Works

Whisk!--away in the sun
His little flying feet
Scamper as softly fleet
As ever the rabbits run.
He is gone like a flash, and then
In a breath is back again.

The silky flosses shine...

What conscience, say, is it in thee,
When I a heart had one, [won]
To take away that heart from me,
And to retain thy own?

For shame or pity, now incline
To play a loving part;...

What conscience, say, is it in thee,
When I a heart had one,
To take away that heart from me,
And to retain thy own?

For shame or pity now incline
To play a loving part;...

Each on his own strict line we move,
And some find death ere they find love.
So far apart their lives are thrown
From the twin soul that halves their own.

And sometimes, by still harder fate,...

I.
Here was I with my arm and heart
And brain, all yours for a word, a want
Put into a look, just a look, your part,
While mine, to repay it . . . vainest vaunt,...

Too late I bring my heart, too late 'tis yours;
Too late to bring the true love that endures;
Too long, unthrift, I gave it here and there,
Spent it in idle love and idle song;...

Had we but met in other days,
Had we but loved in other ways,
Another light and hope had shone
On your life and my own.

In sweet but hopeless reveries
I fancy how your wistful eyes...

I looked upon a dead girl's face and heard
What seemed the voice of Love call unto me
Out of her heart; whereon the charactery
Of her lost dreams I read there word for word:...

Delayed till she had ceased to know,
Delayed till in its vest of snow
Her loving bosom lay.
An hour behind the fleeting breath,
Later by just an hour than death, --
Oh, lagging yesterday!
...

How should I know,
That day when first we met,
I Would be a day
I never can forget?
And yet 'tis so.
That clasp of hands that made my heartstrings thrill,...

I see in you the estuary that enlarges and spreads itself grandly as it pours in the great Sea.

This, the last of Mr. Whittier's poems, was written but a few weeks before his death.


Among the thousands who with hail and cheer
Will welcome thy new year,
How few of all have passed, as thou and I,...

"My house is thatched with violet leaves
And paved with daisies fine,
Scarlet berries droop over its eaves,
Tall grasses round it shine;
With softest down I have lined my nest,...

I will remember what I was. I am sick of rope and chain,
I will remember my old strength and all my forest-affairs.
I will not sell my back to man for a bundle of sugarcane....

I should have been too glad, I see,
Too lifted for the scant degree
Of life's penurious round;
My little circuit would have shamed
This new circumference, have blamed
The homelier time behind.
...

I heard a cry in the night,
A thousand miles it came,
Sharp as a flash of light,
My name, my name!

It was your voice I heard,
You waked and loved me so,
I send you back this word,...

Your paths were all unknown to us:
We were so far away from you,
We mixed in thought your spirit thus--
With whiteness, stars of gold, and dew.

The mighty mother nourished you:...

Seraph! thy memory is to me
Like some enchanted far-off isle
In some tumultuous sea,
Some ocean vexed as it may be
With storms; but where, meanwhile,
Serenest skies continually...

Oh, let me plead with thee to have a nook,
A garden nook, not far from thy domain,
That there, with harp, and voice, and poet-book,
I may be true to thee, and, passion-fain,...

With delicate, mad hands, behind his sordid bars,
Surely he hath his posies, which they tear and twine;
Those scentless wisps of straw, that miserably line...