Part 6

A day in June. The heavens were full of soft clouds which in their brief shadowings seemed but to intensify the brilliance of the summer sunshine. Looming against the sky stood the high bluffs with their dark coronal of giant pines, their feet caressed by the murmuring kisses of New England’s most beautiful river.

Under these pines was gathered a crowd of people through whose purpose of pleasure in the day and the scene ran the expectation of a deeper pleasure through the listening ear and the quick response of thought to thought.

For they knew that Whittier had brought a poem. Many persons of reputation in the world of letters were there; many who ranked high in social life and some known to the world of politics. It was a gathering before which a man would desire to be at his best. Before it stood the poet who had well proved himself the inspired voice of the trees and the birds, the river and the sky. But all knew that at that time he had uttered a paean for the victory of Freedom and Union.

Every eye was lifted to Whittier as he stood erect as the pines above him, lithe in his motions as the watching birds and with somewhat of their unexpectedness in movement. In his hand he held his poem. Would he read it himself? At first it appeared so to those who did not know him well. For he stood for a little time still holding it in his hand. And in that moment--to the writer at least--was enacted a by-play, in itself slight enough, but, if understood, giving the key to the whole complex character of Whittier.

For the Quaker poet stood with his hat on. Even in passing his poem to another to be read, he would be obliged to answer by a few words the demand made upon him. To do this he must take off his hat, as other men would do. His hand was lifted toward it.

Midway, however, it paused--Quakers spoke with their hats on.

Yet the distinguished gathering before him was chiefly not of his own sect. A proper consideration for the customs of society--yes, even courtesy--demanded this removal; and to social impressions the poet was very sensitive. Yet, to one other monitor was he still more sensitive. That unbending principle which governed his whole life asserted itself. Even in so slight a matter he would be true to his faith.

His hand dropped by his side. It was with his hat on that he spoke the few apt words with which he gave his poem to be read.

Small wonder that “Revisited” was a paean to Him who in the return of peace had given, not to the anti-slavery party alone, but to the whole country,

“... beauty for ashes And the oil of joy for mourning long.”

And it was small wonder that to the river the poet sang:

“Sing soft, sing low, our lowland river, Under thy banks of laurel bloom; Softly and sweet as the hour beseemeth, Sing us the songs of peace and home.

“Type of the Northland’s strength and glory, Pride and hope of our home and race,-- Freedom lending to rugged labor Tints of beauty and lines of grace.

“For though by the Master’s feet untrodden, Though never His word has stilled thy waves, Well for us may thy shores be holy, With Christian altars and saintly graves.”

The whole poem is full of noble thought and rhythmic beauty:

“Sing on! bring down, O lowland river, The joy of the hills to the waiting sea; The wealth of the vales, the pomp of mountains, The breath of the woodlands, bear with thee.”

XX

In 1890, when Haverhill, his native town, was to celebrate its two hundred and fiftieth anniversary, Whittier was called upon for a poem. He wrote to his friend, Col. F----:

“I find I cannot write a hymn or anything to be sung, but I shall have a poem of perhaps one hundred lines. I am afraid it will not amount to much, but it will show my good will at least. If needed, I can have it ready by the middle of the month.”

Later, he wrote: “I send the verses for the celebration. I wish the committee in charge would print it and send me two copies of the proof, as I may have to make some slight changes before it is ready for final printing. As I cannot read it myself, I must request that Professor Churchill of Andover may do it if he is not engaged otherwise.... He is a good reader and good readers are very rare. I want it read so well that its faults and failings shall be forgotten in the fine elocution of the Professor. I have written it under difficult circumstances, but I hope it may not be found amiss for the occasion. Have you had any correspondence with Haverhill in England? I think it would be pleasant to have a greeting from there.”

When it was found that Professor Churchill had already been engaged to read another poem for the same occasion, Whittier answered the suggestion of taking another reader:

“I am quite willing that Mr. B---- should read my rhymes. Mrs. Livermore, I think, would prefer to speak for herself to reading other folks’ verses. The committee can do as they think best. I shall be satisfied anyway. There are only one hundred and sixteen lines and they can be read in five minutes.

“I hear that there will be a large gathering at Haverhill from all the neighboring towns and cities. If the weather is fine it will be a great day for Haverhill. I send my picture of last year. On the whole, I think it is better to give the author of the ‘Haverhill’ poem as he is.”

A few days later he wrote: “I send forty or fifty copies of my poem. You may need some for the city’s guests and for reporters. If Mr. B---- is to read the poem, he should have a copy of it to look over. I was pleased to meet Mr. Gurteen of old Haverhill. I had some correspondence with him some years ago. He brings a beautiful token of good will from our English namesake with him.”

Mr. B---- went to Whittier’s home and read the poem to him before reciting it. For when anything of the poet’s was to be read in public, Whittier was desirous to have it given as he intended it, and, when he could, he liked to meet the reader and listen to his rendering of it. He would point out changes here and there, saying of a certain passage, “I meant it so,” and of another, “I meant that so.” And the reader must have been dense indeed if he did not catch the meaning, and unappreciative if he ever forgot those wonderful intonations and renderings of the poet’s verse by the poet himself.

XXI

Whittier would never take part in an “Authors Reading,” or in anything that had the least publicity. It was only in the garden room at Amesbury that he would read aloud a poem of his own. Or it may have been under the pines at Intervale towering like the forest primeval, or in some other quiet nook among the hills, with a little group of listeners about him--or perhaps with only one eager listener. Then his voice would rise and fall in notes and cadences which gave a wonderful power to the rendering of his own poems and a new perception of beauty in what had already seemed beautiful, a new awe and sublimity in what had before seemed grand.

When in the garden room he read “The Palatine” to an entranced listener, his voice made the scene live before her eyes; and in the inevitable retribution following sin prepared the way for that thought which pierces to the depth of life. Never again can that poem give forth its weirdness, its tragic, and awful pathos as it did in the tones of its author. There was nothing of “elocution.” His reading was word painting; one shivered when he said:

“Is there, then, no death for a word once spoken? Was never a deed but left its token Written on tables never broken?”

His housekeeper, the Scotswoman before referred to, told how one day she had read Mr. Whittier an account in the paper of a weird light mysteriously seen at sea; and she added, “He wrote a poem about it.”

This was “The Palatine.”

One day after reading “The Pennsylvania Pilgrim” to the writer, he told her that he had written the poem to please himself in the story of what was dear to him, and that he did not so much care if people did not like it.

Indeed, the greatness of his fame never kept him from a certain depreciation of his own work, which declared itself in speech and often in his letters. The world sang his praises; but he held to his own verdicts.

“I love the old melodious lays Which softly melt the ages through,”

he writes in the “Proem” of his published poems. He loved best the songs for which he could find no words--like all true poets. Who can say that he may not now be singing these in the music of a new tongue?

No less than he loved Milton’s poetry did Whittier love the great poet’s sonorous prose. As has been said before, Whittier’s rendering of his own poems brought forth their swing and rhythm and their innermost meaning with a vividness that no one else could give them. To watch the poet as he thus rendered one of his own poems, to listen to the intonations which deepened the melody of the verse was an experience not to be forgotten.

* * * * *

One day Whittier told the writer of his having begun a poem--his biographer also tells this--upon the banishing of the Arcadians from their country. But he added that he had abandoned it on learning that Longfellow was writing “Evangeline.” His listener realized the fervor of Huguenot indignation (for Whittier had Huguenot blood in his veins) which would have inspired his muse at the wrongs of those innocent people and the pathos with which he would have told their story, and expressed her regret that he had not written the poem.

But he answered with decision: “No; it was better so. Longfellow has done the work as it should have been done.”

* * * * *

One day the doctor said to the poet: “You have written so much, Mr. Whittier, that I suppose you write now without labor--that writing is easy to you?”

“No,” returned Whittier emphatically. “Everything is labor to me. I don’t know any easy writing.”

* * * * *

In addition to this careful work--rather, as a part of it--no one realized better than the poet the difference between a poem in manuscript and the same poet in print. So, he would often say to one of his young neighbors--a printer--“Fred, I want to see thee a minute.” And he would hand the young man the poem--or a portion of it--to put into type, so that the poet before sending it to the publishers might judge for himself how it would look printed. He used to say, appreciative of the glamour of acceptance, that print improved things.

* * * * *

There was once at least, however, when he waited for no such self-criticism, when the spirit moved him so strongly that it swept away all but the emotion it kindled in his heart--there was once, at least, that it was “easy writing” for him so far as the flowing of his pen was concerned, which could not go fast enough to keep pace with the rush of his thoughts--although, no doubt, he paid by days of headache for the all but involuntary toil of his spirit. It was when he wrote his paean for the passage through Congress of the Constitutional Amendment abolishing slavery.

That morning the poet came home from the Fifth Day (Thursday) meeting of the Friends, his eyes large with excitement--as one who saw him told the writer--and, as if the thought in his heart and the words on his lips were too overwhelming to be true, he cried:

“What are the bells ringing for? The flags are up--and away up!”

Then when there was no longer question as to the meaning of the flags and the bells, he sat down at his desk and wrote like one inspired--as, indeed, he was. I think his biographer tells, as did also one in the house, that there was no walking back and forth in the room, as was often the case when he was writing, but the words flowed upon the paper as fast as his pen could move.

When the poem was written, it was sent to the publisher with scarcely a revision.

Meanwhile, in his own town, as people with moist eyes and glad hearts listened to the bells of freedom, they said one to another:

Whittier is writing a poem!

Thus was “Laus Deo!” born.

XXII

When George MacDonald came to America upon his lecture tour and brought with him his wife and son, he consented to give his lecture in Amesbury, although the lecture committee there could by no means pay him his price. But the fact that Whittier had invited him while in Amesbury to be his guest more than compensated for the meagerness of financial rewards. In truth, it was often the case that the hospitality of the poet compensated for the poverty of the lecture bureau, and the Amesbury lyceum had speakers of far higher ability than its own funds could have supplied.

MacDonald’s lecture was most interesting, and simply delivered in his fascinating Scottish accent.

In the evening a deputation from the Scottish Club of Amesbury came to him in the poet’s home, bringing Whittier’s complete works to present to the poet and novelist of their native land. Whittier’s welcome and the Scottish poet’s delight made the event a “red-letter day” to the Club.

But when the two poets were at last alone together, they must have spent a memorable time; they had in common an untraveled world of sympathy; yet they were different. The spiritual world is MacDonald’s world and his heroes are ideal rather than weighted with the weaknesses and foibles of human nature. But Whittier tells us of reality--the reality in the natural and in the spiritual world, for in both of these he lived. His poems are no dreams, but actualities seen upon the heights of life. His men and women are those whom we daily meet, but with the veil which for most of us is upon their hearts drawn aside, giving us wonderful glimpses into the holy of holies. It was not strange that the two poets had much to say to each other, and that afterward Whittier remarked of his guest; “There is no man in England whom I should have been more glad to meet than George MacDonald.”

* * * * *

In connection with this visit occurred an incident characteristic both of Whittier and of his niece, afterward Mrs. Pickard, who herself told it to the writer.

The poet received many very beautiful gifts, some of which this niece while keeping his house would put about in the rooms, that visitors also might enjoy them. But Whittier’s native abhorrence of ostentation, together with his Quaker simplicity, did not approve of this display, and the gifts would be relegated to their hiding-places. Over and over would she try the experiment, and always with the same result, although occasionally, her uncle would not immediately notice the ornaments and so they would hold their own for a few days; but only to disappear in the end. Thus the game would go on and neither would mention the subject to the other.

Among these gifts was a very handsome silver cake-basket, for cake-baskets were then in vogue. Several times had Lizzie attempted to grace the table with this when guests were present. But her uncle had always left his guests to make an errand to the dining-room just before the meal, and the tabooed basket had always vanished from the table.

But when George MacDonald, accompanied by his wife and son came to Amesbury to give his lecture, because, as has been said, he could be the guest of Whittier, Lizzie felt that if the opportunity to display the cake-basket was ever to come, it should be then. But how could she do it? For her uncle, with all his pleasure in his guests was not too much absorbed in his brother poet to omit the preliminary survey of the table.

The cake-basket was not there. Well-pleased, he returned to his guests.

It was when the summons to the evening meal had been given and the company was about to be seated, that Lizzie appeared, in her hand the well-filled cake-basket which she placed conspicuously upon the table and made haste to seat herself behind the teacups.

If the poet, who never missed the humorous side of anything, did not strike his hand upon his knee and cry his familiar utterance, “Capital! Capital!” it was because at the moment the situation made it impossible to him. He surely appreciated his niece no less because she--one of his own family--had done what his foes, political and personal, had never been able to accomplish--outwitted him!

XXIII

Whittier sometimes received suggestions for his poems from stories told him directly, possibly, for the purpose, as was the case with the episode of “Barbara Frietchie.” But, no doubt, persons often gave him suggestions for poems without suspecting that they were doing so.

“I should think the old captain would come out of his grave, Mr. Whittier,” cried indignantly, Mrs. M----, a neighbor and friend, as she sat one evening in the garden room making complaint of a use, or, rather, of a disuse of something over which the members of the Improvement Society of the town--she being one--who were busy looking up its many antiquities, were very wrathful. “Yes, I should think he would come out of his grave,” she repeated, “to see that old well of his which he dug himself for the free use of the public all covered over with rubbish in this way. It ought to be opened up.”

She went on to free her mind still more concerning public rights and the neglect of these, as illustrated in the case of the old well dug by Valentine Bagley for the wayfarer, so that none who passed by might have to endure a tithe of the agony of thirst that he himself had known when at one time lost in the desert. Then in his distress he had vowed that should he ever return to his home, he would dig a well as a thank-offering. This was the well.

But what had been intended for a boon had become useless from neglect--a disfigurement.

The poet was deeply interested. “Yes,” he answered her, “it ought to be opened.” And in a moment he added, “We will have it opened.”

And in his own beautiful way Whittier told the true story of Valentine Bagley, an old-time worthy of Amesbury, of his shipwreck, his desert wanderings, his final rescue, and the carrying out of his resolve to save others from, at least, one of his many sufferings--thirst. The poem tells how by the side of the road running from what was then the village to the old ferry crossing the Merrimac, the returned wanderer dug this well for the benefit of all who were thirsting as they passed by it.

But it had been choked up by neglect and abuse.

Whittier’s poem, however, rescued it from this neglect and lifted it into fame.

This is how “The Captain’s Well” came to be written. And the thousand dollars which the poet received for it from the “New York Ledger” served also some other benevolence.

Of this poem he wrote to his sister’s dear friend and his own:

“I enclose a copy of ‘The Captain’s Well,’ though perhaps thee have seen it. There were some mistakes in it. Hundreds of copies of it have been sold in Amesbury and as many in Newburyport. I don’t think much of it myself. When will you [herself and party] return?” [from Bermuda], he adds. “We miss thee very much and shall be glad to see thee back again.”

* * * * *

Among the relics kept in the Whittier Home in Amesbury, the house now owned and opened to the public by the “Whittier Home Association” of that town, is an old cradle that belonged to Valentine Bagley, the hero of “The Captain’s Well.” And in the Amesbury burying ground, not far from the poet’s own grave, is the grave of this Valentine Bagley, with an epitaph in the style of many others of that time. It reads:

“His languishing head is at rest, Its thinking and aching is o’er, His quiet, unmovable breast Is moved by affliction no more.”

In a letter to the writer, to whom Whittier spoke frequently of his own work, he said of a song of his, “My poem in the ‘Atlantic’ is not a very nice one--matter of fact and not poetical; but it tells a sorry story of the old time.” This is an illustration of how his world-wide fame never convinced him that he had reached the highest upon his own lines; he always looked beyond for it--happily for himself and for the world.

* * * * *

In a letter written December, 1881, he says:

“I have passed a quiet birthday on the seventeenth. It is always a serious matter--passing these milestones of life. At my age I cannot look forward to many more. I send thee a copy of what is called my ‘Birthday Book.’ It does not amount to much--mere shreds and patches, but it is pretty so far as the publishers are concerned. I go to Amesbury some day the last of this week, if the weather is right and I feel able. Sometime when I am there I should be glad to see thee. I hope to be in Boston in February, and Lizzie also hopes to be there. If so, we will be glad to see thee, and will let thee know.”

* * * * *

In a letter written from Oak Knoll in the March of 1886, he speaks of what might have been his niece’s fatal accident in an elevator.

“I should have written thee before,” he says, “but my strength was not equal to my wish and writing has been almost out of the question with me this winter. I think of my old friends, however, always. I went to Boston for the first time for more than a year, to meet Lizzie; but my lameness and sleeplessness drove me back soon. Lizzie’s accident upset me a good deal, but I am so thankful it was no worse. It was a great escape....

Of course I shall send thee the very small volume of poems [‘Saint Gregory’s Guest’] as soon as it is printed.” And he adds with that self-distrust so wonderful in one of his genius and world-wide fame: “It is a poor affair, I fear, but if it was a mistake, it is not likely to be repeated. I only wanted to speak to my old friends once more. Thy old and loving friend.”

* * * * *

Now on one hand, now on the other, the poet gathered the material for his poems; sometimes, as we know, these came from incidents told him by those among whom he lived, or by strangers. But often legend furnished the subject; or, best of all, the inspiration of the Spirit which taught him high and holy thoughts.

To one who asked him if his poem “Among the Hills,” was taken from life, he answered that it was as this ought to be, and went on to speak of the hopeless drudgery of the farmer’s life as he had seen it in his youth, and of the poverty of ideals in that life, sometimes its actual squalor. In his own home, however, the ideal had always existed; and life there, however simple, was never destitute of attractions, or of that intercourse with a wider outlook which enlarged its own horizon.

Is it to be supposed that he knows nothing today of how the farmer’s horizon has widened, how distance has become lessened, if not annihilated, and how the news of the world is left at his doorstone? It has been wisely said that poets are the true prophets; they have visions of the blessings to come upon the world.

Sings the poet:

“The airs of heaven blow o’er me; A glory shines before me Of what mankind shall be,-- Pure, generous, brave, and free.

“A dream of man and woman, Diviner, but still human, Solving the riddle old, Shaping the Age of Gold!

“The love of God and neighbor; An equal-handed labour; The richer life, where beauty Walks hand in hand with duty.”

XXIV

“A dream to me alone is Arno’s vale,”

writes Whittier in his “Last Walk in Autumn.” Yet those who know say that his pen pictures of Italy are perfect. He is a consolation and an inspiration to them upon whom life’s limitations press.