As he showed them to her, she touched a spray of the goldenrod. “The
signal of autumn--Dame Nature’s first grey hair,” she said.
“Thee’s about right there,” he answered. “And what does thee call
that?” And his deft fingers singled out another flower.
“The pale aster in the brook,” she quoted.
He laughed, and went out of the room to put the flowers into water,
but not before she had commented upon the splendid cardinal flowers
scattered among the asters, and the brilliant sumach leaves and spikes
which made a background in the gorgeous mass of color.
* * * * *
Whittier’s poems are rich in descriptions of flowers, and he sang of
them as only one who loved them could do:
“For ages on our river borders,
These tassels in their tawny bloom,
And willowy studs of downy silver,
Have prophesied of Spring to come,”
he says of the beloved pussy-willows which open the floral ball of the
year among the wild flowers of New England. For the trailing arbutus,
our exquisite mayflower, “tinted like a shell,” he has many a word.
And he knows the flowers, all of them, from the bloom of the “summer
roses,” to where in the August heat,
“Heavy with sunshine droops the goldenrod,
And the red pennons of the cardinal flowers
Hang motionless upon their upright staves;”
to the late autumn where,
“... on a ground of sombre fir,
And azure-studded juniper,
The silver birch its buds of purple shows,
And scarlet berries tell where bloomed the sweet wild-rose!”
And again to the very latest blossom,
“Last of their floral sisterhood,
The hazel’s yellow blossoms shine,
The tawny gold of Afric’s mine!”
So, throughout the year bloom and brightness, fragrance and beauty find
their records in the songs of the poet. “What airs outblown from ferny
dells!” he exclaims in his “Last Walk in Autumn” where he treads as
if a painter’s brush were in his hand, bringing to the reader’s eye
“winter’s dazzling morns” and “sunset lights” and “moonlit snows,” to
atone for the loss of summer bloom and greenness.
* * * * *
Whittier took great pride in the beauty and diversity of the flora of
his own Essex County; he used to say that it was the richest and most
varied of the region. He wrote more than one poem to celebrate autumn
festivals in his own town.
In his walks with his sister in her later years, as he writes of her,
“too frail and weak” to go herself in search of the flowers she longed
for, he would make her rest upon a rock or grassy bank and alone would
search for the treasures of wood and field of which both were so fond.
One day when returning from Boston to Amesbury he met a young friend of
his on the train. As the two were talking together, a boy selling water
lilies passed through the car. The poet bought a bunch of them and gave
to his companion. As they sat looking at the exquisite flowers, he said
to her: “Thee’d hardly think that the same Hand that made those made
snakes.”
* * * * *
That August day while the flowers glowed in the throat of the Franklin
stove, converting blackness into splendor, the poet sat in his
arm-chair telling his visitor somewhat of the book into which she had
peeped while waiting for him; telling her also of other books, and of
people and things.
In the talk and laughter that followed he spoke of Dickens, of whose
writings the poet was very fond, declaring that he was never so
restless, or so troubled over politics, or so blue about himself, or
the weather, that he could not have a good laugh over “Pickwick.”
* * * * *
As the poet sat that day beside his books, with the light from the
window falling upon him, he looked, as he was, a man among ten
thousand. Tall, erect, as he was even to the last, full of the nervous
energy that found ready expression in glance and gesture, his head a
remarkable height from ear to crown, domelike, built for brains and
spiritual power; his eyes radiant at times with the fire of his soul
and having the rare capacity both to absorb and to express everything;
his heavy eyebrows delighting in swift accompaniments to the humorous
twists of his mouth as he told a droll story, or in pain or in moods
of despondency dropped down to conceal the eyes that all too plainly
revealed how things were in the soul. His whole look was alert, as that
of a man whom the last new thing can never surprise.
After a time the poet searched the table for a book he had left there.
His visitor explained that a neighbor had come in and borrowed it. “She
said you had so many books, you wouldn’t miss it,” added the speaker.
Down came Whittier’s hand upon his knee in the fashion so well known
to his intimates; for his hands might have been called almost another
feature, such emphasis did they give to his expression.
“I was in the midst of reading it myself,” he retorted. “I wish she
had taken something else to amuse her; she won’t care for it; I could
have helped her out better in a book. But she is satisfied.” And his
infectious laugh was echoed by his hearer.
For Whittier never forgot how precious books had been to him in his
childhood and early youth; and how he had hungered for them. And now
that he had them in abundance, he so gladly shared them with his
friends that these had the habit of coming in and, if he happened to be
away, of helping themselves to whatever they wanted to borrow; so that
the poet would often search about for a book that he himself wished
to lend and, not finding it, would remark resignedly that he guessed
somebody had come in and taken it.
How natural and true was his life--that simple life so much praised
at present, and so little lived! How unfettered by ceremony and the
impedimenta of pomp was the genius which awoke the country by its
ringing songs of freedom, and at the same time with a skill and
statesmanship which the best politicians acknowledged and were glad to
profit by, helped to build up the great party which destroyed slavery,
saved the Union, and in spite of its grievous later faults, may well be
proud of its record and its continued accomplishments.
How simple was the home in which so much that was grand and
permanent was accomplished! For in the garden room great plans were
formulated--yes, and the spirit to execute them inspired--great poems
were sung, and there were born great thoughts that have helped to
move the world onward and Heavenward. How ready was the many-sided
Whittier to welcome all phases of human nature but the evil, and in
his abhorrence of evil still to pity the evildoers! His neighbors and
friends never forgot that he was a great man, with power that had a
long arm and fame that reached across the water--a longer distance then
than today.
But how could they help confiding their homely cares and difficulties
to one so sympathetic and so wise? And how could they help coming to
his home as one honored enters a city the freedom of which has been
bestowed upon him?
It was in the garden room that the home life of the poet centered;
and here his friends from a distance and the neighbors who were also
friends sought him. In his chair by the window, or in winter beside the
open fire, he was wont to entertain his guests; and only those who were
thus entertained know how rich was the feast of thought and soul spread
for even the least worthy of them.
His humor so seldom caught in his writings by reason of the many and
deeper powers in him, here glowed in his thoughts and flashed up in his
words warming and cheering his atmosphere as the open fire of which
he was so fond warmed and brightened the garden room. And, indeed, it
seems as if there must have been a subtle sympathy between the two
forces. For the poet was never keener or more racy than when, having
thrown on fresh wood, he knelt on one knee, adjusted the sticks,
watched the flames dart out and catch the new fuel, and then suddenly
turned his head with that birdlike motion of his and made some remark
to his visitor, often, as has been said, catching the latter’s very
thought.