To Whittier, a Friend, a man of peace, the Civil War with its
sufferings, its horrors, its changing fortunes, and for those days its
vast sacrifice of life was a continual torture. Yet he realized its
significance. From the firing of the first gun at Sumter he perceived
that the war was destined to sweep from the land the crime of slavery.
His inspired poem, “Laus Deo,” declares what that meant to him.
* * * * *
Being a Quaker, the poet was, of course, never present at war meetings.
But when during the war contributions were sent from Amesbury, as from
other towns, to the front, Whittier was always greatly interested. He
knew when boxes went to the soldiers, and he was often well posted as
to the contents of these boxes.
And upon one occasion, at least, he was memorably on hand--to some
regretfully so--when the townspeople were raising subscriptions for the
Sanitary Commission and for the soldiers. Patriotism was at a low ebb
that day, for the subscriptions lagged persistently, so that when it
came time for the meeting to break up, the needed amount had not been
raised, and things looked as if it would not be forthcoming.
Then the authority which the poet as a man of affairs never failed to
put forth at need came to the front.
Whittier rose.
He wasted no strength in appeal to a patriotism overswept by avarice;
but made his demands upon that avarice itself.
“If this sum needed,” he said, naming it, “is not raised by this
meeting, I shall write to Salmon Chase [Secretary of the Treasury] to
have your exemption money on the next draft of men put up to seven
hundred dollars instead of three hundred, as it is now.”
That was all.
But it was enough. His audience looked at the speaker’s tall, erect
figure, his flashing eyes, his resolute mouth--and decided not to take
the risk. The required amount was immediately forthcoming.
* * * * *
All the world knows how in the poet’s early days he put aside the
ambitions of youth and genius--ambitions which the early call of the
world to him proved would have been richly fulfilled--and fought the
hard battle for the slave, and endured its contumely.
His own words tell the story. In his poem, “Lines Written in the Book
of a Friend,” he sings of himself:
“Founts gushed beside my pilgrim way,
Cool shadows on the greensward lay,
Flowers swung upon the bending spray.
“In vain!--nor dream, nor rest, nor pause
Remain for him who round him draws
The battered mail of Freedom’s cause.
“With soul and strength, with heart and hand,
I turned to Freedom’s struggling band,--
To the sad Helots of our land.”
Here was that self-denial, that experience of longings
unfulfilled--through the fulfillment of higher longings--which gave him
his depth and power of sympathy in every loss and suffering of others,
and courage in the sufferings of his own life, and which ripened and
sweetened his nature.
Whittier’s prominence in the anti-slavery conflict is, of course,
matter of history. His influence in politics was great; for he had
the keenness of insight, the broad vision of the statesman, and the
politician’s skill in manipulation which never deteriorated into
political trickery in a heart that loved his fellowmen and a soul that
abhorred self-seeking. One day in a package of books that went from his
home to the doctor’s house, there was slipped in by accident a bit of
paper on which were the two following lines in the poet’s handwriting,
but unsigned:
“That lowest form of worship known
Which incense burns to self alone.”
The identical lines are not found in any of his poems and were probably
altered. But their spirit is ever with him. Mrs. Claflin in her
interesting sketch of the poet says:
“Mr. Whittier was a keen observer of all public affairs and the trusted
adviser of many of the most eminent men of the Old Bay State. He seemed
to have prophetic vision and was one of the most sagacious counselors
in the State then famous for its able men.”
V
In the January of 1864 Whittier wrote to M---- C----, a dear Amesbury
friend, who was spending a few weeks at Norfolk under the protection of
the Union army and doing some work for the soldiers there.
“Thy letter from Norfolk,” he says, “has just reached us, and we [his
sister Elizabeth and himself] enjoyed its graphic description of your
present locality and prospects.... The weather here is cold again....
Elizabeth is much as usual, unable to write much, so I hold the pen for
her. We had a pleasant visit from Bayard Taylor last week. Night before
last he sent us a picture he painted in 1857 on the shore of the Arctic
Ocean. It is a view of the little church of Vadso, the northernmost
Russian settlement.... Who knows but that thee may enter Richmond with
the victorious army! Stranger things have happened.”
A penciled line from Elizabeth on the same sheet says:
“M---- dear, a thousand thanks for thy pictures of ‘Virginia life’--I
look from thy window on the sunken masts of the poor brave Cumberland.
I am so glad you are there. We all are. Tell Colonel F---- [a young
Prussian who at the beginning of the war had enlisted] the doctor
and his wife quite forgive his not coming to Amesbury; the doctor
hopes--the fatigue of going well over--the Colonel will grow stronger;
he seems to feel he had worked too hard.... It was delightful to see
our dear old friend Bayard. He will bring his beautiful German wife
here before long.... How I wish I could unroof that Norfolk house and
see you all; the graceful young adjutant pleases me. Tell Col. F----
I never wondered he could not find time to write. I only wonder he is
alive.... It is so good to hear from thee. Keep well--and come home
soon.”
To the Col. F---- (afterward General) then at the front the poet wrote:
“We watch with ever wakeful interest the progress of the war. Sometimes
we feel discouraged; but the good God sees and knows all and His time
is best.... My sister [Elizabeth], Miss B---- [who, later Col. F----
married], and Dr. S---- and family desire to be kindly remembered to
thee.”
The mention of Bayard Taylor in these letters recalls Whittier’s poem,
“Bayard Taylor,” in which the poet refers to this visit:
“‘And where now, Bayard, will thy footsteps tend?’
My sister asked our guest one winter’s day.
Smiling, he answered in the Friends’ sweet way
Common to both: ‘Wherever thou shalt send.’
“‘What wouldst thou have me see for thee?’ She laughed,
Her dark eyes dancing in the wood-fire’s glow;
‘Loffoden isles, the Kilpis, and the low
Unsetting sun on Finmark’s fishing craft.’”
With abounding faith in the ultimate triumph of right, the poet yet had
all the dread of disaster incident to so sensitive an organization. At
the defeat at Bull Run he was prostrated.
It is in the major and the minor of his sufferings and his trust that
his songs, “In War Time,” were sung. “Luther’s Hymn,” the sombreness
of “The Watchers,” the depth of prayer in “Thy Will Be Done”--all show
the struggle and sorrow of his spirit. But hope speaks in “The Battle
Autumn of 1862,” where he sings:
“Oh, give to us in times like these,
The vision of her eyes;
And make her fields and fruited trees
Our golden prophecies!
“Oh, give to us her finer ear!
Above this stormy din,
We, too, would hear the bells of cheer
Ring peace and freedom in.”
His “Port Royal” is a burst of joy and triumph, with the song of the
freedmen in the minor key, so far are they yet from the reality of the
freedom which they have in name. In “Barbara Frietchie” we have not
only an inspiring ballad which has flown the wide world over; but we
have also a touch of the nobler nature of the South epitomized in the
order of Stonewall Jackson; and the poem, in trend if not in speech,
is a prophecy of returning loyalty, a prophecy of the day when--not by
force, but through love of them--the stars and stripes were to float
over North and South alike.
One day during the Civil War, when the poet was at her house, the
doctor’s wife said to him:
“Mr. Whittier, what did you mean when you wrote that poem, ‘What of the
Day’? You wrote it in 1857, four years before the war. It’s a perfect
prophecy of the present time. You remember, it begins:
‘A sound of tumult troubles all the air.’
What did you mean by it?” she repeated.
“I don’t know myself what I meant by it,” he answered her as earnestly
as she had spoken; and his look finished what more he would have
added--that the poem was, indeed, an inspiration, a real prophecy.
Thus, to the poet who sang a “higher wisdom,” who lived a holier
life than words alone of any creed can enjoin, to him in the world’s
imperative need of holiness to endure and of inspiration to conquer in
the stress and strain of the life of today we turn for glimpses of his
inspiration.