its eye and ear,
The gaunt, gray robber, baying near,
Between it and its hiding-place ;
While still behind, with yell and blow,
Sweeps, like a storm, the coming foe.
" Save me, O holy man ! " — her cry
Fills all the void, as if a tongue,'
Unseen, from rib and rafter hung,
Thrilling with mortal agony ;
Her hands are clasping the Jesuit's knee,
And her eye looks fearfully into his own;-
WHITTIER'S POEMS.
2,7>Z
Off, woman, of sin ! — nay, touch not me
With those fingers of blood ; — begone ! "
With a gesture of horror, he spurns the form
That writhes at his feet like a trodden worm.
•
Ever thus the spirit must,
Guilty in the sight of Heaven,
With a keener wo be riven,
For its weak and sinful trust
In the strength of human dust ;
And its anguish thrill afresh,
For each vain reliance given
To the failing arm of flesh.
MOGG MEGONE.
PART III.
Gloomily against the wall
Leans thy working forehead, Ralle !
Ill thy troubled musing fit
The holy quiet of a breast
With the Dove of Peace at rest,
Sweetly brooding over it.
Thoughts are thine which have no part
With the meek and pure of heart,
334
WHITTIER'S POEMS.
Undisturbed by outward things,
Resting in the heavenly shade
By the ovefspreading wings
Of the Blessed Spirit made.
Thoughts of strife and hate and wrong
Sweep thy heated brain along, —
Fading hopes for whose success
It were sin to breathe a prayer ;
Thoughts which Heaven may never bless -
Fears which darken to despair.
Hoary priest ! thy dream is done
Of a hundred red tribes won
To the pale of " Holy Church ; "
And the heretic o'erthrown,
And his name no longer known,
And thy weary brethren turning.
Joyful from their years of mourning,
'Twixt the altar and the porch.
Hark ! what sudden sound is heard
In the wood and in the sky,
Shriller than the scream of bird, —
Than the trumpet's clang more high 1
Every wolf-cave of the hills, —
Forest arch and mountain gorge.
Rock and dell, and river verge, —
With an answering echo thrills.
WHITTIEI? S POEMS. 335
Well does the Jesuit know that cry, ,
Which summons the Norridgewock to die,
And tells tha.t the foe of his flock is nisfh.
He listens, and hears the rangers come,
With loud hurrah, and jar of drum.
And hurrying feet (for the chase is hot),
And the short, sharp sound of rifle shot.
And taunt and menace, — answered well
By the Indians' mocking cry and yell, —
The bark of dogs, — the squaw's mad scream, —
The dash of paddles along the stream, —
The whistle of shot as it cuts the leaves
Of the maples around the church's eaves —
And the gride of hatchets, at random thrown.
On wigwam-log and tree and stone.
Black with the grime of paint and dust.
Spotted and streaked with human gore,
A grim and naked head is thrust
Within the chapel-door.
" Ha — Bomazeen ! — In God's name say.
What mean these sounds of bloody fray .? "
Silent, the Indian points his hand
To where across the echoing glen
Sweep Harmon's dreaded ranger-band.
And Moulton with his men.
" Where are thy warriors, Bomazeen .?
336 WHITTIER^S POEMS.
" Where are De Rouville and Castine,
And where the braves of Sawga's queen ? "
" Let mv father find the winter snow
Which the sun drank up long moons ago '•
Under the falls of Tacconock,
The wolves are eating the Norridgewock ;
Castine with his wives lies closely hid
Like a fox in the woods of Pemaquid !
On Sawga's banks the man of war
Sits in his wigwam like a squaw, —
Squando has fled, and Mogg Megone,
Struck by the knife of Sagamore John,
Lies stiff and stark and cold as stone."
Fearfully over the Jesuit's face,
, Of a thousand thoughts, trace after trace,
Like swift cloud-shadows, each other chase.
One instant, his fingers grasp his knife,
For a last vain struggle for cherished life, —
The next, he hurls the blade away,
And kneel- at his altar's foot to pray ;
Over his beads his fingers stray,
And he kisses the cross, and calls aloud
On the Virgin and her Son ;
For terrible thoughts his memory crowd
Of evil seen and done, —
Of scalps brought home by his savage flock
WHITTIER'S POEMS.
337
From Casco and Sawga and Sagadahocl^
In the Church's service won.
No shrift the gloomy savage brooks,
As scowling on the priest he looks :
" Cowesass — cowesass — tawhich wessaseci i ■
Let my father look upon Bomazeen, —
My father's heart is the heart of a squaw,
But mine is so hard that it does not thaw ■.
Let my father ask his God to make
A dance and a feast for a great sagamore,
When he paddles across the western lake^
With his dogs and his squaws to the
spirit's shore.
Cowesass' — cowesass — tawhich wessaseen ?
Let my father die like Bomazeen I "
Through the chapel's narrow doors,
And through each window in the walls.
Round the priest and warrior pours
The deadly shower of English balls,
Low on his cross the Jesuit falls ;
While at his side the Norridgewock,
With failing breath, essays to mock
And menace yet the hated foe, —
Shakes his scalp-trophies to and fro
Exultingly before their eyes,—
338 WHITTIER'S POEMS.
Till, cleft and torn by shot and blow
The mighty Sachem dies,
"So fare all eaters of the frog !
Death to the Babylonish dog !
Down with the beast of Rome ! "
With shouts like these, around the dead,
Unconscious on their bloody bed.
The rangers crowding come.
Brave men ! the dead priest cannot hear
The unfeeling taunt,— the brutal jeer;—
Spurn — for he sees ye not — in wrath,
The symbol of your Saviour's death ; —
Tear from his death-grasp, in your zeal.
And trample, as a thing accursed.
The cross he cherished in the dust :
The dead man cannot feell
Brutal alike in deed and word,
With callous heart and hand of strife.
How like a fiend may man be made.
Plying the foul and monstrous trade
Whose harvest-field is human life.
Whose sickle is the reeking sword !
Quenching, with reckless hand in blood,
Sparks kindled by the breath of God ;
Urging the deathless soul, unshriven.
WHITRIEli'S POEMS. 330
Of open guilt or secret sin,
Before the bar of that pure Heaven
The holy only enter in !
Oh! by the widow's sore distress,
The orphan's wailing wretchedness,
By Virtue struggling in the accursed
Embraces of polluting Lust,
By the fell discord of the Pit,
And the pained souls that people it,
And by the blessed peace which fills
The Paradise of God forever.
Resting on all its holy hills.
And flowing with its crystal river, —
Let christian hands no longer bear
In triumph on his crimson car
The foul and idol god of war ;
No more the purple wreaths prepare
To bind amid his snaky hair ;
No christian bard his glories tell.
Nor christian tongues his praises swell.
Through the gun-smoke wreathing white,
Glimpses on the soldier's sight
A thing of human shape I ween,
For a moment only seen,
With its loose hair backward streaming,
And its eyeballs madly gleaming.
Shrieking, like a soul in pain,
340 WHITTIER'S rOEMS.
From the world of light and breath,
Hurrying to its place again,
Spectre-like it vanisheth !
Wretched girl ! one eye alone
Notes the way which thou hast gone.
That great Eye, which slumbers never,
Watching o'er a lost world ever.
Tracks thee over vale and mountain,
By the gushing forest-fountain.
Plucking from its vine its fruit,
Searching for the ground-nut's root,
Peering in the she-wolf's den
Wading through the marshy fen,
Where the sluggish water-snake
Basks beside the sunny brake,
Coiling in his slimy bed.
Smooth and cold against thy tread, —
Purposeless, thy mazy way
Threading through the lingering day.
And at night securely sleeping
Where the dogwood's dews are weeping !
Still, though earth and man discard thee
Doth thy heavenly Father guard thee
He who spared the guilty Cain,
Even when when a brother's blood.
-J.
WHITTIER'S POEMS. 34 >
Crying in the ear of God,
Gave the earth its primal stain, —
He whose mercy ever liveth,
Who repenting guilt forgiveth,
And the broken heart receiveth, —
Wanderer of the wilderness,
Haunted, guilty, crazed, and wild,
He regardeth thy distress.
And careth for his sinful child I
T is spring-time on the eastern hills !
Like torrents sfush the summer rills:
Through winter's moss and dry dead leaves
The bladed grass revives and lives,
Pushes the mouldering waste away,
And glimpses to the April day.
In kindly shower and sunshine bud
The branches of the dull gray wood ;
Out from its sunned and sheltered nooks
The blue eye of the violet looks ;
The southwest wind is warmly blowing.
And odors from the springing grass,
The sweet birch and the sassafras,
Are with it on its errands going.
3^2 WHITTIER'S poems:
A band is marcKing through the wood
Where rolls the Kenebec his flood, —
The warriors of the wilderness,
Painted, and in their battle dress ;
And with them one whose bearded cheek,
And white and wrinkled brow, bespeak
A wanderer from the shores of France
A few loiig locks of scattering snow
Beneath a battered morion flow,
And from the rivets of the vest
Which girds in steel his ample breast,
The slanted sunbeams glance.
In the harsh outlines of his face
Passion and sin have left their trace ;
Yet, save worn brow and thin gray hair,
No signs of weary age are there.
His step is firm, his eye is keen,
Nor years in broil and battle spent.
Nor toil, nor wounds, nor pain have bent
The lordly frame of old Castine.
No purpose now of strife and blood
Urges the hoary veteran on :
The fire of conquest, and the mood
Of chivalry have gone.
A mournful task is his, — to lay
Within the earth the bones of those
h
,.- WHITTIER'S POEMS. 343
Who perished in that fearful day,
When Norridgewpck became the prey
Of all-unsparing foes.
Sad are thy music thoughts, Castine,
Of the old warrior Bomazeen,
So prompt to' summon at thy call
Of need, the gleaming tomahawks
Of the now wasted Norridgewocks,
And him — the dearest loved of all,
Thy bosom friend — the martyr Ralle !
Hark ! from the foremost of the band
Suddenly bursts the Indian yell ;
For now on the very spot they stand
Where the Norridgewocks fighting fell.
No wigwam smoke is curling there ;
The very earth is scorched and bare :
And they pause and listen to catch a sound
Of breathing life,— but there comes not one,
Save the fox's bark and the rabbit's bound ;
And here and there, on the blackened ground,
White bones are glistening in the sun.
And where the house of prayer arose,
And the holy hymn at daylight's close,
. And the aged priest stood up to bless
The children of the wilderness.
There is naught save ashes sodden and dank;
iMiii— I — i'1— f ^mTTrftar "I'w'ii 'Til riawiiii >'r'^"-^T'i'Hr"V ^ "Tm ' 1 '"-"^^ — "^""^
344 WHITTIER'S POEMS.
And the birchen boat's of the Norridgewock,
Tethered to tree and stump and rock,
Rotting along the river bank !
Blessed Mary ! who is she
Leaning against that maple-tree ?
The sun upon her face burns hot,
But the fixed eyelid moveth not ;
The squirrel's chirp is shrill and clear
From the dry bough above her ear ;
Dashing from rock and root its spray,
Close at her feet the river rushes ;
The blackbird's wing against her brushes,
And sweetly through the hazel-bushes
The robin's mellow music gushes ; —
God save her ! will she sleep alway ?
Castine hath bent him over the sleeper :
" Wake, daughter, — wake ! " — but she stirs
no limb :
The eye that looks on him is fixed and
dim ; [deeper,
And the sleep she is sleeping shall be no
Until the angel's oath is said.
And the final blast of the trump gone forth
To the graves of the sea and the graves of
earth.
Ruth Bonython is dead !
THE VAUDOIS TEACHER.
" O LADY fair, these silks of mine are beauti-
ful and rare, —
The richest web of the Indian loom, which
Beauty's self might wear ;
And those pearls are pure as thy own fair
neck, with whose radiant light they
vie;
I have brought them with me a weary way, —
will my gentle lady buy ? "
And the lady smiled on the worn old man
through the dark and clustering curls
Which veiled her brow as she bent to view
his silks and glittering -pearls ;
And she placed their price in the old man'?
hand, and lightly turned away,
But she paused at the wanderer's earnest cal)
— " My gentle lady, stay !
346 WHIT-TIEK'S POEMS.
" O lady fair, I have yet a gem which a purer
lustre flings
Than the diamond flash of the jeweled crown
on the lofty brow of kings, —
A wonderful pearl of exceeding price, whose
virtue shall not decay.
Whose light shall be as a spell to thee and a
blessing on thy way ! "
The lady glanced at the mirroring steel where
her form of grace was seen.
Where her eyes shone clear, and her dark locks
waved their clasping pearls between. .
■' Bring forth thy pearls of exceeding worthy
thou traveler gray and old, —
And name. the price of thy precious gem and
my pages shall count thy gold."
The cloud went off from the pilgrim's brow,
as a small and meagre book,
IJnchased with gold or diamond gem, from
his folding robe he took!
'• Here, lady fair, is the pearl of price, may it
prove as' such to thee !
Nay — keep thy gold— I ask it not, for the
word of God is free ! "
WHITTIER'S POEMS. 347
The hoary traveler went his way, but the gift
he left behind
Hath had its pure and perfect work on that
high-born maiden's mind,
And she hath turned from the pride of sin to
the lowliness of truth,
And given her human heart to God in its
beautiful hour of youth !
And she hath Ipft the gray old halls, where
an evil fai h had power,
The courtjy knights of her father's train, and
the ma'dens of her bower;
And she hath gone to the Vaudois vales by
lordly feet untrod.
Where the poor and needy of earth are rich
in the perfect love of God '
THE PRISONER FOR DEBT.
Look on him — through his dungeon grate
Feebly and cold, the morning light
Comes stealing round him, dim, and late^
As if it loathed the sight.
Reclining on his strawy bed.
His hand upholds his droo ;ing head, —
His bloodies cheek is seamed and hard.
Unshorn his gray, neglected beard ;
And o'er his bony fingers flow
His long, disheveled locks of snow.
No grateful fire before him glows, —
And yet the winter's breath is chill ;
And o'er his half-clad person goes
The frequent ague thrill !
Silent, save ever and anon,
A sound, half murmur and half groan,
Forces apart the painful grip
Of the old sufferer's bearded lip ;
O sad and crushing is the fate
Of old age chained and desolate I
WfflTTIEK'S POEMS. 349
Just God ! why lies that old man there ?
A murderer shares his prison bed,
Wh-^se eyeballs, through his horrid hair,
Gleam on him, fierce and red ;
And the rude oath and* heartless jeer
Fall ever on his loathing ear,
And, or in wakefulness or sleep.
Nerve, flesh, and fibre thrill and creep
Whene'er that ruffian's tossing limb,
Crimson with murder, touches him
What has the gray-haired prisoner done ?
Has murder stained his hands with gore ?
Not so ; his c 'me's a fouler one :
God made the old man poor !
.For this he shares a felon's ceil, —
The £ttest f»arthly type of hell !
For this- the boon for which the poured
His young bl"od on the invader's sword,
And counted light the fearful cost, —
His blood-gained liberty is lost I
And so, for such a place of rest,
Old prisoner, poured thy blood as rain
On Concord's field, and Bunker's crest.
Look forth, thou man of many scars,
Through thy dim dungeon's iron bars ;
3SO
WHITTIEIVS POEMS.
It must be joy, in sooth, to see
Yon monument * upreared to thee, —
Piled granite and a prison cell, —
The land repays thy service well 1
Go, ring the bells and fire the "guns, ,
And fling the starry banner out;
Shout " Freedom ! " till your lisping ones
Give back their cradle-shout ;
Let boasted elqquence declaim
Of honor, liberty, and fame ;
Still let the poet's strain be heard,
With " glory " for each second word,
And everything with breath agree
To praise " our glorious liberty ! "
And when the patriot cannon jars,
That prison's cold and gloomy wall.
And through its grates the stripes and stars
Rise on the wind and fall, —
Think ye ihat prisoner's aged ear
Rejoices in the general cheer ?
Think ye his dim and failing eye
Is kindled at your pageantry ?
Sorrowing of soul, and chained of limb,
What is your carnival to him ?
* Bunker Hill Monument.
WHITTIEK'S POEMS. 351
"Down with the law that binds him thus !
Unworthy freemen, let it find
No refuge" from the withering curse
Of God and human kind !
Open the prisoner's Uving tomb,
And usher from its brooding gloom
The victims of your savage code
To the free sun and air of God !
No longer dare as crime to br4nd
The chastening of th' Almigh+7's hand.
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