Whittier-land Part 9

And the Governor says: "If Amesbury can't Take care of its own town charge, The State, I suppose, must do it, And keep him from runnin' at large!"

Then rises the orator Robert, Recounting with grave precision The tale of the great Declaration, And the claims of his brother physician.

Both doctors, and both Congressmen, Tall and straight, you 'd scarce know which is The live man, and which is the image, Except by their trousers and breeches!

Then when the Andover "heretic"

Reads the rhymes I dared not utter, I fancy Josiah is scowling, And his bronze lips seem to mutter:

"Dry up! and stop your nonsense!

The Lord who in His mercies Once saved me from the Tories, Preserve me now from verses!"

Bad taste in the old Continental!

Whose knowledge of verse was at best John Rogers' farewell to his wife and Nine children and one at the breast!

He 's treating me worse than the Hessians He shot in the Bennington scrimmage-- Have I outlived the newspaper critic, To be scalped by a graven image!

Perhaps, after all, I deserve it, Since I, who was born a Quaker, Sit here an image worshiper, Instead of an image breaker!

In giving this picture of a poet at play, I have presented a side of Whittier's character heretofore overlooked, although to his intimate friends it was ever in evidence. I think there are few of the lovers of his verse who, if they are surprised by these revelations, will not also be pleased to become acquainted with one of his methods of recreation.

When Edmund Gosse visited this country in 1884, he called upon Mr.

Whittier, and this is the impression he received of his personality: "The peculiarity of his face rested in the extraordinarily large and luminous black eyes, set in black eyebrows, and fringed with thick black eyelashes curiously curved inward. This bar of vivid black across the countenance was startlingly contrasted with the bushy snow-white beard and hair, offering a sort of contradiction which was surprising and presently pleasing. He struck me as very gay and cheerful, in spite of his occasional references to the pa.s.sage of time and the vanishing of beloved faces. He even laughed frequently and with a childlike suddenness, but without a sound. His face had none of the immobility so frequent with very aged persons; on the contrary, waves of mood were always sparkling across his features, and leaving nothing stationary there except the narrow, high, and strangely receding forehead. His language, very fluent and easy, had an agreeable touch of the soil, an occasional rustic note in its elegant colloquialism, that seemed very pleasant and appropriate, as if it linked him naturally with the long line of st.u.r.dy ancestors of whom he was the final blossoming. In connection with his poetry, I think it would be difficult to form in the imagination a figure more appropriate to Whittier's writings than Whittier himself proved to be in the flesh."

WHITTIER'S UNCOLLECTED POEMS

IV

WHITTIER'S UNCOLLECTED POEMS

Between the years 1826 and 1835, Mr. Whittier was writing literally hundreds of poems which he never permitted to be collected in any edition of his works; and not only so, but he preserved no copies of them, in later years destroying such as came to his notice. Some of these verses went the rounds of the newspaper press of the country, giving him a widespread reputation as a poet. But in much of his early work we see traces of ambition for fame, and a feeling that the world was treating him harshly. When the change came over his spirit to which reference has been made in a preceding chapter, sweetening all the springs of life, he lost interest in these early productions, some of which were giving him the fame that in his earlier years he so much craved. It was this radical change which no doubt influenced him in his later life to omit from his collected works most of the verses written previous to it. I have in my possession more than three hundred poems which I have found in the files of old newspapers, the great ma.s.s of which I would by no means reproduce, although I find nothing of which a young writer of that period need be ashamed. A few of these verses are given below as specimens of the work he saw fit to discard.

The following poem, written when he was nineteen years of age, during his first term in the Haverhill Academy, shows in one or two stanzas the feeling that the world is giving him the cold shoulder:--

I WOULD NOT LOSE THAT ROMANCE WILD

I would not lose that romance wild, That high and gifted feeling-- The power that made me fancy's child, The clime of song revealing, For all the power, for all the gold, That slaves to pride and avarice hold.

I know that there are those who deem But lightly of the lyre;-- Who ne'er have felt one blissful beam Of song-enkindled fire Steal o'er their spirits, as the light Of morning o'er the face of night.

Yet there 's a mystery in song-- A halo round the way Of him who seeks the muses' throng-- An intellectual ray, A source of pure, unfading joy-- A dream that earth can ne'er destroy.

And though the critic's scornful eye Condemn his faltering lay, And though with heartless apathy, The cold world turn away-- And envy strive with secret aim, To blast and dim his rising fame;

Yet fresh, amid the blast that brings Such poison on its breath, Above the wreck of meaner things, His lyre's unfading wreath Shall bloom, when those who scorned his lay With name and power have pa.s.sed away.

Come then, my lyre, although there be No witchery in thy tone; And though the lofty harmony Which other bards have known, Is not, and cannot e'er be mine, To touch with power those chords of thine.

Yet thou canst tell, in humble strain, The feelings of a heart, Which, though not proud, would still disdain To bear a meaner part, Than that of bending at the shrine Where their bright wreaths the muses twine.

Thou canst not give me wealth or fame; Thou hast no power to shed The halo of a deathless name Around my last cold bed; To other chords than thine belong The breathings of immortal song.

Yet come, my lyre! some hearts may beat Responsive to thy lay; The tide of sympathy may meet Thy master's lonely way; And kindred souls from envy free May listen to its minstrelsy.

8th month, 1827.

During the first months of Whittier's editorship of the "New England Review" at Hartford, his contributions of verse to that paper were numerous--in some cases three of his poems appearing in a single number, as in the issue of October 18, 1830. Two of these are signed with his initials, but the one here given has no signature. That it is his is made evident by the fact that all but one stanza of it appears in "Moll Pitcher," published two years later. It was probably because of the self-a.s.sertion of the concluding lines that the omitted stanza was canceled, and these lines reveal the ambition then stirring his young blood.

NEW ENGLAND

Land of the forest and the rock-- Of dark blue lake and mighty river-- Of mountains reared aloft to mock The storm's career--the lightning's shock,-- My own green land forever!-- Land of the beautiful and brave-- The freeman's home--the martyr's grave-- The nursery of giant men, Whose deeds have linked with every glen, And every hill and every stream, The romance of some warrior dream!-- Oh never may a son of thine, Where'er his wandering steps incline, Forget the sky which bent above His childhood like a dream of love-- The stream beneath the green hill flowing-- The broad-armed trees above it growing-- The clear breeze through the foliage blowing;-- Or hear unmoved the taunt of scorn Breathed o'er the brave New England born;-- Or mark the stranger's Jaguar hand Disturb the ashes of thy dead-- The buried glory of a land Whose soil with n.o.ble blood is red, And sanctified in every part, Nor feel resentment like a brand Unsheathing from his fiery heart!

Oh--greener hills may catch the sun Beneath the glorious heaven of France; And streams rejoicing as they run Like life beneath the day-beam's glance, May wander where the orange bough With golden fruit is bending low;-- And there may bend a brighter sky O'er green and cla.s.sic Italy-- And pillared fane and ancient grave Bear record of another time, And over shaft and architrave The green luxuriant ivy climb;-- And far towards the rising sun The palm may shake its leaves on high, Where flowers are opening one by one, Like stars upon the twilight sky, And breezes soft as sighs of love Above the rich mimosa stray, And through the Brahmin's sacred grove A thousand bright-hued pinions play!--

Yet, unto thee, New England, still Thy wandering sons shall stretch their arms, And thy rude chart of rock and hill Seem dearer than the land of palms!

Thy ma.s.sy oak and mountain pine More welcome than the banyan's shade, And every free, blue stream of thine Seem richer than the golden bed Of Oriental waves, which glow And sparkle with the wealth below!

Land of my fathers!--if my name, Now humble, and unwed to fame, Hereafter burn upon the lip, As one of those which may not die, Linked in eternal fellowship With visions pure and strong and high-- If the wild dreams which quicken now The throbbing pulse of heart and brow, Hereafter take a real form Like spectres changed to beings warm; And over temples worn and gray The star-like crown of glory shine,-- Thine be the bard's undying lay, The murmur of his praise be thine!

One of the poems in the same number which contained this spirited tribute to New England was the song given below, which was signed with the initials of the editor, else there might be some hesitation in a.s.signing it to him, for there is scarcely anything like it to be found in his writings. It was evidently written for music, and some composer should undertake it.

SONG

That vow of thine was full and deep As man has ever spoken-- A vow within the heart to keep, Unchangeable, unbroken.

'T was by the glory of the Sun, And by the light of Even, And by the Stars, that, one by one, Are lighted up in Heaven!

That Even might forget its gold-- And Sunlight fade forever-- The constant Stars grow dim and cold,-- But thy affection--never!

And Earth might wear a changeful sign, And fickleness the Sky-- Yet, even then, that love of thine Might never change nor die.

The golden Sun is shining yet-- And at the fall of Even There 's beauty in the warm Sunset, And Stars are bright in Heaven.

No change is on the blessed Sky-- The quiet Earth has none-- Nature has still her constancy, And _Thou_ art changed alone!

The "Review" for September 13, 1830, has a poem of Whittier's prefaced by a curious story about Lord Byron:--