The first Whittier, Thomas, arrived in Massachusets in 1638. He was a man of moral force, as is attested by the fact that, a generation before the family had any connection with Quakers, he took grave risks in protesting against their persecution.* Despite his espousal of a dangerously unpopular cause, he still had influence in his little world, and was a holder of office. He was, too, a physical giant and, at the age of sixty-eight, still vigorous enough to hew the oak timbers for a new house, the solid two-story structure in Haverhill where, on December 17, 1807, the...

Written on reading an account of the proceedings of the citizens of Norfolk, Va., in reference to George Latimer, the alleged fugitive slave, who was seized in Boston without warrant at the request of James B. Grey, of Norfolk, claiming to be his master. The case caused great excitement North and South, and led to the presentation of a petition to Congress, signed by more than fifty thousand citizens of Massachusetts, calling for such laws and proposed amendments to the Constitution as should relieve the Commonwealth from all further participation in the crime of oppression. George Latimer himself was finally...

“Sebah, Oasis of Fezzan, 10th March,1846. — This evening the female slaves were unusually excited in singing, and I had the curiosity to ask my negro servant, Said, what they were singing about. As many of them were natives of his own country, he had no difficulty in translating the Mandara or Bornou language. I had often asked the Moors to translate their songs for me, but got no satisfactory account from them. Said at first said, ‘Oh, they sing ofRubee’(God). ‘What do you mean?’ I replied, impatiently. ‘Oh, don’t you know?’ he continued, ‘they asked God to...

O Mother Earth! upon thy lap

Thy weary ones receiving,

And o’er them, silent as a dream,

Thy grassy mantle weaving,

Fold softly in thy long embrace

That heart so worn and broken,

And cool its pulse of fire beneath

Thy shadows old and oaken.

Shut out from him the bitter word

And serpent hiss of scorning;

Nor let the storms of yesterday

Disturb his quiet morning.

Breathe over him forgetfulness

Of all save deeds of kindness,

And, save to smiles of grateful eyes,

Press down his lids in blindness.

There, where with living ear and eye

He heard Potomac’s...

The work referred to was a series of papers under this title, contributed to theDemocratic Reviewand afterward collected into a volume, in which I noted some of the superstitions and folklore prevalent in New England. The volume has not been kept in print, but most of its contents are distributed in myLiterary Recreations and Miscellanies.

Dear Sister! while the wise and sage

Turn coldly from my playful page,

And count it strange that ripened age

Should stoop to boyhood’s folly;

I know that thou wilt judge aright

Of all which makes the heart more light,

Or lends...

This poem was the outcome of the surprise and grief and forecast of evil consequences which I felt on reading the seventh of March speech of Daniel Webster in support of the “compromise,” and the Fugitive Slave Law. No partisan or personal enmity dictated it. On the contrary my admiration of the splendid personality and intellectual power f the great Senator was never stronger than when I laid down his speech, and, in one of the saddest moments of my life penned my protest. I saw, as I wrote, with painful clearness its sure results, — the Slave Power arrogant and...

These lines were addressed to my worthy friend Joshua Coffin, teacher, historian, and antiquarian. He was one of the twelve persons who with William Lloyd Garrison formed the first anti-slavery society in New England.

Old friend, kind friend! lightly down

Drop time’s snow-flakes on thy crown!

Never be thy shadow less,

Never fail thy cheerfulness;

Care, that kills the cat, may plough

Wrinkles in the miser’s brow,

Deepen envy’s spiteful frown,

Draw the mouths of bigots down,

Plague ambition’s dream, and sit

Heavy on the hypocrite,

Haunt the rich man’s door, and ride

In the gilded coach of pride; —

Let...

In calm and cool and silence, once again

I find my old accustomed place among

My brethren, where, perchance, no human tongue

Shall utter words; where never hymn is sung,

Nor deep-toned organ blown, nor censer swung,

Nor dim light falling through the pictured pane!

There, syllabled by silence, let me hear

The still small voice which reached the prophet’s ear;

Read in my heart a still diviner law

Than Israel’s leader on his tables saw!

There let me strive with each besetting sin,

Recall my wandering fancies, and restrain

The sore disquiet of a restless brain;

And, as the...

The same old baffling questions! O my friend,

I cannot answer them. In vain I send

My soul into the dark, where never burn

The lamps of science, nor the natural light

Of Reason’s sun and stars! I cannot learn

Their great and solemn meanings, nor discern

The awful secrets of the eyes which turn

Evermore on us through the day and night

With silent challenge and a dumb demand,

Proffering the riddles of the dread unknown,

Like the calm Sphinxes, with their eyes of stone,

Questioning the centuries from their veils

of sand!

I have no answer for myself...

The recollection of some descendants of a Hessian deserter in the Revolutionary war bearing the name of Muiler doubtless suggested the somewhat infelicitous title of a New England idyl. The poem had no real foundation in fact, though a hint of it may have been found in recalling an incident, trivial in itself, of a journey on the picturesque Maine seaboard with my sister some years before it was written. We had stopped to rest our tired horse under the shade of an apple tree, and refresh him with water from a little brook which rippled through the stone wall...

Last week — the Lord be praised for all

His mercies

To His unworthy servant! — I arrived

Safe at the Mission,viaWestport; where

I tarried over night, to aid in forming

A Vigilance Committee, to send back,

In shirts of tar, and feather-doublets quilted

With forty stripes save one, all Yankee comers,

Uncircumcised and Gentile, aliens from

The Commonwealth of Israel, who despise

The prize of the high calling of the saints,

Who plant amidst this heathen wilderness

Pure gospel institutions, sanctified

By patriarchal use. The meeting opened

With prayer, as was most fitting. Half an hour,

Or thereaway, I...

Blessings on thee, little man,

Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan!

With thy turned-up pantaloons,

And thy merry whistled tunes;

With thy red lip, redder still

Kissed by strawberries on the hill;

With the sunshine on thy face,

Through thy torn brim’s jaunty grace;

From my heart I give thee joy,—

I was once a barefoot boy!

Prince thou art, — the grown-up man

Only is republican.

Let the million-dollared ride!

Barefoot, trudging at his side,

Thou hast more than he can buy

In the reach of ear and eye, —

Outward sunshine, inward joy:

Blessings on thee, barefoot boy!

Oh for...

Through the long hall the shuttered windows shed

A dubious light on every upturned head;

On locks like those of Absalom the fair,

On the bald apex ringed with scanty hair,

On blank indifference and on curious stare;

On the pale Showman reading from his stage

The hieroglyphics of that facial page;

Half sad, half scornful, listening to the bruit

Of restless cane-tap and impatient foot,

And the shrill call, across the general din,

“Roll up your curtain! Let the show begin!”

At length a murmur like the winds that break

Into green waves the prairie’s grassy lake,

Deepened and...

From the heart of Waumbek Methna, from the

lake that never fails,

Falls the Saco in the green lap of Conway’s intervales;

There, in wild and virgin freshness, its waters

foam and flow,

As when Darby Field first saw them, two hundred

years ago.

But, vexed in all its seaward course with bridges,

dams, and mills,

How changed is Saco’s stream, how lost its

freedom of the hills,

Since travelled Jocelyn, factor Vines, and stately

Champernoon

Heard on its banks the gray wolf’s howl, the

trumpet of the loon!

With smoking axle hot with speed, with steeds

of fire and...

O’er the bare woods, whose outstretched hands

Plead with the leaden heavens in vain,

I see, beyond the valley lands,

The sea’s long level dim with rain.

Around me all things, stark and dumb,

Seem praying for the snows to come,

And, for the summer bloom and greenness gone,

With winter’s sunset lights and dazzling morn

atone.

Along the river’s summer walk,

The withered tufts of asters nod;

And trembles on its arid stalk

The hoar plume of the golden-rod.

And on a ground of sombre fir,

And azure-studded juniper,

The silver birch its buds of purple shows,

And scarlet...

From the hills of home forth looking, far beneath

the tent-like span

Of the sky, I see the white gleam of the headland

of Cape Ann.

Well I know its coves and beaches to the ebb-tide

glimmering down,

And the white-walled hamlet children of its ancient

fishing-town.

Long has passed the summer morning, and its

memory waxes old,

When along yon breezy headlands with a pleasant

friend I strolled.

Ah! the autumn sun is shining, and the ocean

wind blows cool,

And the golden-rod and aster bloom around thy

grave, Rantoul!

With the memory of that morning by the summer...

Of all the rides since the birth of time,

Told in story or sung in rhyme, —

On Apuleius’s Golden Ass,

Or one-eyed Calendar’s horse of bráss,

Witch astride of a human back,

Islam’s prophet on Al-Borák, —

The strangest ride that ever was sped

Was Ireson’s, out from Marblehead!

Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,

Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart

By the women of Marblehead!

Body of turkey, head of owl,

Wings a-droop like a rained-on fowl,

Feathered and ruffled in every part,

Skipper Ireson stood in the cart.

Scores of women, old and young,

Strong of,...

A remarkable custom, brought from the Old Country, formerly prevailed in the rural districts of New England. On the death of a member of the family, the bees were at once informed of the event, and their hives dressed in mourning. This ceremonial was supposed to be necessary to prevent the swarms from leaving their hives and seeking a new home.

Here is the place; right over the hill

Runs the path I took;

You can see the gap in the old wall still,

And the stepping-stones in the shallow brook.

There is the house, with the gate red-barred,

And...

Pipes of the misty moorlands,

Voice of the glens and hills;

The droning of the torrents,

The treble of the rills!

Not the braes of broom and heather,

Nor the mountains dark with rain,

Nor maiden bower, nor border tower,

Have heard your sweetest strain!

Dear to the Lowland reaper,

And plaided mountaineer, —

To the cottage and the castle

The Scottish pipes are dear; —

Sweet sounds the ancient pibroch

O’er mountain, loch, and glade;

But the sweetest of all music

The pipes at Lucknow played.

Day by day the Indian tiger

Louder yelled, and nearer crept;

Round and round the...

The prose version of this prophecy is to be found in Sewall’sThe New Heaven upon the New Earth,1697, quoted in Joshua Coffin’sHistory of Newbury.Judge Sewall’s father, Henry Sewall, was one of the pioneers of Newbury.

Up and down the village streets

Strange are the forms my fancy meets,

For the thoughts and things of to-day are hid,

And through the veil of a closëd lid

The ancient worthies I see again:

I hear the tap of the elder’s cane,

And his awful periwig I see,

And the silver buckles of shoe and knee.

Stately and slow,...

Far away in the twilight time

Of every people, in every clime,

Dragons and griffins and monsters dire,

Born of water, and air, and fire,

Or nursed, like the Python, in the mud

And ooze of the old Deucalion flood,

Crawl and wriggle and foam with rage,

Through dusk tradition and ballad age.

So from the childhood of Newbury town

And its time of fable the tale comes down

Of a terror which haunted bush and brake,

The Amphisbaena, the Double Snake!

Thou who makest the tale thy mirth,

Consider that strip of Christian earth

On the desolate shore of...

The pines were dark on Ramoth hill,

Their song was soft and low;

The blossoms in the sweet May wind

Were falling like the snow.

The blossoms drifted at our feet,

The orchard birds sang clear;

The sweetest and the saddest day

It seemed of all the year.

For, more to me than birds or flowers,

My playmate left her home,

And took with her the laughing spring,

The music and the bloom.

She kissed the lips of kith and kin,

She laid her hand in mine:

What more could ask the bashful boy

Who fed her father’s kine?

She...

We wait beneath the furnace-blast

The pangs of transformation;

Not painlessly doth God recast

And mould anew the nation.

Hot burns the fire

Where wrongs expire;

Nor spares the hand

That from the land

Uproots the ancient evil.

The hand-breadth cloud the sages feared

Its bloody rain is dropping;

The poison plant the fathers spared

All else is overtopping.

East, West, South, North,

It curses the earth;

All justice dies,

And fraud and lies

Live only in its shadow.

What gives the wheat-field blades of steel?

What points the rebel cannon?

What sets the roaring rabble’s heel

On the old...

I would I were a painter, for the sake

Of a sweet picture, and of her who led,

A fitting guide, with reverential tread,

Into that mountain mystery. First a lake

Tinted with sunset; next the wavy lines

Of far receding hills; and yet more far,

Monadnock lifting from his night of pines

His rosy forehead to the evening star.

Beside us, purple-zoned, Wachuset laid

His head against the West, whose warm light made

His aureole; and o’er him, sharp and clear,

Like a shaft of lightning in mid-launching stayed,

A single level cloud-line, shone upon

By the fierce glances...

This poem was written in strict conformity to the account of the incident as I had it from respectable and trustworthy sources. It has since been the subject of a good deal of conflicting testimony, and the story was probably incorrect in some of its details. It is admitted by all that Barbara Frietehie was no myth, but a worthy and highly esteemed gentlewoman, intensely loyal and a hater of the Slavery Rebellion, holding her Union flag sacred and keeping it with her Bible; that when the Confederates halted before her house, and entered her dooryard, she denounced them in...

Sweetest of all childlike dreams

In the simple Indian lore

Still to me the legend seems

Of the shapes who flit before.

Flitting, passing, seen and gone,

Never reached nor found at rest,

Baffling search, but beckoning on

To the Sunset of the Blest.

From the clefts of mountain rocks,

Through the dark of lowland firs,

Flash the eyes and flow the locks

Of the mystic Vanishers!

And the fisher in his skiff,

And the hunter on the moss,

Hear their call from cape and cliff,

See their hands the birch-leaves toss.

Wistful, longing, through the green

Twilight of the...

On hearing the bells ring on the passage of the constitutional amendment abolishing slavery. The resolution was adopted by Congress, January 31, 1865. The ratification by the requisite number of States was announced December 18, 1865.

It is done!

Clang of bell and roar of gun

Send the tidings up and down.

How the belfries rock and reel!

How the great guns, peal on peal,

Fling the joy from town to town!

Ring, 0 bells!

Every stroke exulting tells

Of the burial hour of crime.

Loud and long, that all may hear,

Ring for every listening ear

Of Eternity and...

The inmates of the family at the Whittier homestead who are referred to in the poem were my father, mother, my brother and two sisters, and my uncle and aunt both unmarried. In addition, there was the district school-master who boarded with us. The “not unfeared, halfwelcome guest” was Harriet Livermore, daughter of Judge Lavermore, of New Hampshire, a young woman of fine natural ability, enthusiastic, eccentric, with slight control over her violent temper, which sometimes made her religious profession doubtful. She was equally ready to exhort in school-house prayer-meetings and dance in a Washington ball-room, while her father was...

The famous Dark Day of New England, May 19, 1780, was a physical puzzle for many years to our ancestors, but its occurrence brought something more than philosophical speculation into the minds of those who passed through it. The incident of Colonel Abraham Davenport’s sturdy protest is a matter of history.

In the old days (a custom laid aside

With breeches and cocked hats) the people sent

Their wisest men to make the public laws.

And so, from a brown homestead, where the Sound

Drinks the small tribute of the Mianas,

Waved over by the woods of Rippowams,

And hallowed...

In the old Hebrew myth the lion’s frame,

So terrible alive,

Bleached by the desert’s sun and wind, became

The wandering wild bees’ hive;

And he who, lone and naked-handed, tore

Those jaws of death apart,

In after time drew forth their honeyed store

To strengthen his strong heart.

Dead seemed the legend: but it only slept

To wake beneath our sky;

Just on the spot whence ravening Treason crept

Back to its lair to die,

Bleeding and torn from Freedom’s mountain

bounds,

A stained and shattered drum

Is now the hive where, on their flowery rounds,

The wild bees...

This poem, when originally published, was dedicated to Annie Fields, wife of the distinguished publisher, James T. Fields, of Boston, in grateful acknowledgment of the strength and inspiration I have found in her friendship and sympathy.

The poem in its first form was entitledThe Wife: an Idyl of Bearcamp Water,and appeared inThe Atlantic Monthlyfor January, 1868. When I published the volumeAmong the Hills,in December of the same year, I expanded the Prelude and filled out also the outlines of the story.

Along the roadside, like the flowers of gold

That tawny Incas for their...

Still sits the school-house by the road,

A ragged beggar sleeping;

And it still the sumachs grow,

And blackberry-vines are creeping.

Within, the master’s desk is seen,

Deep scarred by raps official;

The warping floor, the battered seats,

The jack-knife’s carved initial;

The charcoal frescos on its wall;

Its door’s worn sill, betraying

The feet that, creeping slow to school,

Went storming out to playing!

Long years ago a winter sun

Shown over it at setting;

Lit up its western window-panes,

And low eaves’ icy fretting.

It touched the tangled golden curls,

And brown eyes full of grieving,

Of one...

The time of gifts has come again,

And, on my northern window-pane,

Outlined against the day’s brief light,

A Christmas token hangs in sight.

The wayside travellers, as they pass,

Mark the gray disk of clouded glass;

And the dull blankness seems, perchance,

Folly to their wise ignorance.

They cannot from their outlook see

The perfect grace it hath for me;

For there the flower, whose fringes through

The frosty breath of autumn blew,

Turns from without its face of bloom

To the warm tropic of my room,

As fair as when beside its brook

The hue of bending skies...

A railway conductor who lost his life in an accident on a Connecticut railway, May 9, 1873.

Conductor Bradley, (always may his name

Be said with reverence!) as the swift doom came,

Smitten to death, a crushed and mangled frame,

Sank, with the brake he grasped just where

he stood

To do the utmost that a brave man could,

And die, if needful, as a true man should.

Men stooped above him; women dropped their

tears

On that poor wreck beyond all hopes or fears,

Lost in the strength and glory of his years.

What heard they? Lo! the ghastly...

When on my day of life the night is falling,

And, in the winds from unsunned spaces 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!

Be near me when all else is from me drifting:

Earth, sky, home’s pictures, days of shade and

shine,

And kindly faces to my own uplifting

The love which answers mine.

I have but Thee, my Father! let...

’Midst the men and things which will

Haunt an old man’s memory still,

Drollest, quaintest of them all,

With a boy’s laugh I recall

Good old Abram Morrison.

When the Grist and Rolling Mill

Ground and rumbled by Po Hill,

And the old red school-house stood

Midway in the Powow’s flood,

Here dwelt Abram Morrison.

From the Beach to far beyond

Bear-Hill, Lion’s Mouth and Pond,

Marvellous to our tough old stock,

Chips o’ the Anglo-Saxon block,

Seemed the Celtic Morrison.

Mudknock, Balmawhistle, all

Only knew the Yankee drawl,

Never brogue was heard till when,

Foremost of his countrymen,

Hither...

In the disastrous battle on the Big Horn River, in which General Custer and his entire force were slain, the chief Rain-in-the-Face was one of the fiercest leaders of the Indians. In Longfellow’s poem on the massacre, these lines will be remembered:—

“Revenge!” cried Rain-in-the-Face,

“Revenge upon all the race

Of the White Chief with yellow hair!”

And the mountains dark and high

From their crags reëchoed the cry

Of his anger and despair.

He is now a man of peace; and the agent at Standing Rock, Dakota, writes, September 28, 1886: “Rain-in-the-Face is very anxious to go to Hampton....