Their written words we linger o'er,
But in the sun they cast no shade,
No voice is heard, no sign is made,
No step is on the conscious floor!

Yet Love will dream and Faith will trust
(Since He who knows our need is just)
That somehow, somewhere, meet we must.
Alas for him who never sees

The stars shine through his cypress-trees!
Who, hopeless, lays his dead away,
Nor looks to see the breaking day
Across the mournful marbles play!
Who hath not learned, in hours of faith,
The truth to flesh and sense unknown,

That Life is ever lord of Death,

And Love can never lose its own!

We sped the time with stories old,
Wrought puzzles out, and riddles told,
Or stammered from our school-book lore
"The chief of Gambia's golden shore."
How often since, when all the land
Was clay in Slavery's shaping hand,
As if a far-blown trumpet stirred
The languorous, sin-sick air, I heard:
"Does not the voice of reason cry,

Claim the first right which Nature gave,
From the red scourge of bondage fly,

Nor deign to live a burdened slave!" Our father rode again his ride

200

205

210

218

220

215. This line and lines 220-223 are taken from The African Chief, a poem by Mrs. Sarah Wentworth Morton, which was included in Caleb Bingham's The American Preceptor, a schoolbook used in Whittier's boyhood.

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. François' hemlock-trees;
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.
Or, nearer home, our steps he led
Where Salisbury's level marshes spread
Mile-wide as flies the laden bee;

Where merry mowers, hale and strong,

290

285

Swept, scythe on scythe, their swaths along

240

The low green prairies of the sea.

We shared the fishing off Boar's Head,

And round the rocky Isles of Shoals
The hake-broil on the driftwood coals;
The chowder on the sand-beach made,
Dipped by the hungry, steaming hot,
With spoons of clam-shell from the pot.
We heard the tales of witchcraft old,
And dream and sign and marvel told
To sleepy listeners as they lay
Stretched idly on the salted hay,
Adrift along the winding shores,

When favoring breezes deigned to blow
The square sail of the gundelow,

And idle lay the useless oars.

Our mother, while she turned her wheel
Or run the new-knit stocking heel,

945

254

255

Told how the Indian hordes came down
At midnight on Cochecho 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,
She made us welcome to her home;
Old hearths grew wide to give us room;
We stole with her a frightened look
At the gray wizard's conjuring-book,
The fame whereof went far and wide
Through all the simple country-side;
We heard the hawks at twilight play,
The boat-horn on Piscataqua,
The loon's weird laughter far away;
We fished her little trout-brook, knew
What flowers in wood and meadow grew,
What sunny hillsides autumn-brown
She climbed to shake the ripe nuts down,
Saw where in sheltered cove and bay
The duck's black squadron anchored lay,
And heard the wild geese calling loud
Beneath the gray November cloud.
Then, haply, with a look more grave,
And soberer tone, some tale she
gave
From painful Sewel's ancient tome,

259. Dover in New Hampshire.

286. William Sewel was the historian of the Quakers. Charles Lamb seemed to have as good an opinion of the book as Whittier. In his essay A Quakers' Meeting, in Essays of Elia, he says: "Reader, if you are not acquainted with it, I would recommend

Beloved in every Quaker home,
Of faith fire-winged by martyrdom,
Or Chalkley's Journal, old and quaint,
Gentlest of skippers, rare sea-saint!
Who, when the dreary calms prevailed,
And water-butt and bread-cask failed,
And cruel, hungry eyes pursued
His portly presence, mad for food,
With dark hints muttered under breath

Of casting lots for life or death,

290

295

to you, above all church-narratives, to read Sewel's History of the Quakers. It is far more edifying and affecting than anything you will read of Wesley or his colleagues."

...

289. Thomas Chalkley was an Englishman of Quaker parentage, born in 1675, who travelled extensively as a preacher, and finally made his home in Philadelphia. He died in 1749; his Journal was first published in 1747. His own narrative of the incident which the poet relates is as follows: "To stop their murmuring, I told them they should not need to cast lots, which was usual in such cases, which of us should die first, for I would freely offer up my life to do them good. One said, 'God bless you! I will not eat any of you.' Another said, 'He would rather die before he would eat any of me;' and so said several. I can truly say, on that occasion, at that time, my life was not dear to me, and that I was serious and ingenuous in my proposition: and as I was leaning over the side of the vessel, thoughtfully considering my proposal to the company, and looking in my mind to Him that made me, a very large dolphin came up towards the top or surface of the water, and looked me in the face; and I called the people to put a hook into the sea, and take him, for here is one come to redeem me (I said to them). And they put a hook into the sea, and the fish readily took it, and they caught him. He was longer than myself. I think he was about six feet long, and the largest that ever I saw. This plainly showed us that we ought not to distrust the providence of the Almighty. The people were quieted by this act of Providence, and murmured no more. We caught enough to eat plentifully of, till we got into the capes of Delaware."

Offered, if Heaven withheld supplies,
To be himself the sacrifice.

Then, suddenly, as if to save

The good man from his living grave,
A ripple on the water grew,

A school of porpoise flashed in view.
"Take, eat," he said, "and be content;
These fishes in my stead are sent
By Him who gave the tangled ram
To spare the child of Abraham.”

Our 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;
Himself to Nature's heart so near
That all her voices in his ear

Of beast or bird had meanings clear,
Like Apollonius of old,

Who knew the tales the sparrows told,

Or Hermes, who interpreted

300

305

810

815

890

310. The measure requires the accent ly'ceum, but in stricter ase the accent is lyce'um.

320. A philosopher born in the first century of the Christian era, of whom many strange stories were told, especially regarding his converse with birds and animals.

322. Hermes Trismegistus, a celebrated Egyptian priest and philosopher, to whom was attributed the revival of geometry, arithmetic, and art among the Egyptians. He was little later than Apollonius.