Email support@poemanswers.com
John Greenleaf Whittier 1807-
Born Haverhill, Massachusetts, USA
Poet
A WOMAN
Oh, dwarfed and wronged, and stained with ill,
Behold! thou art a woman still!
And by that sacred name and dear,
I bid thy better self appear.
Still through thy foul disguise, I see
Thy rudimental purity,
That, spite of change and loss makes good
Thy birthright-
An inward loathing, deep, intense;
A shame that is half innocence.
Cast off the grave clothes of thy sin!
Rise from the dust thou liest in,
As Mary rose at Jesus' word,
Redeemed and white before the Lord!
Reclaim thy lost soul! In His name
Rise up, and break thy bonds of shame.
Art weak? He is strong. Art fearful? Hear
The world's O'ercomer; Be of cheer!
What lip shall judge when he approves?
Who dare to scorn the child he loves?
GODSPEED
Outbound, your bark awaits you. Were I one
Whose prayer availeth much, my wish should be
Your favoring trad-
By sail or steed was never love outrun,
And, here or there, love follows her in whom
All graces and sweet charities unite,
The old Greek beauty set in holier light;
And her for whom New England's byways bloom,
Who walks among us welcome as the Spring,
Calling up blossoms where her light feet stray.
God keep you both, make beautiful your way,
Comfort, console, and bless; and safely bring,
Ere yet I make upon a vaster sea
The unreturning voyage, my friends to me.
WHAT THE BIRDS SAID
The birds against the April wind
Flew northward, singing as they flew;
They sang, "The land we leave behind
Has swords for corn-
"O wild-
What saw and heard ye, gazing down?"
"We saw the mortar's upturned mouth,
The sickened camp, the blazing town!
"Beneath the bivouac's starry lamps,
We saw your march-
In shrouds of moss, in cypress swamps,
We saw your dead uncoffined lie.
"We heard the starving prisoner's sighs
And saw, from line and trench, your sons
Follow our flight with home-
Beyond the battery's smoking guns."
"And heard and saw ye only wrong
And pain," I cried, "O wing-
"We heard," they sang, "the freedman's song,
The crash of Slavery's broken locks!
"We saw from new, uprising States
The treason-
As, crowding Freedom's ample gates,
The long-
"O'er dusky faces, seamed and old,
And hands horn-
With hope in every rustling fold,
We saw your star-
"And struggling up through sounds accursed,
A grateful murmur clomb the air;
A whisper scarcely heard at first,
It filled the listening heavens with prayer.
"And sweet and far, as from a star,
Replied a voice which shall not cease,
Till, drowning all the noise of war,
It sings the blessed song of peace!"
So to me, in a doubtful day
Of chill and slowly greening spring,
Low stooping from the cloudy gray,
The wild-
They vanished in the misty air,
The song went with them in their flight;
But lo! they left the sunset fair,
And in the evening there was light.
MY TRIUMPH
The autumn-
On woods that dream of bloom,
And over purpling vines,
The low sun fainter shines.
The aster-
The hazel's gold is paling;
Yet overhead more near
The eternal stars appear!
And present gratitude
Insures the future's good,
And for the things I see
I trust the things to be;
That in the paths untrod,
And the long days of God,
My feet shall still be led,
My heart be comforted.
O living friends who love me!
O dear ones gone above me!
Careless of other fame,
I leave to you my name.
Hide it from idle praises,
Save it from evil phrases:
Why, when dear lips that spake it
Are dumb, should strangers wake it?
Let the thick curtain fall;
I better know than all
How little I have gained,
How vast the unattained.
Not by the page word-
Let life be banned or sainted:
Deeper than written scroll
The colors of the soul.
Sweeter than any sung
My songs that found no tongue;
Nobler than any fact
My wish that failed of act.
Others shall sing the song,
Others shall right the wrong, -
Finish what I begin,
And all I fail of win.
What matter, I or they?
Mine or another's day,
So the right word be said
And life the sweeter made?
Hail to the coming singers!
Hail to the brave light-
Forward I reach and share
All that they sing and dare.
The airs of heaven blow o'er me;
A glory shines before me
Of what mankind shall be, -
Pure, generous, brave, and free.
A dream of man and woman
Diviner but still human,
Solving the riddle old,
Shaping the Age of Gold!
The love of God and neighbor;
An equal-
The richer life, where beauty
Walks hand in hand with duty.
Ring, bells in unreared steeples,
The joy of unborn peoples!
Sound, trumpets far off blown,
Your triumph is my own!
Parcel and part of all,
I keep the festival,
Fore-
And share the victory.
I feel the earth move sunward,
I join the great march onward,
And take, by faith, while living,
My freehold of thanksgiving.
THE WORSHIP OF NATURE
The harp at Nature's advent strung
Has never ceased to play;
The song the stars of morning sung
Has never died away.
And prayer is made, and praise is given,
By all things near and far;
The ocean looketh up to heaven,
And mirrors every star.
Its waves are kneeling on the strand,
As kneels the human knee,
Their white locks bowing to the sand,
The priesthood of the sea!
They pour their glittering treasures forth,
Their gifts of pearl they bring,
And all the listening hills of earth
Take up the song they sing.
The green earth sends its incense up
From many a mountain shrine;
From folded leaf and dewy cup
She pours her sacred wine.
The mists above the morning rills
Rise white as wings of prayer;
The altar-
Are sunset's purple air.
The winds with hymns of praise are loud,
Or low with sobs of pain,-
The thunder-
The dropping tears of rain.
With drooping head and branches crossed
The twilight forest grieves,
Or speaks with tongues of Pentecost
From all its sunlit leaves.
The blue sky is the temple's arch,
Its transept earth and air,
The music of its starry march
The chorus of a prayer.
So Nature keeps the reverent frame
With which her years began,
And all her signs and voices shame
The prayerless heart of man.
FORGIVENESS
My heart was heavy, for its trust had been
Abused, its kindness answered with foul wrong;
So, turning gloomily from my fellow-
 One summer Sabbath day I strolled among
The green mounds of the village burial-
Where, pondering how all human love and hate
Find one sad level; and how, soon or late,
Wronged and wrongdoer, each with meekened face,
And cold hands folded over a still heart,
Pass the green threshold of our common grave,
Whither all footsteps tend, whence none depart,
Awed for myself, and pitying my race,
Our common sorrow, like a mighty wave,
Swept all my pride away, and trembling I forgave!