John Greenleaf Whittier Part 10

No pulpit hammered by the fist Of loud-a.s.serting dogmatist."

In "Memories" he says:--

"Thine the Genevan's sternest creed, While answers to my spirit's need The Derby dalesman's simple truth.

For thee, the priestly rite and prayer, And holy day and solemn psalm; For me, the silent reverence where My brethren gather slow and calm."

There are two epochs in the religious or philosophical development of Whittier. The first--that of simple piety unclouded by doubt, the epoch of unhesitating acceptance of the popular mythology--seems to have lasted until about 1850, or the period of early Darwinism and Spencerianism,--the most momentous epoch in the religious history of the world. This pivotal point is very well marked by the publication, in 1853, of "The Chapel of the Hermits" and "Questions of Life." It is now that harrowing doubt begins, and restless striving to retain the faith amid new conditions and a vastly widened mental horizon.

Transcendentalism, too, had just pa.s.sed the noon meridian of its splendor. Emerson had written many of his exquisite philosophical poems, and Parker had blown his clear bugle-call to a higher religious life. It is evident that Whittier was--as, indeed, he could not help being--profoundly moved by the new spirit of the times.

With Transcendentalism he must have had large sympathy, owing to the similarity of its principles to those of Quakerism. And that he was profoundly agitated by the revelations of science his poetry shows. In "My Soul and I" (a poem remarkable for its searching subjective a.n.a.lysis), and in the poem "Follen," he had given expression to religious doubt, over which, as always in his case, faith was triumphant. But it is in "The Chapel of the Hermits" and succeeding poems that he first gave free and full utterance to the doubt and struggle of soul that was not his alone, but which was felt by all around him. In respect of doubt "My Soul and I" and "Questions of Life"

resemble "Faust," as well as Tennyson's "Two Voices" and the "In Memoriam."

"Life's mystery wrapped him like a cloud; He heard far voices mock his own, The sweep of wings unseen, the loud, Long roll of waves unknown.

The arrows of his straining sight Fell quenched in darkness; priest and sage Like lost guides calling left and right, Perplexed his doubtful age.

Like childhood, listening for the sound Of its dropped pebbles in the well, All vainly down the dark profound His brief-lined plummet fell."

_My Namesake_

The "Questions of Life" are such as these:--

"I am: but little more I know!

Whence came I? Whither do I go?

A centred self, which feels and is; A cry between the silences."

"This conscious life,--is it the same Which thrills the universal frame?"

"Do bird and blossom feel, like me, Life's many-folded mystery,-- The wonder which it is _To Be_?

Or stand I severed and distinct, From Nature's chain of life unlinked?"

Such questions as these he confesses himself unable to answer. He shrinks back terrified from the task. He will not dare to trifle with their bitter logic. He will take refuge in faith; he will trust the Unseen; let us cease foolish questioning, and live wisely and well our present lives. He comes out of the struggle purified and chastened, still holding by his faith in G.o.d and virtue. A good deal of the old Quakerism is gone,--the belief in h.e.l.l, in the Messianic and atonement machinery, in local and special avatars, etc. Again and again, in his later poems, he a.s.serts the humanity of Christ and the co-equal divinity of all men: see "Miriam," for example. His opinion about h.e.l.l he embodies in the sweet little poem, "The Minister's Daughter," published in "The King's Missive." In short, his religion is a simple and trustful theism. But there is no evidence that he has ever incorporated into his mind the principles of the development-science,--the evolution of man, the correlation of forces, the development of the universe through its own inner divine potency; or, in fine, any of the unteleological, unanthropomorphic explanations of things which are necessitated by science, and admitted by advanced thinkers, both in and out of the Churches.

As witnesses to his trustful att.i.tude, we may select such a cl.u.s.ter of stanzas as this:--

"Yet, sometimes glimpses on my sight, Through present wrong, the eternal right; And, step by step, since time began, I see the steady gain of man;

That all of good the past hath had Remains to make our own time glad,-- Our common daily life divine, And every land a Palestine.

Through the harsh noises of our day A low, sweet prelude finds its way; Through clouds of doubt, and creeds of fear, A light is breaking calm and clear."

_Chapel of the Hermits_

"Yet, in the maddening maze of things, And tossed by storm and flood, To one fixed stake my spirit clings; I know that G.o.d is good!

"I know not where His islands lift Their fronded palms in air; I only know I cannot drift Beyond His love and care."

_The Eternal Goodness._

"When on my day of life the night is falling, And in the winds from unsunned s.p.a.ces blown, I hear far voices out of darkness calling My feet to paths unknown,

Thou who hast made my home of life so pleasant, Leave not its tenant when its walls decay; O love divine, O Helper ever present, Be Thou my strength and stay!"

_At Last._

"Dear Lord and Father of mankind, Forgive our foolish ways!

Reclothe us in our rightful mind, In purer lives thy service find, In deeper reverence, praise."

_The Brewing of Soma._

But Whittier is as remarkable for his faith in man as for his faith in G.o.d. He is in the highest degree patriotic, American. He loves America because it is the land of freedom. It has been charged against him that he is no true American poet, but a Quaker poet. The American, it is said, is eager, aggressive, high-spirited, combative; the Quaker, subdued and phlegmatic. The American is loud and boastful and daring and reckless; the Quaker, cautious, timid, secretive, and frugal. This is undoubtedly true of the cla.s.ses as types, but it is far from being true of Whittier personally. He has blood militant in him. He comes of Puritan as well as Quaker stock. The Greenleafs and the Batchelders were not Quakers. The reader will perhaps remember the Lieutenant Greenleaf, already mentioned, who fought through the entire Civil War in England.[25] But his writings alone furnish ample proof of his martial spirit. The man and the Quaker struggle within him for the mastery; and the man is, on the whole, triumphant. Whenever his Quakerism permits, he stands out a normal man and a genuine American. As Lowell says:--

"There is Whittier, whose swelling and vehement heart Strains the strait-breasted drab of the Quaker apart, And reveals the live Man still supreme and erect Underneath the bemummying wrappers of sect."

[Footnote 25: Hear Whittier himself on the subject:--

"Without intending any disparagement of my peaceable ancestry for many generations, I have still strong suspicions that somewhat of the old Norman blood, something of the grim Berserker spirit, has been bequeathed to me. How else can I account for the intense childish eagerness with which I listened to the stories of old campaigners who sometimes fought their battles over again in my hearing? Why did I, in my young fancy, go up with Jonathan, the son of Saul, to smite the garrisoned Philistines of Michmash, or with the fierce son of Nun against the cities of Canaan? Why was Mr. Greatheart, in Pilgrim's Progress, my favorite character? What gave such fascination to the grand Homeric encounter between Christian and Apollyon in the valley? Why did I follow Ossian over Morven's battle-fields, exulting in the vulture-screams of the blind scald over his fallen enemies? Still, later, why did the newspapers furnish me with subjects for hero-worship in the half-demented Sir Gregor McGregor, and Ypsilanti at the head of his knavish Greeks? I can account for it only on the supposition that the mischief was inherited,--an heirloom from the old sea-kings of the ninth century."--_Prose Works, II._, 390, 391.]

If anybody will take the trouble to glance over the complete works of Whittier, he or she will find that one of the predominant characteristics of his writings is their indigenous quality, their national spirit. Indeed, this is almost too notorious to need mention.

He, if any one, merits the proud t.i.tle of "A Representative American Poet." His whole soul is on fire with love of country. As in the case of Whitman, his country is his bride, and upon it he has showered all the affectional wealth of his nature. The Quaker may be too obtrusive in his prose writings, but it is not so in the greater and better portion of his poetry. When the rush and glow of genuine poetical inspiration seize him, he invariably rises in spirit far above the weltering and eddying dust-clouds of faction and sect into the serene atmosphere of genuine patriotism. Read his "Last Walk in Autumn," where he says:--

"Home of my heart! to me more fair Than gay Versailles or Windsor's halls, The painted, shingly town-house where The freeman's vote for Freedom falls!"

Read his "Eve of Election":--

"Not lightly fall Beyond recall The written scrolls a breath can float; The crowning fact, The kingliest act Of Freedom is the freeman's vote!"

Or take "After Election," a poem that cannot be read without a thrill of the nerves and a leaping of the heart. You have concentrated in that wild lyric burst the purest essence of democratic patriotism,--the trembling anxiety and yearning of a mother-heart. It is a poem celebrating a victory of peace with all the fiery energy of a war-ode (a significant fact that the advocates of gory war, as a source of poetic inspiration, would do well to ponder):--

"The day's sharp strife is ended now, Our work is done, G.o.d knoweth how!

As on the thronged, unrestful town The patience of the moon looks down, I wait to hear, beside the wire, The voices of its tongues of fire.

Slow, doubtful, faint, they seem at first: Be strong, my heart, to know the worst!

Hark!--there the Alleghanies spoke; That sound from lake and prairie broke, That sunset gun of triumph rent The silence of a continent!

That signal from Nebraska sprung, This, from Nevada's mountain tongue!

Is that thy answer, strong and free, O loyal heart of Tennessee?