Narrative and Legendary Poems, Complete Volume I of The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier — A Closer Reading

Hath had its pure and perfect work on that high- born maiden's mind, And she hath turned from the pride of sin to the lowliness of truth, And given her human heart to God in its beautiful hour of youth

And she hath left the gray old halls, where an evil faith had power, The courtly knights of her father's train, and the maidens of her bower; And she hath gone to the Vaudois vales by lordly feet untrod, Where the poor and needy of earth are rich in the perfect love of God! 1830.

Mary G-----, aged eighteen, a "Sister of Charity," died in one of our Atlantic cities, during the prevalence of the Indian cholera, while in voluntary attendance upon the sick.

"BRING out your dead!" The midnight street Heard and gave back the hoarse, low call; Harsh fell the tread of hasty feet, Glanced through the dark the coarse white sheet, Her coffin and her pall. "What--only one!" the brutal hack-man said, As, with an oath, he spurned away the dead.

How sunk the inmost hearts of all, As rolled that dead-cart slowly by, With creaking wheel and harsh hoof-fall! The dying turned him to the wall, To hear it and to die! Onward it rolled; while oft its driver stayed, And hoarsely clamored, "Ho! bring out your dead."

It paused beside the burial-place; "Toss in your load!" and it was done. With quick hand and averted face, Hastily to the grave's embrace They cast them, one by one, Stranger and friend, the evil and the just, Together trodden in the churchyard dust.

And thou, young martyr! thou wast there; No white-robed sisters round thee trod, Nor holy hymn, nor funeral prayer Rose through the damp and noisome air, Giving thee to thy God; Nor flower, nor cross, nor hallowed taper gave Grace to the dead, and beauty to the grave!

Yet, gentle sufferer! there shall be, In every heart of kindly feeling, A rite as holy paid to thee As if beneath the convent-tree Thy sisterhood were kneeling, At vesper hours, like sorrowing angels, keeping Their tearful watch around thy place of sleeping.

For thou wast one in whom the light Of Heaven's own love was kindled well; Enduring with a martyr's might, Through weary day and wakeful night, Far more than words may tell Gentle, and meek, and lowly, and unknown, Thy mercies measured by thy God alone!

Where manly hearts were failing, where The throngful street grew foul with death, O high-souled martyr! thou wast there, Inhaling, from the loathsome air, Poison with every breath. Yet shrinking not from offices of dread For the wrung dying, and the unconscious dead.

And, where the sickly taper shed Its light through vapors, damp, confined, Hushed as a seraph's fell thy tread, A new Electra by the bed Of suffering human-kind! Pointing the spirit, in its dark dismay, To that pure hope which fadeth not away.

Innocent teacher of the high And holy mysteries of Heaven! How turned to thee each glazing eye, In mute and awful sympathy, As thy low prayers were given; And the o'er-hovering Spoiler wore, the while, An angel's features, a deliverer's smile!

A blessed task! and worthy one Who, turning from the world, as thou, Before life's pathway had begun To leave its spring-time flower and sun, Had sealed her early vow; Giving to God her beauty and her youth, Her pure affections and her guileless truth.

Earth may not claim thee. Nothing here Could be for thee a meet reward; Thine is a treasure far more dear Eye hath not seen it, nor the ear Of living mortal heard The joys prepared, the promised bliss above, The holy presence of Eternal Love!

Sleep on in peace. The earth has not A nobler name than thine shall be. The deeds by martial manhood wrought, The lofty energies of thought, The fire of poesy, These have but frail and fading honors; thine Shall Time unto Eternity consign.

Yea, and when thrones shall crumble down, And human pride and grandeur fall, The herald's line of long renown, The mitre and the kingly crown,-- Perishing glories all! The pure devotion of thy generous heart Shall live in Heaven, of which it was a part. 1833.

EXTRACT FROM "A NEW ENGLAND LEGEND."

(Originally a part of the author's Moll Pitcher.)

How has New England's romance fled, Even as a vision of the morning! Its rites foredone, its guardians dead, Its priestesses, bereft of dread, Waking the veriest urchin's scorning! Gone like the Indian wizard's yell And fire-dance round the magic rock, Forgotten like the Druid's spell At moonrise by his holy oak! No more along the shadowy glen Glide the dim ghosts of murdered men; No more the unquiet churchyard dead Glimpse upward from their turfy bed, Startling the traveller, late and lone; As, on some night of starless weather, They silently commune together, Each sitting on his own head-stone The roofless house, decayed, deserted, Its living tenants all departed, No longer rings with midnight revel Of witch, or ghost, or goblin evil; No pale blue flame sends out its flashes Through creviced roof and shattered sashes! The witch-grass round the hazel spring May sharply to the night-air sing, But there no more shall withered hags Refresh at ease their broomstick nags, Or taste those hazel-shadowed waters As beverage meet for Satan's daughters; No more their mimic tones be heard, The mew of cat, the chirp of bird, Shrill blending with the hoarser laughter Of the fell demon following after! The cautious goodman nails no more A horseshoe on his outer door, Lest some unseemly hag should fit To his own mouth her bridle-bit; The goodwife's churn no more refuses Its wonted culinary uses Until, with heated needle burned, The witch has to her place returned! Our witches are no longer old And wrinkled beldames, Satan-sold, But young and gay and laughing creatures, With the heart's sunshine on their features; Their sorcery--the light which dances Where the raised lid unveils its glances; Or that low-breathed and gentle tone, The music of Love's twilight hours, Soft, dream-like, as a fairy's moan Above her nightly closing flowers, Sweeter than that which sighed of yore Along the charmed Ausonian shore! Even she, our own weird heroine, Sole Pythoness of ancient Lynn,' Sleeps calmly where the living laid her; And the wide realm of sorcery, Left by its latest mistress free, Hath found no gray and skilled invader. So--perished Albion's "glammarye," With him in Melrose Abbey sleeping, His charmed torch beside his knee, That even the dead himself might see The magic scroll within his keeping. And now our modern Yankee sees Nor omens, spells, nor mysteries; And naught above, below, around, Of life or death, of sight or sound, Whate'er its nature, form, or look, Excites his terror or surprise, All seeming to his knowing eyes Familiar as his "catechise," Or "Webster's Spelling-Book."

THE DEMON OF THE STUDY.

THE Brownie sits in the Scotchman's room, And eats his meat and drinks his ale, And beats the maid with her unused broom, And the lazy lout with his idle flail; But he sweeps the floor and threshes the corn, And hies him away ere the break of dawn.

The shade of Denmark fled from the sun, And the Cocklane ghost from the barn-loft cheer, The fiend of Faust was a faithful one, Agrippa's demon wrought in fear, And the devil of Martin Luther sat By the stout monk's side in social chat.

The Old Man of the Sea, on the neck of him Who seven times crossed the deep, Twined closely each lean and withered limb, Like the nightmare in one's sleep. But he drank of the wine, and Sindbad cast The evil weight from his back at last.

But the demon that cometh day by day To my quiet room and fireside nook, Where the casement light falls dim and gray On faded painting and ancient book, Is a sorrier one than any whose names Are chronicled well by good King James.

No bearer of burdens like Caliban, No runner of errands like Ariel, He comes in the shape of a fat old man, Without rap of knuckle or pull of bell; And whence he comes, or whither he goes, I know as I do of the wind which blows.

A stout old man with a greasy hat Slouched heavily down to his dark, red nose, And two gray eyes enveloped in fat, Looking through glasses with iron bows. Read ye, and heed ye, and ye who can, Guard well your doors from that old man!

He comes with a careless "How d' ye do?" And seats himself in my elbow-chair; And my morning paper and pamphlet new Fall forthwith under his special care, And he wipes his glasses and clears his throat, And, button by button, unfolds his coat.

And then he reads from paper and book, In a low and husky asthmatic tone, With the stolid sameness of posture and look Of one who reads to himself alone; And hour after hour on my senses come That husky wheeze and that dolorous hum.

The price of stocks, the auction sales, The poet's song and the lover's glee, The horrible murders, the seaboard gales, The marriage list, and the jeu d'esprit, All reach my ear in the self-same tone,-- I shudder at each, but the fiend reads on!

Oh, sweet as the lapse of water at noon O'er the mossy roots of some forest tree, The sigh of the wind in the woods of June, Or sound of flutes o'er a moonlight sea, Or the low soft music, perchance, which seems To float through the slumbering singer's dreams,

So sweet, so dear is the silvery tone, Of her in whose features I sometimes look, As I sit at eve by her side alone, And we read by turns, from the self-same book, Some tale perhaps of the olden time, Some lover's romance or quaint old rhyme.

Then when the story is one of woe,-- Some prisoner's plaint through his dungeon-bar, Her blue eye glistens with tears, and low Her voice sinks down like a moan afar; And I seem to hear that prisoner's wail, And his face looks on me worn and pale.

And when she reads some merrier song, Her voice is glad as an April bird's, And when the tale is of war and wrong, A trumpet's summons is in her words, And the rush of the hosts I seem to hear, And see the tossing of plume and spear!

Oh, pity me then, when, day by day, The stout fiend darkens my parlor door; And reads me perchance the self-same lay Which melted in music, the night before, From lips as the lips of Hylas sweet, And moved like twin roses which zephyrs meet!

I cross my floor with a nervous tread, I whistle and laugh and sing and shout, I flourish my cane above his head, And stir up the fire to roast him out; I topple the chairs, and drum on the pane, And press my hands on my ears, in vain!

I've studied Glanville and James the wise, And wizard black-letter tomes which treat Of demons of every name and size Which a Christian man is presumed to meet, But never a hint and never a line Can I find of a reading fiend like mine.

I've crossed the Psalter with Brady and Tate, And laid the Primer above them all, I've nailed a horseshoe over the grate, And hung a wig to my parlor wall Once worn by a learned Judge, they say, At Salem court in the witchcraft day!

"Conjuro te, sceleratissime, Abire ad tuum locum!"--still Like a visible nightmare he sits by me,-- The exorcism has lost its skill; And I hear again in my haunted room The husky wheeze and the dolorous hum!

Ah! commend me to Mary Magdalen With her sevenfold plagues, to the wandering Jew, To the terrors which haunted Orestes when The furies his midnight curtains drew, But charm him off, ye who charm him can, That reading demon, that fat old man!

On the declivity of a hill in Salisbury, Essex County, is a fountain of clear water, gushing from the very roots of a venerable oak. It is about two miles from the junction of the Powow River with the Merrimac.

TRAVELLER! on thy journey toiling By the swift Powow, With the summer sunshine falling On thy heated brow, Listen, while all else is still, To the brooklet from the hill.

Wild and sweet the flowers are blowing By that streamlet's side, And a greener verdure showing Where its waters glide, Down the hill-slope murmuring on, Over root and mossy stone.

Where yon oak his broad arms flingeth O'er the sloping hill, Beautiful and freshly springeth That soft-flowing rill, Through its dark roots wreathed and bare, Gushing up to sun and air.

Brighter waters sparkled never In that magic well, Of whose gift of life forever Ancient legends tell, In the lonely desert wasted, And by mortal lip untasted.

Waters which the proud Castilian Sought with longing eyes, Underneath the bright pavilion Of the Indian skies, Where his forest pathway lay Through the blooms of Florida.

Years ago a lonely stranger, With the dusky brow Of the outcast forest-ranger, Crossed the swift Powow, And betook him to the rill And the oak upon the hill.

O'er his face of moody sadness For an instant shone Something like a gleam of gladness, As he stooped him down To the fountain's grassy side, And his eager thirst supplied.

With the oak its shadow throwing O'er his mossy seat, And the cool, sweet waters flowing Softly at his feet, Closely by the fountain's rim That lone Indian seated him.

Autumn's earliest frost had given To the woods below Hues of beauty, such as heaven Lendeth to its bow; And the soft breeze from the west Scarcely broke their dreamy rest.

Far behind was Ocean striving With his chains of sand; Southward, sunny glimpses giving, 'Twixt the swells of land, Of its calm and silvery track, Rolled the tranquil Merrimac.

Over village, wood, and meadow Gazed that stranger man, Sadly, till the twilight shadow Over all things ran, Save where spire and westward pane Flashed the sunset back again.

Gazing thus upon the dwelling Of his warrior sires, Where no lingering trace was telling Of their wigwam fires, Who the gloomy thoughts might know Of that wandering child of woe?

Naked lay, in sunshine glowing, Hills that once had stood Down their sides the shadows throwing Of a mighty wood, Where the deer his covert kept, And the eagle's pinion swept!

Where the birch canoe had glided Down the swift Powow, Dark and gloomy bridges strided Those clear waters now; And where once the beaver swam, Jarred the wheel and frowned the dam.

For the wood-bird's merry singing, And the hunter's cheer, Iron clang and hammer's ringing Smote upon his ear; And the thick and sullen smoke From the blackened forges broke.

Could it be his fathers ever Loved to linger here? These bare hills, this conquered river,-- Could they hold them dear, With their native loveliness Tamed and tortured into this?

Sadly, as the shades of even Gathered o'er the hill, While the western half of heaven Blushed with sunset still, From the fountain's mossy seat Turned the Indian's weary feet.

Year on year hath flown forever, But he came no more To the hillside on the river Where he came before. But the villager can tell Of that strange man's visit well.

And the merry children, laden With their fruits or flowers, Roving boy and laughing maiden, In their school-day hours, Love the simple tale to tell Of the Indian and his well.

The village of Haverhill, on the Merrimac, called by the Indians Pentucket, was for nearly seventeen years a frontier town, and during thirty years endured all the horrors of savage warfare. In the year 1708, a combined body of French and Indians, under the command of De Chaillons, and Hertel de Rouville, the famous and bloody sacker of Deerfield, made an attack upon the village, which at that time contained only thirty houses. Sixteen of the villagers were massacred, and a still larger number made prisoners. About thirty of the enemy also fell, among them Hertel de Rouville. The minister of the place, Benjamin Rolfe, was killed by a shot through his own door. In a paper entitled The Border War of 1708, published in my collection of Recreations and Miscellanies, I have given a prose narrative of the surprise of Haverhill.

How sweetly on the wood-girt town The mellow light of sunset shone! Each small, bright lake, whose waters still Mirror the forest and the hill, Reflected from its waveless breast The beauty of a cloudless west, Glorious as if a glimpse were given Within the western gates of heaven, Left, by the spirit of the star Of sunset's holy hour, ajar!

Beside the river's tranquil flood The dark and low-walled dwellings stood, Where many a rood of open land Stretched up and down on either hand, With corn-leaves waving freshly green The thick and blackened stumps between. Behind, unbroken, deep and dread, The wild, untravelled forest spread, Back to those mountains, white and cold, Of which the Indian trapper told, Upon whose summits never yet Was mortal foot in safety set.

Quiet and calm without a fear, Of danger darkly lurking near, The weary laborer left his plough, The milkmaid carolled by her cow; From cottage door and household hearth Rose songs of praise, or tones of mirth.

At length the murmur died away, And silence on that village lay. --So slept Pompeii, tower and hall, Ere the quick earthquake swallowed all, Undreaming of the fiery fate Which made its dwellings desolate.

Hours passed away. By moonlight sped The Merrimac along his bed. Bathed in the pallid lustre, stood Dark cottage-wall and rock and wood, Silent, beneath that tranquil beam, As the hushed grouping of a dream. Yet on the still air crept a sound, No bark of fox, nor rabbit's bound, Nor stir of wings, nor waters flowing, Nor leaves in midnight breezes blowing.

Was that the tread of many feet, Which downward from the hillside beat? What forms were those which darkly stood Just on the margin of the wood?-- Charred tree-stumps in the moonlight dim, Or paling rude, or leafless limb? No,--through the trees fierce eyeballs glowed, Dark human forms in moonshine showed, Wild from their native wilderness, With painted limbs and battle-dress.

A yell the dead might wake to hear Swelled on the night air, far and clear; Then smote the Indian tomahawk On crashing door and shattering lock;

Then rang the rifle-shot, and then The shrill death-scream of stricken men,-- Sank the red axe in woman's brain, And childhood's cry arose in vain. Bursting through roof and window came, Red, fast, and fierce, the kindled flame, And blended fire and moonlight glared On still dead men and scalp-knives bared.

The morning sun looked brightly through The river willows, wet with dew. No sound of combat filled the air, No shout was heard, nor gunshot there; Yet still the thick and sullen smoke From smouldering ruins slowly broke; And on the greensward many a stain, And, here and there, the mangled slain, Told how that midnight bolt had sped Pentucket, on thy fated head.

Even now the villager can tell Where Rolfe beside his hearthstone fell, Still show the door of wasting oak, Through which the fatal death-shot broke, And point the curious stranger where De Rouville's corse lay grim and bare; Whose hideous head, in death still feared, Bore not a trace of hair or beard; And still, within the churchyard ground, Heaves darkly up the ancient mound, Whose grass-grown surface overlies The victims of that sacrifice. 1838.

In the early part of the present century, a fragment of a statue, rudely chiselled from dark gray stone, was found in the town of Bradford, on the Merrimac. Its origin must be left entirely to conjecture. The fact that the ancient Northmen visited the north-east coast of North America and probably New England, some centuries before the discovery of the western world by Columbus, is very generally admitted.

GIFT from the cold and silent Past! A relic to the present cast, Left on the ever-changing strand Of shifting and unstable sand, Which wastes beneath the steady chime And beating of the waves of Time! Who from its bed of primal rock First wrenched thy dark, unshapely block? Whose hand, of curious skill untaught, Thy rude and savage outline wrought?