Read Ebook: John Greenleaf Whittier: A sketch of his life with selected poems by Perry Bliss Whittier John Greenleaf

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Ebook has 368 lines and 44617 words, and 8 pages

She left us in the bloom of May: The constant years told o'er Their seasons with as sweet May morns, But she came back no more.

I walk, with noiseless feet, the round Of uneventful years; Still o'er and o'er I sow the spring And reap the autumn ears.

She lives where all the golden year Her summer roses blow; The dusky children of the sun Before her come and go.

There haply with her jewelled hands She smooths her silken gown,-- No more the homespun lap wherein I shook the walnuts down.

The wild grapes wait us by the brook, The brown nuts on the hill, And still the May-day flowers make sweet The woods of Follymill.

The lilies blossom in the pond, The bird builds in the tree, The dark pines sing on Ramoth hill The slow song of the sea.

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?

What cares she that the orioles build For other eyes than ours,-- That other hands with nuts are filled, And other laps with flowers?

O playmate in the golden time! Our mossy seat is green, Its fringing violets blossom yet, The old trees o'er it lean.

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!

TELLING THE BEES

Here is the place; right over the hill Runs the path I took; You can see the gap in the old wall still, And the stepping-stones in the shallow brook.

There is the house, with the gate red-barred, And the poplars tall; And the barn's brown length, and the cattle-yard, And the white horns tossing above the wall.

There are the beehives ranged in the sun; And down by the brink Of the brook are her poor flowers, weed-o'errun, Pansy and daffodil, rose and pink.

A year has gone, as the tortoise goes, Heavy and slow; And the same rose blows, and the same sun glows, And the same brook sings of a year ago.

There's the same sweet clover-smell in the breeze; And the June sun warm Tangles his wings of fire in the trees, Setting, as then, over Fernside farm.

I mind me how with a lover's care From my Sunday coat I brushed off the burrs, and smoothed my hair, And cooled at the brookside my brow and throat.

Since we parted, a month had passed,-- To love, a year; Down through the beeches I looked at last On the little red gate and the well-sweep near.

I can see it all now,--the slantwise rain Of light through the leaves, The sundown's blaze on her window-pane, The bloom of her roses under the eaves.

Just the same as a month before,-- The house and the trees, The barn's brown gable, the vine by the door,-- Nothing changed but the hives of bees.

Before them, under the garden wall, Forward and back, Went drearily singing the chore-girl small, Draping each hive with a shred of black.

Trembling, I listened: the summer sun Had the chill of snow; For I knew she was telling the bees of one Gone on the journey we all must go!

Then I said to myself, "My Mary weeps For the dead to-day: Haply her blind old grandsire sleeps The fret and the pain of his age away."

But her dog whined low; on the doorway sill, With his cane to his chin, The old man sat; and the chore-girl still Sung to the bees stealing out and in.

And the song she was singing ever since In my ear sounds on:-- "Stay at home, pretty bees, fly not hence! Mistress Mary is dead and gone!"

BURNS ON RECEIVING A SPRIG OF HEATHER IN BLOSSOM

No more these simple flowers belong To Scottish maid and lover; Sown in the common soil of song, They bloom the wide world over.

In smiles and tears, in sun and showers, The minstrel and the heather, The deathless singer and the flowers He sang of live together.

Wild heather-bells and Robert Burns! The moorland flower and peasant! How, at their mention, memory turns Her pages old and pleasant!

The gray sky wears again its gold And purple of adorning, And manhood's noonday shadows hold The dews of boyhood's morning:

The dews that washed the dust and soil From off the wings of pleasure, The sky that flecked the ground of toil With golden threads of leisure.

I call to mind the summer day, The early harvest mowing, The sky with sun and clouds at play, And flowers with breezes blowing.

I hear the blackbird in the corn, The locust in the haying; And, like the fabled hunter's horn, Old tunes my heart is playing.

How oft that day, with fond delay, I sought the maple's shadow, And sang with Burns the hours away, Forgetful of the meadow!

Bees hummed, birds twittered, overhead I heard the squirrels leaping, The good dog listened while I read, And wagged his tail in keeping.

Sweet day, sweet songs! The golden hours Grew brighter for that singing, From brook and bird and meadow flowers A dearer welcome bringing.

New light on home-seen Nature beamed, New glory over Woman; And daily life and duty seemed No longer poor and common.

I woke to find the simple truth Of fact and feeling better Than all the dreams that held my youth A still repining debtor:

That Nature gives her handmaid, Art, The themes of sweet discoursing; The tender idyls of the heart In every tongue rehearsing.

Why dream of lands of gold and pearl, Of loving knight and lady, When farmer boy and barefoot girl Were wandering there already?

I saw through all familiar things The romance underlying; The joys and griefs that plume the wings Of Fancy skyward flying.

I saw the same blithe day return, The same sweet fall of even, That rose on wooded Craigie-burn, And sank on crystal Devon.

I matched with Scotland's heathery hills The sweetbrier and the clover; With Ayr and Doon, my native rills, Their wood hymns chanting over.

O'er rank and pomp, as he had seen, I saw the Man uprising; No longer common or unclean, The child of God's baptizing!

With clearer eyes I saw the worth Of life among the lowly; The Bible at his Cotter's hearth Had made my own more holy.

And if at times an evil strain, To lawless love appealing, Broke in upon the sweet refrain Of pure and healthful feeling,

It died upon the eye and ear, No inward answer gaining; No heart had I to see or hear The discord and the staining.

Let those who never erred forget His worth, in vain bewailings; Sweet Soul of Song! I own my debt Uncancelled by his failings!

Lament who will the ribald line Which tells his lapse from duty, How kissed the maddening lips of wine Or wanton ones of beauty;

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