John Greenleaf Whittier Part 3

Pushing with restless feet the snow To right and left, he lingered;-- As restlessly her tiny hands The blue-checked ap.r.o.n fingered.

He saw her lift her eyes; he felt The soft hand's light caressing, And heard the tremble of her voice, As if a fault confessing.

'I'm sorry that I spelt the word: I hate to go above you, Because,'--the brown eyes lower fell,-- 'Because, you see, I love you!'"

[Footnote 8: The old brown school-house is now no more, having been removed to make room for a reservoir.]

It is probable that "My Playmate" is in memory of this same sweet little lady:--

"O playmate in the golden time!

Our mossy seat is green, Its fringing violets blossom yet, The old trees o'er it lean.

The winds so sweet with birch and fern A sweeter memory blow; And there in spring the veeries sing The song of long ago.

And still the pines of Ramoth Wood Are moaning like the sea,-- The moaning of the sea of change Between myself and thee!"

Elsewhere in the poem we are told that the little maiden went away forever to the South:--

"She lives where all the golden year Her summer roses blow; The dusky children of the sun Before her come and go.

There haply with her jewelled hands She smooths her silken gown,-- No more the homespun lap wherein I shook the walnuts down."

We also learn from the poem that he was the boy "who fed her father's kine." What a pretty little romance!--and, let us hope, not too sad a one. Shall we have one more stanza about this lovely little school-idyl?

It is from "Memories":--

"I hear again thy low replies, I feel thy aim within my own, And timidly again uprise The fringed lids of hazel eyes, With soft brown tresses overblown.

Ah! memories of sweet summer eves, Of moonlit wave and willowy way, Of stars and flowers, and dewy leaves, And smiles and tones more dear than they!"

The reading material that found its way to Farmer Whittier's house consisted of the almanac, the weekly village paper, and "scarce a score"

of books and pamphlets, among them Lindley Murray's "Reader":--

"One harmless novel, mostly hid From younger eyes, a book forbid, And poetry (or good or bad, A single book was all we had), Where Ellwood's meek, drab-skirted Muse, A stranger to the heathen Nine, Sang, with a somewhat nasal whine, The wars of David and the Jews."

Knowing, as we do, the great influence exerted upon our mental development by the books we read as children, and knowing that a rural life, such as Whittier's has been, is especially conducive to tenacity of early customs, it becomes important to know what the books were that first formed his style and colored his thought. It seems that Ellwood's "Davideis; or the Life of David, King of Israel," was one of these. The book was published in 1711, and had a sale of five or more editions.

Ellwood, born in 1639, early adopted the then new doctrines of George Fox. He has written a quaint and pictorial autobiography, somewhat like that of Bunyan or that of Fox. In 1662 he was for six weeks reader to Milton, who was then blind, and living in London, in Jewin Street. It was he who first suggested to Milton that he should write "Paradise Regained."[9]

[Footnote 9: This was in 1665, when Milton was living at Giles-Chalfont.

Ellwood says: "After some common discourse had pa.s.sed between us, he called for a ma.n.u.script of his, which he delivered to me, bidding me take it home with me and read it at my leisure; and, when I had done so, return it to him with my judgment thereon." It was "Paradise Lost." When Ellwood returned it, and was asked his opinion, he gave it, and added: "'Thou hast said much here of "Paradise Lost," but what hast thou to say of "Paradise Found"?' He made no answer, but sat some time in a muse."]

An idea of the execrable nature of his versification may be obtained from a few specimens. Upon the pa.s.sing of a severe law against Quakers, he relieves his mind in this wise:--

"Awake, awake, O arm o' th' Lord, awake!

Thy sword up take; Cast what would thine forgetful of thee make, Into the lake.

Awake, I pray, O mighty Jah! awake, Make all the world before thy presence quake, Not only earth, but heaven also shake."

Another poem, ent.i.tled "A Song of the Mercies and Deliverances of the Lord," begins thus:--

"Had not the Lord been on our side, May Israel now say, We were not able to abide The trials of that day:

When men did up against us rise, With fury, rage, and spite, Hoping to catch us by surprise, Or run us down by night."

An opponent's poetry is lashed by Ellwood in such beautiful stanzas as the following:--

"So _flat_, so _dull_, so _rough_, so _void of grace_, Where _symphony_ and _cadence_ have no place; So full of _chasmes_ stuck with _prosie pegs_, Whereon his _tired_ Muse might rest her legs, (Not having wings) and take new breath, that then She might with much adoe hop on again."

A striking peculiarity of Whittier's poetry is the exceedingly small range of his rhymes and metres. He is especially fond of the four-foot iambic line, and likes to rhyme successive or alternate lines in a wofully monotonous and see-saw manner. These are the characteristics of much of the lyric poetry of a hundred years ago, and especially distinguish the verses of Burns and Ellwood,--the first poets the boy Whittier read. Burns, especially, he learned by heart, and there can be no doubt that the Ayrshire ploughman gave to the mind of his brother-ploughman of Ess.e.x its life-direction and coloring,--as respects the swing of rhythm and rhyme at least. Indeed, we shall presently find him contributing to the _Haverhill Gazette_ verses in the Scotch dialect. His introduction to the poetry of Burns was in this wise: He was one afternoon gathering in hay on the farm, when by good hap a wandering peddler stopped and took from his pack a copy of Burns, which was eagerly purchased by the poetical Quaker boy. Alluding to the circ.u.mstance afterward in his poem, "Burns," he says:--

"How oft that day, with fond delay, I sought the maple's shadow, And sang with Burns the hours away, Forgetful of the meadow!

Bees hummed, birds twittered, overhead I heard the squirrels leaping, The good dog listened while I read, And wagged his tail in keeping."

By the reading of Burns his eyes were opened, he says, to the beauty in homely things. In familiar and humble things he found the "tender idyls of the heart." But the wanton and the ribald lines of the Scotch poet found no entrance to his pure mind.[10]

[Footnote 10: See Appendix II.]

He had other relishing tastes of the rich dialect of heather poetry. In "Yankee Gypsies" he says: "One day we had a call from a 'pawky auld carle' of a wandering Scotchman. To him I owe my first introduction to the songs of Burns. After eating his bread and cheese and drinking his mug of cider, he gave us Bonny Doon, Highland Mary, and Auld Lang Syne.

He had a rich full voice, and entered heartily into the spirit of his lyrics. I have since listened to the same melodies from the lips of Dempster (than whom the Scottish bard has had no sweeter or truer interpreter); but the skilful performance of the artist lacked the novel charm of the gaberlunzie's singing in the old farm-house kitchen."

A page or two of these personal recollections of the poet will serve to fill out the picture of his boyhood life; and, at the same time, give the reader a taste of his often charming prose pieces:--

"The advent of wandering beggars, or 'old stragglers,' as we were wont to call them, was an event of no ordinary interest in the generally monotonous quietude of our farm life. Many of them were well known; they had their periodical revolutions and transits; we could calculate them like eclipses or new moons. Some were st.u.r.dy knaves, fat and saucy; and whenever they ascertained that the 'men-folks' were absent would order provisions and cider like men who expected to pay for them, seating themselves at the hearth or table with the air of Falstaff,--'Shall I not take mine ease in mine own inn?' Others poor, pale, patient, like Sterne's monk, came creeping up to the door, hat in hand, standing there in their gray wretchedness, with a look of heart-break and forlornness which was never without its effect on our juvenile sensibilities. At times, however, we experienced a slight revulsion of feeling when even these humblest children of sorrow somewhat petulantly rejected our proffered bread and cheese, and demanded instead a gla.s.s of cider.

"One--I think I see him now, grim, gaunt, and ghastly, working his way up to our door--used to gather herbs by the wayside, and call himself doctor. He was bearded like a he-goat, and used to counterfeit lameness, yet when he supposed himself alone would travel on l.u.s.tily, as if walking for a wager. At length, as if in punishment for his deceit, he met with an accident in his rambles, and became lame in earnest, hobbling ever after with difficulty on his gnarled crutches. Another used to go stooping, like Bunyan's pilgrim, under a pack made of an old bed-sacking, stuffed out into most plethoric dimensions, tottering on a pair of small, meagre legs, and peering out with his wild, hairy face from under his burden, like a big-bodied spider. That 'man with the pack' always inspired me with awe and reverence. Huge, almost sublime in its tense rotundity, the father of all packs, never laid aside and never opened, what might there not be within it! With what flesh-creeping curiosity I used to walk round about it at a safe distance, half expecting to see its striped covering stirred by the motions of a mysterious life, or that some evil monster would leap out of it, like robbers from Ali Baba's jars, or armed men from the Trojan horse!"

"Twice a year, usually in the spring and autumn, we were honored with a call from Jonathan Plummer, maker of verses, peddler and poet, physician and parson,--a Yankee Troubadour,--first and last minstrel of the valley of the Merrimack, encircled to my wondering eyes with the very nimbus of immortality. He brought with him pins, needles, tape, and cotton thread for my mother; jack-knives, razors, and soap for my father; and verses of his own composing, coa.r.s.ely printed and ill.u.s.trated with rude woodcuts, for the delectation of the younger branches of the family. No love-sick youth could drown himself, no deserted maiden bewail the moon, no rogue mount the gallows, without fitting memorial in Plummer's verses. Earthquakes, fires, fevers and shipwrecks he regarded as personal favors from Providence, furnishing the raw material of song and ballad. Welcome to us in our country seclusion as Autolycus to the clown in Winter's Tale, we listened with infinite satisfaction to his readings of his own verses, or to his ready improvisation upon some domestic incident or topic suggested by his auditors. When once fairly over the difficulties at the outset of a new subject, his rhymes flowed freely, 'as if he had eaten ballads, and all men's ears grew to his tunes.' His productions answered, as nearly as I can remember, to Shakespeare's description of a proper ballad,--'doleful matter merrily set down, or a very pleasant theme sung lamentably.' He was scrupulously conscientious, devout, inclined to theological disquisitions, and withal mighty in Scripture. He was thoroughly independent; flattered n.o.body, cared for n.o.body, trusted n.o.body.

When invited to sit down at our dinner-table, he invariably took the precaution to place his basket of valuables between his legs for safe-keeping. 'Never mind thy basket, Jonathan,' said my father, 'we shan't steal thy verses.' 'I'm not sure of that,' returned the suspicious guest. 'It is written, Trust ye not in any brother.'"

"Thou, too, O Parson B.,--with thy pale student's brow and thy rubicund nose, with thy rusty and tattered black coat, overswept by white flowing locks, with thy professional white neckcloth scrupulously preserved, when even a shirt to thy back was problematical,--art by no means to be overlooked in the muster-roll of vagrant gentlemen possessing the _entree_ of our farm-house. Well do we remember with what grave and dignified courtesy he used to step over its threshold, saluting its inmates with the same air of gracious condescension and patronage with which in better days he had delighted the hearts of his parishioners. Poor old man! He had once been the admired and almost worshipped minister of the largest church in the town, where he afterwards found support in the winter season as a pauper. He had early fallen into intemperate habits, and at the age of threescore and ten, when I remember him, he was only sober when he lacked the means of being otherwise."

Among the books read by Whittier when a boy we must number the "Pilgrim's Progress" of Bunyan.

In his "Supernaturalism of New England" the poet says: "How hardly effaced are the impressions of childhood! Even at this day, at the mention of the Evil Angel, an image rises before me like that with which I used especially to horrify myself in an old copy of 'Pilgrim's Progress.' Horned, hoofed, scaly, and fire-breathing, his caudal extremity twisted tight with rage, I remember him ill.u.s.trating the tremendous encounter of Christian in the valley where 'Apollyon straddled over the whole breadth of the way.' There was another print of the enemy which made no slight impression upon me; it was the frontispiece of an old, smoked, snuff-stained pamphlet (the property of an elderly lady, who had a fine collection of similar wonders, wherewith she was kind enough to edify her young visitors), containing a solemn account of the fate of a wicked dancing party in New Jersey, whose irreverent declaration that they would have a fiddler, if they had to send to the lower regions after him, called up the fiend himself, who forthwith commenced playing, while the company danced to the music incessantly, without the power to suspend their exercise until their feet and legs were worn off to the knees! The rude woodcut represented the Demon Fiddler and his agonized companions literally _stumping_ it up and down in 'cotillions, jigs, strathspeys, and reels.'"

So grew up the Quaker farmer's son, drinking eagerly in such knowledge as he could, and receiving those impressions of nature and home-life which he was afterward to embody in his popular lyrics and idyls. Above all, his home education saturated his mind with religious and moral earnestness. In the second part of this volume will be given some remarks on Quaker life in America, and an a.n.a.lysis of the blended influence of Quakerism and Puritanism upon the development of Whittier's genius. Enough has been said to show that the surroundings of his early life were of the plainest and simplest character, and not different from those of a thousand other secluded New England farms of the period.

We are now to follow the shy young poet out into the world. He is nineteen years of age. The circle of his experiences begins to widen outward; manhood is dawning; the village paper has taught him that there are men beyond the mountains. He thirsts for individuality,--to know his powers, to cast the horoscope of his future, and see if the consciousness within him of unusual gifts be a trustworthy one. To begin with, he will write a poem for "our weekly paper." Accordingly one day in 1826 the following poem, written in blue ink on coa.r.s.e paper, was slipped by the postman under the door of the office of the _Free Press_, in Newburyport,--a short-lived paper, then recently started by young William Lloyd Garrison, and subscribed for by Farmer Whittier.