“The harp at Nature’s advent strung
Has never ceased to play;
The songs the stars of morning sung
Has never died away.”
Before his eyes,
“The green earth sends her incense up;”
and to his vision,
“The mists above the morning rills
Rise white as wings of prayer;”
to him
“The blue sky is the temple’s arch.”
What poet paints nature with a truer touch than he? To him the universe
is one thought of God; to him all Nature is informed, not as by the
many gods of Polytheism; but by a reverent Monotheism, by the touch of
the All-Father and the response of a sentient world.
“So Nature keeps the reverent frame
With which her years began,
And all her signs and voices shame
The prayerless heart of man.”
What artist ever drew with brush a more perfect picture of midsummer
heat than Whittier in his prelude to the poem, “Among the Hills”:
“The sky is hot and hazy, and the wind
Wing-weary with its long flight from the south, Unfelt.”
Then the sharp call of the locust stabbing “the noon-silence;” the
driver asleep on his haycart; the sheep huddled against the shade of
the stone-wall; and
“Through the open door
A drowsy smell of flowers--grey heliotrope
And white sweet clover, and shy mignonette--
Comes faintly in, and silent chorus lends
To the pervading symphony of peace.”
The eyes of the visitor in the garden room fell upon the couch standing
under the sunset view, and she recalled how many famous persons had
sat upon it--Emerson, “his Puritanic face with more than Eastern
wisdom lit;” and Bayard Taylor; for she knew of his long and intimate
friendship with the poet and his sister, a friendship terminating only
with death--if, indeed, Whittier’s friendships have ever terminated;
for he seemed to reflect the eternity of Heaven in a heart that never
forgot to love. And Sumner had been there--Sumner who with every gift
that men prize had turned aside from them all to fight the battle of
the slave--“has he not graced my home with beauty all his own?” sang
the poet. And many more than these. “What loved ones enter and depart,”
recorded Whittier.
The books at hand; the desk beside the long window looking out upon the
veranda were evidences of Whittier’s life work and preparation to meet
scholar and statesman upon their own grounds.
Near the desk stood the hospitable-throated Franklin stove. What wit
and wisdom glowed in the light of its winter fires! And what wonderful
closet was that in the garden room. Here the poet kept his wood--and
much else besides! For, from it would he come forth armed with his logs
and with the wizard-like power to read the thoughts of his companion!
And this skill he proved as he sat before the fire and talked in fun
or in earnest, often alternating in mood, but always illuminating the
subjects he talked upon.
And in the summer days what a background the blackness of the open
stove made for the flower treasures which the poet brought from his
walks! Then, suddenly, the visitor wondered why there were no flowers
upon the hearth that August day?
But even with the thought, the poet came into the room with his arms
filled with flowers.