The poet Whittier always calls to mind the prophet-bards of the olden
time. There is much of the old Semitic fire about him, and ethical and
religious subjects seem to occupy his entire mind. Like his own Tauler,
he walks abroad, constantly
"Pondering the solemn Miracle of Life;
As one who, wandering in a starless night,
Feels momently the jar of unseen waves,
And hears the thunder of an unknown sea
Breaking along an unimagined shore."
His poems are so thoroughly imbued with this religious spirit that they
seem to us almost like the sacred writings of the different times and
nations of the world. They come to the lips upon all occasions of deep
feeling almost as naturally as the Scriptures do. They are current coin
with reformers the world over. They are the Alpha and Omega of deep,
strong religious faith. Whoever would best express his entire confidence
in the triumph of the right, and his reliance upon God's power against
the devices of men, finds the words of Whittier upon his lips; and to
those who mourn and seek for consolation, how naturally and
involuntarily come back lines from his poems they have long treasured,
but which perhaps never had a personal application until now! To the
wronged, the down-trodden, and the suffering they appeal as strongly as
the Psalms of David. He is the great High Priest of Literature. But few
priests at any time have had such an audience and such influence as he.
The moral and religious value of his work can scarcely be overstated.
Who can ever estimate the power which his strong words had in the days
that are now but a fading memory,--in the great conflict which freed the
bodies of so many million slaves? And who can ever estimate the power
his strong words have had throughout his whole career in freeing the
minds of other millions from the shackles of unworthy old beliefs? His
blows have been strong, steady, persistent. He has never had the fear of
man before his eyes. No man has done more for freedom, fellowship, and
character in religion than he. Hypocrisy and falsehood and cant have
been his dearest foes, and he has ridden at them early and late with his
lance poised and his steed at full tilt. Indeed, for a Quaker, Mr.
Whittier must be said to have a great deal of the martial spirit. The
fiery, fighting zeal of the old reformers is in his blood. You can
imagine him as upon occasion enjoying the imprecatory Psalms. In his
anti-slavery poems there is a depth of passionate earnestness which
shows that he could have gone to the stake for his opinions had he lived
in an earlier age than ours. That he did risk his life for them, even in
our own day, is well known. During the intense heat of the anti-slavery
conflict he was mobbed once and again by excited crowds; but he was not
to be intimidated by all the powers of evil, and continued to speak his
strong words and to sing his inspiring songs, whether men would hear or
whether they would forbear. And those Voices of Freedom, whatever may be
thought of them by mere critics and litterateurs, will outlast any poems
of their day, and sound "down the ringing grooves of Time" when much
that is now honored has been forgotten. He will be known as the Poet of
a great Cause, the Bard of Freedom, as long as the great anti-slavery
conflict is remembered. He is a part, and an important part, of the
history of his country, a central figure in the battalions of the
brave. Those wild, stirring bugle-calls of his cheered the little army,
and held it together many a time when the cause was only a forlorn hope;
and they came with their stern defiance into the camp of the enemy with
such masterful power that some gallant enemies deserted to his side.
They were afraid to be found fighting against God, as Whittier had
convinced them they were doing. There is the roll of drums and the clash
of spears in these stirring strains; there are echoes from Thermopylae
and Marathon, and the breath of the old Greek heroes is in the air;
there is a hint of the old Border battle-cries from Scotland's hills and
tarns; from Jura's rocky wall we can catch the cheers of Tell; and the
voice of Cromwell can often be distinguished in the strain.
There is also the sweep of the winds through the pine woods, and the
mountain blasts of New England, and the strong fresh breath of the salt
sea; all tonic influences, in short, which braced up the minds of the
men of those days to a fixed and heroic purpose, from which they never
receded until their end was achieved. It has become the fashion in these
days of dilettanteism to say that earnestness and moral purpose have no
place in poetry, and small critics have arisen who claim that Mr.
Whittier has been spoiled as a poet by his moral teachings. To these
critics it is only necessary to point to the estimation in which Mr.
Whittier's poetry is held by the world, and to the daily widening of his
popularity among scholars and men of letters as well as among the
people, to teach them that this ruined poetry is likely to live when all
the merely pretty poetry they so much admire is forgotten forever. The
small poets who are afraid of touching a moral question for fear of
ruining their poems would do well to compare Poe, who is the leader of
their school and its best exponent, with Mr. Whittier, and to ask
themselves which is the more likely to survive the test of time. Let
them also ponder the words of Principal Shairp, one of the finest
critics of the day, when he says of the true mission of the poet, that
"it is to awaken men to the divine side of things; to bear witness to
the beauty that clothes the outer world, the nobility that lies hid,
often obscured, in human souls; to call forth sympathy for neglected
truths, for noble and oppressed persons, for down-trodden causes; and to
make men feel that through all outward beauty and all pure inward
affection God himself is addressing them." They would do well also to
ponder the words of Ruskin, who believes that only in as far as it has a
distinct moral purpose is any literary work of value to the world. Is
not the opinion of such men as these to be considered of weight in this
matter? And is it not an impertinence in little men like some of those
who have lately written of Mr. Whittier, to speak in a patronizing and
supercilious tone of his work, as if the very qualities which
distinguish it from the work of the weaklings had ruined it as poetry?
It is perhaps to Mr. Whittier's ancestry that we may trace this intense
consecration of life to all its higher purposes; for he came of a people
who had endured persecution for conscience' sake for generations, and
who had loved liberty with a love passing that of woman, and sacrificed
much for her sake. The depths of feeling which Mr. Whittier has always
sounded when the persecutions of the Quakers have risen before his
vision can only be understood by those who are thoroughly familiar with
the details of these persecutions, and who know the harmless character
of the men and women thus outraged. Mr. Whittier knows this well, and it
stirs his blood to this day, as it stirred the blood of his father and
mother when they recounted these things to his childish ears. Though so
much deep feeling was latent in their natures, the outward lives of his
parents were serene and calm. Mr. Whittier has, in that exquisite little
idyl "Snowbound," given us a graphic and authentic picture of his
childhood's home, and in a measure of the life lived there. It is a
quiet little New England interior, painted by a master's hand from love
of his work. It is every whit as delightful as "The Cotter's Saturday
Night;" and it is realistically true in every detail. Here we have the
family portraits drawn to life,--the father, who
"Rode again his ride
On Memphremagog's wooded side;
Sat down again to moose and samp
In trapper's hut and Indian camp;
Lived o'er the old idyllic ease
Beneath St. Francois' hemlock trees;"
and showed how
"Again for him the moonlight shone
On Norman cap and bodiced zone;
Again he heard the violin play
Which led the village dance away,
And mingled in its merry whirl
The grandam and the laughing girl."
The mother,
"While she turned her wheel
Or run the new-knit stocking-heel,
Told how the Indian hordes came down
At midnight on Cocheco town,
And how her own great-uncle bore
His cruel scalp-mark to fourscore.
Recalling in her fitting phrase,
So rich and picturesque and free,
(The common unrhymed poetry
Of simple life and country ways,)
The story of her early days."
The uncle,
"Innocent of books,
Was rich in lore of fields and brooks,--
The ancient teachers never dumb
Of Nature's unhoused lyceum.
In moons and tides and weather wise,
He read the clouds as prophecies,
And foul or fair could well divine
By many an occult hint and sign,
Holding the cunning-warded keys
To all the woodcraft mysteries."