"Brisk wielder of the birch and rule,
The master of the district school,"
make up the customary group; and it is safe to say that they were royal
company on that winter night.
Another description of the life of his boyhood may be found in "The
Barefoot Boy." No other language will describe so well those careless,
happy years of the genuine country boy.
"Oh for boyhood's time of June,
Crowding years in one brief moon,
When all things I heard or saw,
Me, their master, waited for.
I was rich in flowers and trees,
Humming-birds and honey-bees;
For my sport the squirrel played,
Plied the snouted mole his spade;
For my taste the blackberry cone
Purpled over hedge and stone;
Laughed the brook for my delight
Through the day and through the night,
Whispering at the garden wall,
Talked with me from fall to fall;
Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel pend,
Mine the walnut slopes beyond,
Mine, on bending orchard trees,
Apples of Hesperides!
* * * * *
"Oh for festal dainties spread,
Like my bowl of milk and bread,--
Pewter spoon and bowl of wood,
On the door-stone, gray and rude!
O'er me, like a regal tent,
Cloudy-ribbed, the sunset bent,
Purple-curtained, fringed with gold,
Looped in many a wind-swung fold;
While for music came the play
Of the pied frogs' orchestra;
And, to light the noisy choir,
Lit the fly his lamp of fire.
I was monarch: pomp and joy
Waited on the barefoot boy."
Is not this an accurate picture of what a poet's childhood should be?
In his early youth we have the one hint of a romance which his life
contains, and he shall give us that also in his own words:--
"How thrills once more the lengthening chain
Of memory, at the thought of thee!
Old hopes which long in dust have lain,
Old dreams, come thronging back again,
And boyhood lives again in me;
I feel its glow upon my cheek,
Its fulness of the heart is mine,
As when I leaned to hear thee speak,
Or raised my doubtful eye to thine.
I hear again thy low replies,
I feel thy hand within my own,
And timidly again uprise
The fringed lids of hazel eyes,
With soft brown tresses overblown.
Ah! memories of sweet summer eves,
Of moonlit wave and willowy way,
Of stars and flowers and dewy leaves,
And smiles and tones more dear than they."
It is very tender, very beautiful and touching, and, doubtless, it left
on him "an impress Time has worn not out." And we doubt if even yet,
when the shadows of age are gathering very deeply around the gentle
poet, that memory has faded.
"Not yet has Time's dull footstep worn
To common dust that path of flowers."
We cannot but wonder who the favored "Playmate" of the poet was, and we
sympathize with him when he asks,--
"I wonder if she thinks of them,
And how the old time seems,--
If ever the pines of Ramoth wood
Are sounding in her dreams.
"I see her face, I hear her voice:
Does she remember mine?
And what to her is now the boy
Who fed her father's kine?"
And we feel an intense interest in knowing whether or not she cares,
when he tells her,--
"The winds so sweet with birch and fern,
A sweeter memory blow;
And there in spring the veeries sing
The song of long ago.
"And still the pines of Ramoth wood
Are moaning like the sea,--
The moaning of the sea of change
Between myself and thee!"
Mr. Whittier has never married, and his favorite sister long presided
over his home in Amesbury, where his mother and the dear aunt also came
after the father's death. It was the bitterest loss of his life when
this beautiful sister died, and he has written nothing more touching
than his tribute to her in "Snowbound":--
"With me one little year ago,
The chill weight of the winter snow
For months upon her grave has lain;
And now, when summer south winds blow
And brier and harebell bloom again,
I tread the pleasant paths we trod,
I see the violet-sprinkled sod
Whereon she leaned, too frail and weak
The hillside flowers she loved to seek,
Yet following me where'er she went
With dark eyes full of love's content.
The birds are glad; the brier-rose fills
The air with sweetness; all the hills
Stretch green to June's unclouded sky;
But still I wait with ear and eye
For something gone which should be nigh,
A loss in all familiar things,
In flower that blooms, and bird that sings.
* * * * *
And while in life's late afternoon,
Where cool and long the shadows grow,
I walk to meet the night that soon
Shall shape and shadow overflow,
I cannot feel that thou art far,
Since near at need the angels are;
And when the sunset gates unbar,
Shall I not see thee waiting stand,
And, white against the evening star,
The welcome of thy beckoning hand?"
This sister Elizabeth was herself a remarkable woman, and one of whom
the world would have heard more but for her great modesty. She was
gifted with a fine poetic taste, and was not only appreciative, but
might have been creative as well. A few of her poems appear in her
brother's collected works. She was beautiful in person, delicate and
dark-eyed, and possessed of exquisite taste in everything. The village
of Amesbury still cherishes her memory and recounts her virtues. The tie
between the sister and brother was of the closest kind, and their home
life together for so many years as beautiful as any recorded in
literature. After her death a niece kept his house for some time; but
though she was all devotion to him, the old home was never home after
the dear sister had left it.
Mr. Whittier is a man to feel very much the loneliness of his later
life, bereft as he has been of all his family friends except one
brother. But he is very lovingly and tenderly cared for by some distant
relatives, who live at Oak Knoll, Danvers, Mass., where he has passed
the most of his time the last few years. It is a most beautiful place,
and the poet takes great delight in it, preferring it even to his own
home at Amesbury, where he lived so long and where the greater part of
his literary work was done. The house and grounds remind one of an old
English manor-house and its surroundings. The old forest trees still
beautify it, while clumps of evergreens have been planted here and
there, with many shrubs and flowers. In the distance rise the blue hills
of Essex and Middlesex, and near at hand babbles a noisy brook, seeking
the not distant sea. All the beautiful trees of New England grow
here,--hickories, chestnuts, maples, birches, pines, and beeches; and
Whittier, who is a famous lover of trees, passes much time in these
shady coverts.
Mr. Whittier's own house at Amesbury is a plain white painted wooden
house, consisting of an upright and ell, like many old-fashioned
farm-houses, and surrounded by a picket-fence. It is roomy and
comfortable, and the study is a very cosey and attractive place, with
its open wood-fire and its well-filled book-shelves. One familiar with
its appearance thus describes it:--
"One side is filled with a desk and books, among which Irish
ballads have a place of honor; and an old-fashioned Franklin
fireplace with polished brasses throws its cheerful blaze over
carpet, lounge, and easy-chairs, and on walls covered with many
souvenirs,--a water-color of Harry Fenn's, Hill's picture of the
early home, fringed gentians painted by Lucy Larcom, and other
trifles which give character to the room. In this nook the 'lords
of thought' have been made welcome; here came Alice and Phoebe
Cary on their romantic pilgrimage, and here have come many others
of the illustrious women of the day, most of whom he reckons as his
friends in this generation as he did Lydia Maria Child and Lucretia
Mott and their contemporaries in the last."
Mr. Whittier's personal appearance is thus described by George W. Bungay
in his "Crayon Sketches:"--
"His temperament is nervous bilious; he is tall, slender, and
straight as an Indian; has a superb head; his brow looks like a
white cloud under his raven hair; eyes large, black as sloes, and
glowing with expression, . . . those star-like eyes flashing under
such a magnificent forehead."