Elson Grammar School Literature Part 43

What uses are a.s.signed to each of the following: "the rudder," "the anchor," "the image at the bows."

Read the description of "those lordly pines."

What does Longfellow say the flag of the ship will be to the wanderer?

Longfellow comments on the marriage of the ship with the sea. Explain the figure of speech.

Memorize the pastor's words.

Describe the launching in your own words.

Have you ever seen a ship launched?

What does the building of the ship symbolize?

Memorize the apostrophe to the ship of state and explain the symbol in detail.

Find examples of alliteration.

Words and Phrases for Discussion.

"airy argosy"

"heir of his dexterity"

"slip"

"scarfed"

"Like a beauteous barge was she"

"moat"

"knarred"

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

The year 1807 was the birth year of both Whittier and Longfellow--two poets in whom the love of human nature is a marked trait. Little of the scholar, however, is to be found in the New England Quaker whose lot it was to pa.s.s from plow to politics, and from politics to literature. John Greenleaf Whittier was born in East Haverhill, a rugged, hilly section of Ess.e.x County, Ma.s.sachusetts. In the southern part of this same county lies Salem, where three years earlier Hawthorne was born.

The home of Whittier was in a country district, and to this day no roof is in sight from the old homestead. The house, considerably more than a hundred years old at the time of the poet's birth, was built by his great-great-grandfather. The Whittiers were mostly stalwart men, six feet in height, who lived out their three-score years and ten; but the poet, though his years were more than any of his immediate ancestors, fell a little short of the family stature, and was of slender frame. "Snow-bound"

gives us a faithful picture of the Whittier homestead and household, as they were eighty years ago.

The life they lived there was one utterly without luxury, and with few means of culture. There were perhaps thirty hooks in the house, largely Quaker tracts and journals. Of course there was the Bible, and through all his poetry Whittier reverts to the Bible for phrases and images as naturally as Longfellow turns to mediaeval legend. Memorable were the evenings when the school teacher came and read to the family from books he brought with him,--one most memorable, when the book was a copy of Burns.

On Whittier's first visit to Boston, an occasion honored by his wearing "boughten b.u.t.tons" on his homespun coat, and a broad-brim hat made by his aunt out of pasteboard covered with drab velvet, he purchased a copy of Shakespeare.

He attended the district school a few weeks each winter, and when he was nineteen he completed his scanty education with a year at an academy at Haverhill. From the time when the reading of Burns woke the poet in him, he was constantly writing rhymes, covering his slate with them, and sometimes copying them out painstakingly on paper.

Without Whittier's knowledge, his sister sent one of his poems to a paper in a neighboring town. The Editor became interested in his contributor and, as the story goes, drove out to the country home and Whittier was called in from the field to meet the smart young newspaper man. Thus began his literary career.

He became an Editor in Boston and later in Hartford, but the work proving too trying for his delicate health, he returned to the farm. Meanwhile, he was contributing verse to the newspapers.

During this time he was elected to the Legislature of Ma.s.sachusetts and had some prospects of being nominated for Congress.

Later in life he returned again and again to the purely lyrical notes which he had taken up in his youth.

Two subjects always appealed strongly to Whitter's poetic imagination. One is the slender body of legendary lore that has come down to us from the colonial days of New England, including a few tales of the trials and persecutions of the early Quaker. "Skipper Ireson's Ride" belongs to this group of ballads. The other favorite field of Whittier's poetic fancy was the humble rural life of his own childhood--"In School-Days" and "Snow-Bound" belong to this cla.s.s of New England idyls. The latter will always be a favorite with American readers, both for its simple rustic pictures, and for its deep religious faith.

Whittier never married. The little romances of his youth slipped quietly into memories, and imparted a finer tone to the poetry of his maturer years. He died at Hampton Falls, New Hampshire, in the eighty-fifth year of his age. Holmes was the only one of the New England singers left to mourn his departure:

"Best loved and saintliest of our singing train, Earth's n.o.blest tributes to thy name belong.

A lifelong record closed without a stain, A blameless memory shrined in deathless song."

SNOW-BOUND

A WINTER IDYL

JOHN G. WHITTIER

The Sun that brief December day Rose cheerless over hills of gray, And, darkly circled, gave at noon A sadder light than waning moon.

Slow tracing down the thickening sky Its mute and ominous prophecy, A portent seeming less than threat, It sank from sight before it set.

A chill no coat, however stout, Of homespun stuff could quite shut out.

A hard, dull bitterness of cold, That checked, mid-vein, the circling race Of life-blood in the sharpened face, The coming of the snow-storm told.

The wind blew east; we heard the roar Of Ocean on his wintry sh.o.r.e, And felt the strong pulse throbbing there Beat with low rhythm our inland air.

Meanwhile we did our nightly ch.o.r.es,-- Brought in the wood from out of doors, Littered the stalls, and from the mows Raked down the herd's-gra.s.s for the cows: Heard the horse whinnying for his corn; And, sharply clashing horn on horn, Impatient down the stanchion rows The cattle shake their walnut bows; While, peering from his early perch Upon the scaffold's pole of birch, The c.o.c.k his crested helmet bent And down his querulous challenge sent Unwarmed by any sunset light The gray day darkened into night, A night made h.o.a.ry with the swarm And whirl-dance of the blinding storm, As zigzag wavering to and fro Crossed and recrossed the winged snow: And ere the early bedtime came The white drift piled the window-frame, And through the gla.s.s the clothes-line posts Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts.

So all night long the storm roared on: The morning broke without a sun; In tiny spherule traced with lines Of Nature's geometric signs, In starry flake and pellicle All day the h.o.a.ry meteor fell; And, when the second morning shone, We looked upon a world unknown, On nothing we could call our own.

Around the glistening wonder bent The blue walls of the firmament, No cloud above, no earth below,-- A universe of sky and snow!

The old familiar sights of ours Took marvelous shapes; strange domes and towers Rose up where sty or corn-crib stood, Or garden-wall or belt of wood; A smooth white mound the brush-pile showed, A fenceless drift what once was road; The bridle-post an old man sat With loose-flung coat and high c.o.c.ked hat; The well-curb had a Chinese roof; And even the long sweep, high aloof, In its slant splendor, seemed to tell Of Pisa's leaning miracle.

A prompt, decisive man, no breath Our father wasted: "Boys, a path!"

Well pleased, (for when did farmer boy Count such a summons less than joy?) Our buskins on our feet we drew; With mittened hands, and caps drawn low, To guard our necks and ears from snow, We cut the solid whiteness through; And, where the drift was deepest, made A tunnel walled and overlaid With dazzling crystal: we had read Of rare Aladdin's wondrous cave, And to our own his name we gave, With many a wish the luck were ours To test his lamp's supernal powers.

We reached the barn with merry din, And roused the prisoned brutes within.

The old horse thrust his long head out, And grave with wonder gazed about; The c.o.c.k his l.u.s.ty greeting said, And forth his speckled harem led; The oxen lashed their tails, and hooked, And mild reproach of hunger looked; The horned patriarch of the sheep, Like Egypt's Amun roused from sleep, Shook his sage head with gesture mute, And emphasized with stamp of foot.

All day the gusty north-wind bore The loosened drift its breath before; Low circling round its southern zone, The sun through dazzling snow-mist shone.

No church-bell lent its Christian tone To the savage air, no social smoke Curled over woods of snow-hung oak.

A solitude made more intense By dreary-voiced elements, The shrieking of the mindless wind, The moaning tree-boughs swaying blind, And on the gla.s.s the unmeaning beat Of ghostly finger-tips of sleet.

Beyond the circle of our hearth No welcome sound of toil or mirth Unbound the spell, and testified Of human life and thought outside.

We minded that the sharpest ear The buried brooklet could not hear, The music of whose liquid lip Had been to us companionship, And, in our lonely life, had grown To have an almost human tone.

As night drew on, and, from the crest Of wooded knolls that ridged the west, The sun, a snow-blown traveler, sank From sight beneath the smothering bank, We piled with care our nightly stack Of wood against the chimney-back,-- The oaken log, green, huge, and thick, And on its top the stout back-stick; The knotty forestick laid apart, And filled between with curious art The ragged brush; then, hovering near, We watched the first red blaze appear, Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam On whitewashed wall and sagging beam, Until the old, rude-furnished room Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom; While radiant with a mimic flame Outside the sparkling drift became And through the bare-boughed lilac-tree Our own warm hearth seemed blazing free.

The crane and pendent trammels showed, The Turk's heads on the andirons glowed; While childish fancy, prompt to tell The meaning of the miracle, Whispered the old rhyme: _"Under the tree, When fire outdoors burns merrily, There the witches are making tea."_

The moon above the eastern wood Shone at its full; the hill-range stood Transfigured in the silver flood, Its blown snows flashing cold and keen, Dead white, save where some sharp ravine Took shadow, or the sombre green Of hemlocks turned to pitchy black Against the whiteness of their back.

For such a world and such a night Most fitting that unwarming light, Which only seemed where'er it fell To make the coldness visible.