The Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier/Biographical Sketch
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
The house is still standing in East Haverhill, Massachusetts, where John Greenleaf Whittier was born, December 17, 1807. It was built near the close of the seventeenth century by an ancestor of the poet, it sheltered several generations of Whittiers, in it John Greenleaf Whittier lived till his thirtieth year, and now it is likely to enjoy a long lease of life in association with his name, for since his death it has come into the possession of the Whittier Club of Haverhill, and its chief room has been restored to the condition in which it was when the boy was living in it the recollection of whose experience inspired that idyl of New England life, “Snow-Bound.”
It is to “Snow-Bound” that one resorts for the most natural and delightful narrative of the associations amongst which Whittier passed his boyhood. His family held to the tenets of the Friends, and the discipline of that society in connection with the somewhat rigorous exactions of country life in New England in the early part of the century determined the character of the formal education which he received. In later life he was wont to refer to the journals of Friends which he found in the scanty library in his father’s house as forming a large part of his reading in boyhood. He steeped his mind with their thoughts and learned to love their authors for their unconscious saintliness. There were not more than thirty volumes on the shelves, and, with a passion for reading, he read them over and over. One of these books, however, was the Bible, and he possessed himself of its contents, not only becoming familiar with the text, but penetrated by the spirit. When he began to write, his practice pieces were very largely paraphrases of scriptural themes, and throughout his poetry allusions to Biblical characters and passages fall as naturally from his lips as allusions to Greek or Roman literature and history from the lips of Milton.
Of regular schooling he had what the neighborhood could give, a few weeks each winter in the district school, and when he was nineteen, a little more than a year in an academy just started in Haverhill. In “Snow-Bound” he has drawn the portrait of one of his teachers at the district school, and his poem “To My Old Schoolmaster” commemorates another, Joshua Coffin, with whom he preserved a strong friendship in his manhood, when they were engaged in the same great cause of the abolition of human slavery. These teachers, who, according to the old New England custom, lived in turn with the families of their pupils, brought into the Whittier household other reading than strictly religious books, and Coffin especially rendered the boy a great service in introducing him to a knowledge of Burns, whose poems he read aloud once as the family sat by the fireside in the evening. The boy of fourteen was entranced; it was the voice of poetry speaking directly to the ear of poetry, and the new-comer recognized in an instant the prophet whose mantle he was to wear. Coffin was struck with the effect on his listener, and left the book with him. In one of his best known poems, written a generation later, when receiving a sprig of heather in bloom, Whittier records his indebtedness to Burns. To use his own expression, “the older poet woke the younger.” He had been dreaming of Indians, much as a young Scotsman might have pleased his imagination by picturing border chieftains. He said himself, looking back with amusement to his poem of “Mogg Megone,” “it suggests the idea of a big Indian in his war paint strutting about in Sir Walter Scott’s plaid.” But except for one or two intentional imitations, Burns’ influence over Whittier was summed up in that sudden illumination which showed him, not indeed the beauty of nature and the worth of man,—the knowledge of these was a birthright,—but what poetry could do in transfiguring both.
The home life which the boy led, aside from the conscious or unconscious schooling which he found in books, was one of many hardships, but within the sanctuary of a gracious and dignified home. The secluded valley in which he lived was three miles from the nearest village; from the date of the erection of the homestead till now no neighbor's roof has been in sight. The outdoor life was that of a farmer with cattle, tempered indeed in the short summer by the kindly gifts of nature, so happily shown in the poem of the "Barefoot Boy," but for the most part a life of toil and endurance which left its marks indelibly in the shattered constitution of the poet. Twice a week the family drove to a Friends' meeting at Amesbury, eight miles distant, and in winter without warm wraps or protecting robes. The old barn, built before that celebrated in "Snow-Bound," had no doors, and the winter snows drifted upon its floor, for neither beasts nor men, in the custom of the time, were expected to resist cold except by their native vigor. Whittier's companions of his own age were a brother and two sisters, one of whom, Elizabeth Whittier, was his nearest associate for the better part of his life, and the household held also that figure so beautiful and helpful in many families, an Aunt Mercy, as also a lively, adventurous bachelor. Uncle Moses. The father of the house, as we are told, was a man of few words; the mother, whose life was spared till that happy time when mother and son change places in care-taking, had a rarely refined nature, in which the Quaker graces of calmness and order were developed into a noble beauty of living.
The appendix to Whittier's Poetical Works contains a few out of a large number of poems written by him when he was a schoolboy. They display, as indeed did most of his writing for a few years to come, little more than a versifying facility and a certain sense of correct form as copied from correct, but rather lifeless models. They were, for all that, witnesses to the intellectual activity of a rudely trained boy, and showed that his mind was intent on high, oftentimes poetic themes. His mother and his sister Mary encouraged him, but his father, a hard-headed, hard-working farmer, of sound judgment and independent habits of thinking, was too severely aware of the straitened condition of the family to think of anything else for his son than a life of toil like his own. Mary Whittier, with a sister's pride, sent one of her brother's poems, unknown to the author, to the "Free Press" of Newburyport, a new paper lately started which commended itself by its tone to the Quaker Whittier, so that he had subscribed to it. The poem was printed, and the first that the poet knew of it was when he caught the paper from the postman riding by the field where he and his father were working. It was such a moment as comes to a young poet, believing in himself and having that aspiration for recognition which is one of the holiest as it is one of the subtlest elements in the poetic constitution. The poem was followed by another, which the author himself sent. Its acceptance was followed by an unheralded visit by the editor, who had learned that the writer was scarcely more than a boy, and whose own taste in poetry led him to set a high value on this versification of scripture, for the poem was that preserved under the title "The Deity."
Whittier was at work in the fields when the editor, himself a young man, called. He held back, but was induced by his sister to make himself presentable and come in to see the visitor. It was one of those first encounters which in the history of notable men are charged with most interesting potentialities. Garrison, for he was the editor, had not yet done more than take the first step on his thorny path to greatness, and Whittier was still working in the fields, though harboring poetic visitants. Garrison was but a few years older, and in later life those few years counted nothing, but now they were enough to lead him to take the tone of an adviser, and both to Greenleaf and his father, who entered the room, he spoke of the promise of the youth and the importance of his acquiring an academic education.
It was against the more rigorous interpretation of the Friends' doctrine that literary culture should be made an end, and the notion that the boy should be sent to an academy was not encouraged; but a few months later, Garrison having left Newburyport for Boston, and Whittier making a new connection with the Haverhill "Gazette," the editor of that paper, Mr. A. W. Thayer, gave the same advice and pressed the consideration that a new academy was shortly to be opened in Haverhill. He offered the boy a home in his own family, and the father now consented, moved also by the doubt if his son could stand the physical strain of farm work. He had no money, however, to spare, and the student must earn his own living. This he did by making a cheap kind of slipper, and devoted himself so faithfully to the industry in the few months intervening between the decision and the opening of the academy in May, 1827, that he earned enough to pay his expenses there for a term of six months. "He calculated so closely every item of expense," says his biographer, "that he knew before the beginning of the term that he would have twenty-five cents to spare at its close, and he actually had this sum of money in his pocket when his half year of study was over. It was the rule of his whole life never to buy anything until he had the money in hand to pay for it, and although liis income was small and uncertain until past middle life, he was never in debt."
By teaching a district school a few weeks and aiding a merchant with bookkeeping, he was enabled to make out a full year of study, and meantime continued to write both verse and prose for the newspapers. By this means he paved the way for an invitation when he was twenty-one years of age to enter the printing office in Boston of the Colliers, father and son, who published two weekly papers and a magazine. One of the weeklies was a political journal, "The Manufacturer," the other a paper of reform and humanitarianism called "The Philanthropist." Whittier had editorial charge of the former, and occupied himself with writing papers on temperance and the tariff of which he was an ardent advocate, and with verses and tales. It was not altogether a congenial relation in which he found himself, though the occupation was one to which he was to turn naturally for some time to come for self-support ; he remained with the Colliers for a year and a half, and then returned to his father's farm, with between four and five hundred dollars, the savings of half his salary. This he devoted to freeing the farm from the incumbrance of a mortgage, and himself took charge of the farm, for his father was rapidly failing health.
The death of his father in June, 1830, while it set him free from his father s occupation, made it still more imperative for him to earn his living, since the care of the family fell upon him. He had been using his pen and studying meanwhile, and his verses were bringing him acquaintances and friends. Through one of these, the brilliant George D. Prentice, he was induced to take up editorial work again in Hartford; but after a determined effort it became clear that his health was too fragile to permit him to devote himself to the exacting work of editing a journal, and in January, 1832, he returned to his home. Just at this time he published his first book, a mere pamphlet of twenty-eight octavo pages containing a poem of New England legendary life, entitled " Moll Pitcher. He had contributed besides, more than a hundred poems in the three years since leaving the academy, and had written many more. But though thus active with his pen, his strongest ambition, it may be said, was at this time in the direction of politics. For the next four years he remained on the farm at Haverhill, and when in April, 1836, the farm was sold, he removed with his mother and sister to the village of Amesbury, chiefly that they might be nearer the Friends' meeting, but also that Whittier might be more in the centre of things. In his seclusion at East Haverhill he had eagerly watched the course of public events." He was a great admirer of Henry Clay, and a determined opponent of Jackson. With his engaging character, his intellectual readiness, and that political instinct which never deserted him, he was rapidly coming into public notice in his district, and his own desire for serving in office drew him on. To be a member of Congress he must be twenty-five years old, and at the election which was to occur just before his birthday there were many indications that he would be the nominee of his party. This was at the end of 1832, but before the next election occurred there was a grave obstacle created by Whittier himself, and thenceforward through the years when he would naturally engage in public life he was practically disbarred.
It was not the precariousness of his health which kept Whittier out of active politics, though this was a strong reason for avoiding the stress and strain of a public life, but the decision which led him to enlist in an unpopular cause. In November, 1831, he had published his poem "To William Lloyd Garrison," which introduces the section Anti-Slavery Poems in this collection. It intimates a personal influence under which, with a moral nature fortified by great political insight, he began to consider seriously the movement for the abolition of slavery which was making itself evident here and there. As a specific result of this study he wrote in the spring of 1833 the pamphlet "Justice and Expediency," and published it at his own expense. It was a piece of writing compact with carefully gathered facts and logical deduction, and earnest with the rhetoric of personal conviction. Every sentence was an arraignment of slavery and a blow at his own chances of political office. The performance was in answer to the appeal of his own truthful nature, and it was a deliberate act of renunciation.
Now also began, at first with remote suggestions as in "Toussaint L'Ouverture," then nearer and nearer as he sings his tribute to the men of his day, known or unknown, who had been champions of freedom, Storrs, Shipley, Torrey, those bursts of passionate verse which were the vent of his soul overburdened with a sense of the deep wrong committed against God and man by the persistency of African slavery in the United States. In the years immediately following his decision to cast in his lot with the small band of despised anti-slavery agitators almost all of the poems which he wrote were of two sorts, either breathings of a spirit craving close communion with God as in his hymns, his lines on "The Call of the Christian," "The Female Martyr," and other poems, or fiery, scarce-controlled outbursts of feeling upon the evils of slavery, and vials of wratli poured out on those who aided and abetted tlie monstrous wrong. Such poems as "The Slave Ships," "The Hunters of Men," "Stanzas for the Times," "Clerical Oppressors," "Massachusetts," "The Pastoral Letter," derive their power not from their poetic spirit and form so much as from the righteous indignation, the pity, the overcharged feeling which crowd them. And if, in the years before, Whittier's verses with their conventional smoothness had drawn notice by the gentle spirit which suffused them, now his loud cry, violent and tempestuous, broke upon the ear with a harshness and yet an insistent fervor which compelled men to listen. It is indeed a striking phenomenon in poetic growth wliich one perceives who is familiar with Whittier's compositions and casts bis eye down a chronological list of his poems. Up to the date of his enlistment in the ranks of the anti-slavery army his ambition had been divided between literature and politics, with a taste in verse which was harmonious and an execution which was not wanting in melody yet had no remarkable note. After he stepped into the ranks a great change came over his spirit. He rushed into verse in a tumultuous fashion, careless of the form, eager only to utter the message which half choked him with its violence. There was a fierce note to his poetry, rough, but tremendously earnest. This was the first effect, such a troubling of the waters as gave a somewhat turbid aspect to the stream, and for a while his verse was very largely declamatory, rhymed polemics. But such poems as "Expostulation," beginning
"Our fellow-countrymen in chains!"
were to people then living scarcely so much poems as they were sounds of a great trumpet which were heard, not for their musical sonance,but for their power to stir the blood, and Whittier, though living almost in seclusion, became a name of note to many who would scarcely have known of him had he been a mere legislator or smooth-singing verse maker. He was recognized by the anti-slavery leaders as one of themselves, and this not only because of his powerful speech in song, but because on closer acquaintance he proved to be a most sagacious and wise reader of men and affairs. His own neighbors quickly learned this quality in him. He was sent to the legislature in 1835 and reelected in 1836, but his frail health made it impossible for him to continue in this service. Never- theless, he wielded political power with great skill aside from political office. He was indefatigable in accomplishing political ends through political men. No important nominations were made in his district without a preliminary conference with him, and more than once he compelled unwilling representatives to work for the great ends he had in view. It may be said here that though a steadfast leader in the anti-slavery cause he differed from some of his associates, both now and throughout his life, in setting a high value upon existing political organizations. "From first to last," says his biographer, "he refused to couie out from his party until he had done all that could be done to induce it to assist in the work of reform," and Whittier himself, in an article written about this time, exclaims, "What an absurdity is moral action apart from political!" meaning of course when dealing with those subjects which demand political action. Once more, in a letter written to the anti-Texas convention of 1845, he said that though as an abolitionist he was no blind worshiper of the Union, he saw nothing to be gained by an effort, necessarily limited and futile, to dissolve it. The moral and political power requisite for dissolving the Union could far more easily abolish every vestige of slavery.
We have anticipated a little in these comments the strict order of Whittier's life. In 1836 was published the first boimd volume of his verse. It was confined to his poem "Mogg Megone," which he had before printed in the "New England Magazine." It may be taken as the last expression of Whittier's poetic mind before the great change came over it of which we have spoken, and he was himself later so aware of its lack of genuine life that in collecting finally his writings he buried this so far as he could in the fine type of an appendix; but at the end of 1837 Isaac Knapp, publisher of the " Liberator," Garrison's paper, to which Whittier had been contributing his stirring verses, without consulting the poet, issued a volume of over a hundred pages, entitled "Poems written during the Progress of the Abolition Question in the United States, between the Years 1830 and 1838. By John G. Whittier." This was the first collection of his miscellaneous poems, and a year later another volume was issued by Joseph Healy, the financial agent of the Anti-Slavery Society of Pennsylvania. Meanwhile Whittier had been staying awhile in Philadelphia, engaged in editing the "Pennsylvania Freeman." It was during this time that Pennsylvania Hall was burnt by a mob enraged at the gathering there of an anti-slavery convention. Besides his work on the paper, which was frequently interrupted by ill health, he devoted himself in other ways to the promotion of the cause in which he was so ardently involved, but early in 1840 he found it imperative to give up all this work and retire to his home in Amesbury.
From this time forward he made no attempt to engage in any occupation which did not comport with a quiet life in his own home, except that for a few months in 1844 he resided in Lowell, editing the "Middlesex Standard." He wrote much for the papers, and the poetic stream also flowed with greater freedom and it may be said clearness. He contributed a number of poems to the "Democratic Review" and other periodicals, and in 1843 the firm of W. D. Ticknor published "Lays of my Home, and Other Poems," the first book from which Whittier received any remuneration. The struggle for main- tenance through these years was somewhat severe, but in January, 1847, h2 formed a connection which was not only to afford him a more liberal support, but was to give him a most favorable outlet for his writings, both prose and verse.
It had been decided by the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society to establish a weekly paper in Washington, and the editorial charge was committed to Dr. Gamaliel Bailey, an intrepid and able man of experience. The paper was named "The National Era," and Whittier was invited to become a regular contributor, editorial and otherwise, but not required to do his work away from home. The paper, as is well known, was the medium for the publication of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and its circulation was so consider- able as to make it a source of profit to its conductors as early as by the end of the first year. From 1847 till 1860 Whittier made this paper the chief vehicle of his writings, contributing not only poems, but reviews of contemporary literature, editorial articles, letters, sketches, and the serial which was published afterward in a book, "Leaves from Margaret Smith's Journal."
In 1849 B. B. Mussey & Co. of Boston brought out a comprehensive collection of Whittier's Poems in a dignified octavo volume illustrated with designs by Hammatt Billings. It was a venture made quite as much on friendly as on commercial grounds. Mr. Mussey was a cordial supporter of the anti-slavery cause and had a great admiration for Whittier's genius. He was determined to publish the poems in a worthy form, and his generous act met with an agreeable reward. Its success was a testimony to the repute in which Whittier was now held. At the same time his publishers, Messrs Ticknor & Fields, were in negotiation with him for anew volume, and in 1850 appeared "Songs of Labor, and Other Poems."
These two volumes which gathered the fruit of twenty years show unmistakably the further growth of Whittier's poetic power. With the establishment of his anti-slavery convictions into firm working principles, the maturing of his experience the enlargement of his political vision, and the increase in his friendship, there had come also a strengthening of his hand in the use of his pen, and a finer use, because more clear and restrained, of his poetic voice. Moreover, the religious feeling which was seen in his earlier life, and put to the test by closer association with men, had deepened into a serene confidence in God which pervaded his life and sustained him against all the shock of a disappointing age. Moreover, his eye and ear were in harmony with nature, and more and more he found not only an escape to nature as a relief from the world but a positive enjoyment in the field of beauty. Poetry, once a literary exercise, then a channel for the relief of a mind overburdened with its sense of an unconquered evil, was now become the full, free expression of a nature broadening under the thought of God, delighting in response to the world of beauty, strong and secure m a great purpose of humanity. It was his natural voice, which formerly broke under the strain of a changing constitution, but now was pure, sweet and far-carrying, obeying a trained impulse and resonant with a full force.
The establishment of "The Atlantic Monthly" in 1857 gave another impetus to Whit- tier's poetic productiveness. Here was a singular illustration of the growth in the community about him of a spirit quite in agreement with his own personality. Opposition to slavery lay at the base of the origin of the magazine, and yet in the minds of its projectors, this political bond was to unite men of letters and not simply antagonists of slavery. Ihe "Atlantic" was to be the organ of the literary class, but it was to be by no means exclusively devoted to an anti-slavery crusade. Indeed it would almost seem as if this specific purpose of the magazine was almost lost sight of at first m the richness and abundance oi general literature which it immediately stimulated. It is easy now to see how natural and congenial a medium this was for Whittier's verse. In subjecting his political and literary Imbition to a great moral purpose, so that he could no longer hope for political official power, and, in his own words
"Had left the Muses' haunts to turn
The crank of an opinion mill,
Making his rustic reed of song
A weapon in the war with wrong.
Yoking his fancy to the breaking-plough
That beam-deep turned the soil for truth to spring and grow,"—
in doing this, though it cost him a struggle, be had fulfilled the true saying that to save one's life one must lose it. He had given up the name and place of a political magnate, but he had secured the more impregnable position of the power behind the throne in politics, and in place of a smooth versifier, holding the attention of those with whom poetry was a plaything, he had become one of the few imperative voices of song, and had taken his place as oife of the necessary men in the group of men of letters who now came to- gether to represent the highest force in American literature.
For it is to be observed that Whittier was now no longer regarded as only the singer of spirited songs flying with all their winged power straight at the enemy as they sped Lorn a bow held by an Apollo. The passion which he had shown in his polemical verse had awakened his whole nature, and his poems on whatever theme came from a nature which had been developed in all its powers by this commanding purpose, nevertheless it is noticeable how the new opportunity afforded by the "Atlantic" and the increased association with the other great writers of the day, was consonant with if not the cause of broadening of Whittier's mind, a sunny burst of full life, finding expression in such poems as "Skipper Ireson's Ride," "The Sycamores," "The Pipes at Lucknow," "Mabel Martin" "The Garrison of Cape Ann," "The Swan Song of Parson Avery," "Telling the Bees," "The Last Walk in Autumn," as well as "The Eve of Election " and "Moloch in State Street."
The war for the Union naturally found Whittier strongly stirred, and more than ever watchful of the great issue which throughout his manhood has been constantly before his eves and his triumphant "Laus Deo" is as it were the Nunc Dimittis of this modern prophet and servant of the Lord. But Whittier was a Quaker not in any conventional sense, but by birthright, conviction, and growing consciousness of communion with God. Though he wrote such a stirring ballad, therefore, as "Barbara Frietchie," he wrote also the lines addressed to his fellow-believers:—
"The levelled gun, the battle brand
We may not take:
But, calmly loyal, we can stand
And suffer with our suffering land
For conscience' sake."
It is interesting also to observe how in this time of stress and pain, he escaped to the calm solace of nature. His poem « The Battle Autumn of 1862," records this emotion specifically, but more than one poem in the group "In War Time "bears testimony to this sentiment. Meanwhile other poems written during the years 1861-1865 illustrate the longing of Whittier's nature for relief from the terrible knowledge of human strife, a longing definitely expressed by him in the prelusive address to William Bradford, the Quaker painter, prefacing " Amy Wentworth," in which he says:—
"We, doomed to watch a strife we may not share
With other weapons than the patriot's prayer.
Yet owning with full hearts and moistened eyes
The awful beauty of self-sacrifice.
And wrung by keenest sympathy for all
Who give their loved ones for the living waU
"Twixt law and treason,—in this evil day
May haply find, through automatic play
Of pen and pencil, solace to our pain,
And hearten others with the strength we gain."
Something of the same note is struck in the introduction to "The Countess." But before the war closed, Whittier met with a personal loss which meant much to him every way. His sister Elizabeth, as we have seen, had been his closest companion, his most intimate acquaintance. He had shared his life with her in no light sense, and now he was to see the flame of that life flicker and at last expire in the early fall of 1864. The first poem after her death, "The Vanishers," in its theme, its faint note as of a bird calling from the wood, is singularly sweet both as a sign of the return of the poet to the world after his flight from it in sympathy and imagination with the retreating spirit of his sister, and as a prophecy of the character of so large a part of Whittier's poetry from this time forward. "The Eternal Goodness," written a twelvemonth later, may be said more positively than any other poem to contain Whittier's creed, and the fullness of faith which characterizes it found free and cheerful expression again and again.
Yet another poem which immediately followed it is significant not only by its repetition of his note of spiritual trust, but by its strong witness to the sane, human quality of Whittier's genius. "Snow-Bound," simple and radiant as it is with human life, is also the reflection of a mind equally at home in spiritual realities. It may fairly be said to sum up Whittier's personal experience and faith, and yet so absolutely free is it from egotism that it has taken its place as the representative poem of New England country life, quite as surely as Burns' "The Cotter's Saturday Night " expresses one large phase of Scottish life.
The success which attended "Snow-Bound" was immediate, and the result was such as to put Whittier at once beyond the caprices of fortune, and to give him so firm a place in the affections of his countrymen as to complete as it were the years of his struggle and his patient endurance. There is something almost dramatic in the appearance of this poem. The war was over : the end of that long contest in which Whittier, physically weak but spiritually strong, had been a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. What was the force which had been too mighty for a great entrenched wrong ? With no conscious purpose, but in the simple delight of poetry, Whittier sang this winter idyl of the North, and one now sees how it imprisons the light which shatters the evil, for it is an epitome of homely work and a family life lived in the eye of God, "duty keeping pace with all," and the whole issuing in that large hope.
"Life greatens in these later years,
The century's aloe flowers to-day."
The history of Whittier's life after this date is written in his poems. The outward adventure was slight enough. He divided his year between the Amesbury home and that which he established with other kinsfolk at Oak Knoll in Danvers. In the summer time he was wont to seek the mountains of New Hampshire or the nearer beaches that stretch from Newburyport to Portsmouth. The scenes thus familiar to him were trans- lated by him into song. Human life blended with the forms of nature, and he made this whole region as distinctively his poetic field as Wordsworth made the Lake district of Cumberland, or as Irving made the banks of the Hudson. In such a group as "The Tent on the Beach," in "Among the Hills," "The Witch of Wenham," "Sunset on the Bearcamp," "The Seeking of the Waterfall," "How the Women went from Dover," "The Homestead," and many others he records the delight which he took in nature and especially in the human associations with nature.
"The Tent on the Beach" again illustrates the personal attachments which he formed and which constituted so large an element in the last thirty years of his life. In actual contact and in the friendships formed through books, one may read the largeness of Whittier's svmpathy with his fellows, and the warmth of his generous nature. Such poems as the'frequent ones commemorating Garrison, Sumner, Longfellow, Lowell, Holmes, the Fields's, Mrs. Child, the Spoffords, Stedman, Barnard, Bayard Taylor, Weld and others illustrates the range of his friendship; but the poems also which bear the names of Tilden, Mulford, Thiers, Halleck, Agassiz, Garibaldi illustrate likewise a strong sense of the lives of men who, perhaps, never came within the scope of personal acquaintance.
Nor was it only through human lives that he touched the world about him. His biographer bears witness to the assiduity with which he compensated in later years for the restrictions imposed by necessity on his education in earlier years. He became a great and discursive reader, and his poems, especially after "Snow-Bound," contain many proofs of this both in the suggestions which gave rise to them and in the allusions which they contain. Northern literature is reflected in "The Dole of Jarl Thorkell, "King Volmer and Elsie," "The Brown Dwarf of Rligen," and others; Eastern life and religion reappear in "Oriental Maxims," "Hymns of the Brahmo Somaj, "The Brewing of Soma," "Giving and Taking," and many more, and history, especially that involved with his own religious faith, gave opportunity for "The King s Missive, St. Gregory's Guest," "Banished from Massachusetts," "The Two Elizabeths, "The Pennsylvania Pilgrim."
Yet, as we suggested above, the most constant strain, after all, was that which found so full expression in "The Eternal Goodness." So pervasive in Whittier's mind was this thought of God that it did not so much seek occasion for formal utterance, as it used with the naturalness of breathing such opportunities as arose, touching with light one theme after another, and forming, indeed, the last whispered voice heard from his lips, "Love to all the world."
It was a serene life of the spirit which Whittier led m the closing years of his lire, and he was secure in friendship and the shelter of home. He read, he saw his neighbors and friends, he wrote letters, he took the liveliest interest in current affairs, and was, indeed, an elector on the Republican side in the great Presidential canvass which resulted in the first election of Cleveland. He was much sought for occasional poems, and he complied with these requests from time to time, as in his "Centennial Hymn," "In the Old South," "The Bartholdi Statue," "One of the Signers," and "Haverhill; he was quite as likely to take hint from an occasion without the asking. Yet all this time he was assailed by infirmities which would have shaken the serenity of most. He suffered intensely from neuralgic disorders, and was sadly broken in the last years of his life.
He sang up to the end, one may say. A few weeks before his death, he wrote the verses to Oliver Wendell Holmes which stand at the completion of this collection in the division "At Sundown." True to the controlling spirit of his life, he sings,—
When at the Eternal Gate
We leave the words and works we call our own,
And lift void hands alone
Brings to that Gate no toll;
Giftless we come to Him, who all things gives,
And live because He lives."
He died at Hampton Falls, New Hampshire, September 7, 1892, in the eighty-fifth year of his age.