Works

As there is music uninform'd by art
In those wild notes, which, with a merry heart,
The birds in unfrequented shades express,
Who, better taught at home, yet please us less:...

How bless'd is he who leads a country life,
Unvex'd with anxious cares, and void of strife!
Who studying peace, and shunning civil rage,
Enjoy'd his youth, and now enjoys his age:...

Just two-and-forty years have passed[5]
Since we, a youthful pair,
Together at the altar stood,
And mutual vows pledged there.

Our lives have been a checkered scene,
Since that midsummer's eve;...

I leave for thee, beloved one,
The home and friends of youth,
Trusting my hopes, my happiness,
Unto thy love and truth;
I leave for thee my girlhood's joys,
Its sunny, careless mirth,...

'... O she,
To me myself, for some three careless moons,
The summer pilot of an empty heart
Unto the shores of Nothing.' - Tennyson.


'Tis the hour when golden slumbers...

My dearely loued friend how oft haue we,
In winter evenings (meaning to be free,)
To some well-chosen place vs'd to retire;
And there with moderate meate, and wine, and fire,...

Fold now thine arms and hang the head,
Like to a lily withered;
Next look thou like a sickly moon,
Or like Jocasta in a swoon;
Then weep and sigh and softly go,
Like to a widow drown'd in woe,...

'T is said that each succeeding year
Another circlet weaves
Within each living, waving tree;
Yet not in buds or leaves,--
But far within the silent core,
The tiny shuttles ply,...

I.

Old fables are not all a lie
That tell of wondrous birth,
Of Titan children, father Sky,
And mighty mother Earth.

Yea, now are walking on the ground
Sons of the mingled brood;...

Ah! Unhappy are the maidens, who love's game are kept from playing,
Nor in mellow wine may wash away their cares;
Who, scared by scolding uncles' tongues, their terror are displaying, -...

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,...

Within this false world we may count ourselves blest,
If we have but one friend who is faithful and true;
And so in your friendship contented I'll rest,
And believe I have found that one blessing in you.

Inmate of a mountain-dwelling,
Thou hast clomb aloft, and gazed
From the watch-towers of Helvellyn;
Awed, delighted, and amazed!

Potent was the spell that bound thee
Not unwilling to obey;...

Put off the vestal Veil, nor, oh!
Let weeping angels View it;
Your cheeks belie its virgin snow.
And blush repenting through it.

Put off the fatal zone you wear;
The shining pearls around it...

Across what calm of tropic seas,
'Neath alien clusters of the nights,
Looked, in the past, such eyes as these?
Long-quenched, relumed, ancestral lights!

The generations fostered them;...

Live, live with me, and thou shalt see
The pleasures I'll prepare for thee:
What sweets the country can afford
Shall bless thy bed, and bless thy board.
The soft sweet moss shall be thy bed,...

What fate decreed, time now has made us see,
A renovation of the west by thee.
That preternatural fever, which did threat
Death to our country, now hath lost his heat,...

O you that were eyes and light to the King till he past away
From the darkness of life'
He saw not his daughter'he blest her: the blind King sees you to-day,
He blesses the wife.

Madam, you have done well! Let others with praise unholy,
Speech addressed to a woman who never breathed upon earth,
Daub you over with lies or deafen your ears with folly,...

To Scythian and Cantabrian plots,
Pay them no heed, O Quintius!
So long as we
From care are free,
Vexations cannot cinch us.

Unwrinkled youth and grace, forsooth,
Speed hand in hand together;...