{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_9566/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_9566","id":"gutenberg_9566","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9566","summary":null,"tags":["American poetry -- 19th century","Category: American Literature","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Poetry"],"text":"This eBook was produced by David Widger\n\n\n\n\n\n                        NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY\n\n                                 POEMS\n\n                                   BY\n                        JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER\n\n\nCONTENTS:\n\nTHE BAY OF SEVEN ISLANDS\n     To H P S\n     THE BAY OF SEVEN ISLANDS\n\nTHE WISHING BRIDGE\nHOW THE WOMEN WENT FROM DOVER\nST GREGORY'S GUEST\nCONTENTS\nBIRCHBROOK MILL\nTHE TWO ELIZABETHS\nREQUITAL\nTHE HOMESTEAD\nHOW THE ROBIN CAME\nBANISHED FROM MASSACHUSETTS\nTHE BROWN DWARF OF RUGEN\n\n\n\nTHE BAY OF SEVEN ISLANDS.\n\nThe volume in which \"The Bay of Seven Islands\" was published was\ndedicated to the late Edwin Percy Whipple, to whom more than to any\nother person I was indebted for public recognition as one worthy of a\nplace in American literature, at a time when it required a great degree\nof courage to urge such a claim for a pro-scribed abolitionist. Although\nyounger than I, he had gained the reputation of a brilliant essayist,\nand was regarded as the highest American authority in criticism. His wit\nand wisdom enlivened a small literary circle of young men including\nThomas Starr King, the eloquent preacher, and Daniel N. Haskell of the\nDaily Transcript, who gathered about our common friend dames T. Fields\nat the Old Corner Bookstore. The poem which gave title to the volume I\ninscribed to my friend and neighbor Harriet Prescott Spofford, whose\npoems have lent a new interest to our beautiful river-valley.\n\nFROM the green Amesbury hill which bears the name\nOf that half mythic ancestor of mine\nWho trod its slopes two hundred years ago,\nDown the long valley of the Merrimac,\nMidway between me and the river's mouth,\nI see thy home, set like an eagle's nest\nAmong Deer Island's immemorial pines,\nCrowning the crag on which the sunset breaks\nIts last red arrow. Many a tale and song,\nWhich thou bast told or sung, I call to mind,\nSoftening with silvery mist the woods and hills,\nThe out-thrust headlands and inreaching bays\nOf our northeastern coast-line, trending where\nThe Gulf, midsummer, feels the chill blockade\nOf icebergs stranded at its northern gate.\n\nTo thee the echoes of the Island Sound\nAnswer not vainly, nor in vain the moan\nOf the South Breaker prophesying storm.\nAnd thou hast listened, like myself, to men\nSea-periled oft where Anticosti lies\nLike a fell spider in its web of fog,\nOr where the Grand Bank shallows with the wrecks\nOf sunken fishers, and to whom strange isles\nAnd frost-rimmed bays and trading stations seem\nFamiliar as Great Neck and Kettle Cove,\nNubble and Boon, the common names of home.\nSo let me offer thee this lay of mine,\nSimple and homely, lacking much thy play\nOf color and of fancy. If its theme\nAnd treatment seem to thee befitting youth\nRather than age, let this be my excuse\nIt has beguiled some heavy hours and called\nSome pleasant memories up; and, better still,\nOccasion lent me for a kindly word\nTo one who is my neighbor and my friend.\n1883.\n\n           . . . . . . . . . .\n\nThe skipper sailed out of the harbor mouth,\nLeaving the apple-bloom of the South\nFor the ice of the Eastern seas,\nIn his fishing schooner Breeze.\n\nHandsome and brave and young was he,\nAnd the maids of Newbury sighed to see\nHis lessening white sail fall\nUnder the sea's blue wall.\n\nThrough the Northern Gulf and the misty screen\nOf the isles of Mingan and Madeleine,\nSt. Paul's and Blanc Sablon,\nThe little Breeze sailed on,\n\nBackward and forward, along the shore\nOf lorn and desolate Labrador,\nAnd found at last her way\nTo the Seven Islands Bay.\n\nThe little hamlet, nestling below\nGreat hills white with lingering snow,\nWith its tin-roofed chapel stood\nHalf hid in the dwarf spruce wood;\n\nGreen-turfed, flower-sown, the last outpost\nOf summer upon the dreary coast,\nWith its gardens small and spare,\nSad in the frosty air.\n\nHard by where the skipper's schooner lay,\nA fisherman's cottage looked away\nOver isle and bay, and. behind\nOn mountains dim-defined.\n\nAnd there twin sisters, fair and young,\nLaughed with their stranger guest, and sung\nIn their native tongue the lays\nOf the old Provencal days.\n\nAlike were they, save the faint outline\nOf a scar on Suzette's forehead fine;\nAnd both, it so befell,\nLoved the heretic stranger well.\n\nBoth were pleasant to look upon,\nBut the heart of the skipper clave to one;\nThough less by his eye than heart\nHe knew the twain apart.\n\nDespite of alien race and creed,\nWell did his wooing of Marguerite speed;\nAnd the mother's wrath was vain\nAs the sister's jealous pain.\n\nThe shrill-tongued mistress her house forbade,\nAnd solemn warning was sternly said\nBy the black-robed priest, whose word\nAs law the hamlet heard.\n\nBut half by voice and half by signs\nThe skipper said, \"A warm sun shines\nOn the green-banked Merrimac;\nWait, watch, till I come back.\n\n\"And when you see, from my mast head,\nThe signal fly of a kerchief red,\nMy boat on the shore shall wait;\nCome, when the night is late.\"\n\nAh! weighed with childhood's haunts and friends,\nAnd all that the home sky overbends,\nDid ever young love fail\nTo turn the trembling scale?\n\nUnder the night, on the wet sea sands,\nSlowly unclasped their plighted hands\nOne to the cottage hearth,\nAnd one to his sailor's berth.\n\nWhat was it the parting lovers heard?\nNor leaf, nor ripple, nor wing of bird,\nBut a listener's stealthy tread\nOn the rock-moss, crisp and dead.\n\nHe weighed his anchor, and fished once more\nBy the black coast-line of Labrador;\nAnd by love and the north wind driven,\nSailed back to the Islands Seven.\n\nIn the sunset's glow the sisters twain\nSaw the Breeze come sailing in again;\nSaid Suzette, \"Mother dear,\nThe heretic's sail is here.\"\n\n\"Go, Marguerite, to your room, and hide;\nYour door shall be bolted!\" the mother cried:\nWhile Suzette, ill at ease,\nWatched the red sign of the Breeze.\n\nAt midnight, down to the waiting skiff\nShe stole in the shadow of the cliff;\nAnd out of the Bay's mouth ran\nThe schooner with maid and man.\n\nAnd all night long, on a restless bed,\nHer prayers to the Virgin Marguerite said\nAnd thought of her lover's pain\nWaiting for her in vain.\n\nDid he pace the sands? Did he pause to hear\nThe sound of her light step drawing near?\nAnd, as the slow hours passed,\nWould he doubt her faith at last?\n\nBut when she saw through the misty pane,\nThe morning break on a sea of rain,\nCould even her love avail\nTo follow his vanished sail?\n\nMeantime the Breeze, with favoring wind,\nLeft the rugged Moisic hills behind,\nAnd heard from an unseen shore\nThe falls of Manitou roar.\n\nOn the morrow's morn, in the thick, gray weather\nThey sat on the reeling deck together,\nLover and counterfeit,\nOf hapless Marguerite.\n\nWith a lover's hand, from her forehead fair\nHe smoothed away her jet-black hair.\nWhat was it his fond eyes met?\nThe scar of the false Suzette!\n\nFiercely he shouted: \"Bear away\nEast by north for Seven Isles Bay!\"\nThe maiden wept and prayed,\nBut the ship her helm obeyed.\n\nOnce more the Bay of the Isles they found\nThey heard the bell of the chapel sound,\nAnd the chant of the dying sung\nIn the harsh, wild Indian tongue.\n\nA feeling of mystery, change, and awe\nWas in all they heard and all they saw\nSpell-bound the hamlet lay\nIn the hush of its lonely bay.\n\nAnd when they came to the cottage door,\nThe mother rose up from her weeping sore,\nAnd with angry gestures met\nThe scared look of Suzette.\n\n\"Here is your daughter,\" the skipper said;\n\"Give me the one I love instead.\"\nBut the woman sternly spake;\n\"Go, see if the dead will wake!\"\n\nHe looked. Her sweet face still and white\nAnd strange in the noonday taper light,\nShe lay on her little bed,\nWith the cross at her feet and head.\n\nIn a passion of grief the strong man bent\nDown to her face, and, kissing it, went\nBack to the waiting Breeze,\nBack to the mournful seas.\n\nNever again to the Merrimac\nAnd Newbury's homes that bark came back.\nWhether her fate she met\nOn the shores of Carraquette,\n\nMiscou, or Tracadie, who can say?\nBut even yet at Seven Isles Bay\nIs told the ghostly tale\nOf a weird, unspoken sail,\n\nIn the pale, sad light of the Northern day\nSeen by the blanketed Montagnais,\nOr squaw, in her small kyack,\nCrossing the spectre's track.\n\nOn the deck a maiden wrings her hands;\nHer likeness kneels on the gray coast sands;\nOne in her wild despair,\nAnd one in the trance of prayer.\n\nShe flits before no earthly blast,\nThe red sign fluttering from her mast,\nOver the solemn seas,\nThe ghost of the schooner Breeze!\n1882.\n\n\n\n\nTHE WISHING BRIDGE.\n\nAMONG the legends sung or said\nAlong our rocky shore,\nThe Wishing Bridge of Marblehead\nMay well be sung once more.\n\nAn hundred years ago (so ran\nThe old-time story) all\nGood wishes said above its span\nWould, soon or late, befall.\n\nIf pure and earnest, never failed\nThe prayers of man or maid\nFor him who on the deep sea sailed,\nFor her at home who stayed.\n\nOnce thither came two girls from school,\nAnd wished in childish glee\nAnd one would be a queen and rule,\nAnd one the world would see.\n\nTime passed; with change of hopes and fears,\nAnd in the self-same place,\nTwo women, gray with middle years,\nStood, wondering, face to face.\n\nWith wakened memories, as they met,\nThey queried what had been\n\"A poor man's wife am I, and yet,\"\nSaid one, \"I am a queen.\n\n\"My realm a little homestead is,\nWhere, lacking crown and throne,\nI rule by loving services\nAnd patient toil alone.\"\n\nThe other said: \"The great world lies\nBeyond me as it lay;\nO'er love's and duty's boundaries\nMy feet may never stray.\n\n\"I see but common sights of home,\nIts common sounds I hear,\nMy widowed mother's sick-bed room\nSufficeth for my sphere.\n\n\"I read to her some pleasant page\nOf travel far and wide,\nAnd in a dreamy pilgrimage\nWe wander side by side.\n\n\"And when, at last, she falls asleep,\nMy book becomes to me\nA magic glass: my watch I keep,\nBut all the world I see.\n\n\"A farm-wife queen your place you fill,\nWhile fancy's privilege\nIs mine to walk the earth at will,\nThanks to the Wishing Bridge.\"\n\n\"Nay, leave the legend for the truth,\"\nThe other cried, \"and say\nGod gives the wishes of our youth,\nBut in His own best way!\"\n1882.\n\n\n\n\nHOW THE WOMEN WENT FROM DOVER.\n\nThe following is a copy of the warrant issued by Major Waldron, of\nDover, in 1662. The Quakers, as was their wont, prophesied against him,\nand saw, as they supposed, the fulfilment of their prophecy when, many\nyears after, he was killed by the Indians.\n\n To the constables of Dover, Hampton, Salisbury, Newbury, Rowley,\n Ipswich, Wenham, Lynn, Boston, Roxbury, Dedham, and until these\n vagabond Quakers are carried out of this jurisdiction. You, and\n every one of you, are required, in the King's Majesty's name, to\n take these vagabond Quakers, Anne Colman, Mary Tomkins, and Alice\n Ambrose, and make them fast to the cart's tail, and driving the\n cart through your several towns, to whip them upon their naked\n backs not exceeding ten stripes apiece on each of them, in each\n town; and so to convey them from constable to constable till they\n are out of this jurisdiction, as you will answer it at your peril;\n and this shall be your warrant.\n                                    RICHARD WALDRON.\n Dated at Dover, December 22, 1662.\n\nThis warrant was executed only in Dover and Hampton. At Salisbury the\nconstable refused to obey it. He was sustained by the town's people, who\nwere under the influence of Major Robert Pike, the leading man in the\nlower valley of the Merrimac, who stood far in advance of his time, as\nan advocate of religious freedom, and an opponent of ecclesiastical\nauthority. He had the moral courage to address an able and manly letter\nto the court at Salem, remonstrating against the witchcraft trials.\n\n\nTHE tossing spray of Cocheco's fall\nHardened to ice on its rocky wall,\nAs through Dover town in the chill, gray dawn,\nThree women passed, at the cart-tail drawn!\n\nBared to the waist, for the north wind's grip\nAnd keener sting of the constable's whip,\nThe blood that followed each hissing blow\nFroze as it sprinkled the winter snow.\n\nPriest and ruler, boy and maid\nFollowed the dismal cavalcade;\nAnd from door and window, open thrown,\nLooked and wondered gaffer and crone.\n\n\"God is our witness,\" the victims cried,\nWe suffer for Him who for all men died;\nThe wrong ye do has been done before,\nWe bear the stripes that the Master bore!\n\nAnd thou, O Richard Waldron, for whom\nWe hear the feet of a coming doom,\nOn thy cruel heart and thy hand of wrong\nVengeance is sure, though it tarry long.\n\n\"In the light of the Lord, a flame we see\nClimb and kindle a proud roof-tree;\nAnd beneath it an old man lying dead,\nWith stains of blood on his hoary head.\"\n\n\"Smite, Goodman Hate-Evil!--harder still!\"\nThe magistrate cried, \"lay on with a will!\nDrive out of their bodies the Father of Lies,\nWho through them preaches and prophesies!\"\n\nSo into the forest they held their way,\nBy winding river and frost-rimmed bay,\nOver wind-swept hills that felt the beat\nOf the winter sea at their icy feet.\n\nThe Indian hunter, searching his traps,\nPeered stealthily through the forest gaps;\nAnd the outlying settler shook his head,--\n\"They're witches going to jail,\" he said.\n\nAt last a meeting-house came in view;\nA blast on his horn the constable blew;\nAnd the boys of Hampton cried up and down,\n\"The Quakers have come!\" to the wondering town.\n\nFrom barn and woodpile the goodman came;\nThe goodwife quitted her quilting frame,\nWith her child at her breast; and, hobbling slow,\nThe grandam followed to see the show.\n\nOnce more the torturing whip was swung,\nOnce more keen lashes the bare flesh stung.\n\"Oh, spare! they are bleeding!\"' a little maid cried,\nAnd covered her face the sight to hide.\n\nA murmur ran round the crowd: \"Good folks,\"\nQuoth the constable, busy counting the strokes,\n\"No pity to wretches like these is due,\nThey have beaten the gospel black and blue!\"\n\nThen a pallid woman, in wild-eyed fear,\nWith her wooden noggin of milk drew near.\n\"Drink, poor hearts!\" a rude hand smote\nHer draught away from a parching throat.\n\n\"Take heed,\" one whispered, \"they'll take your cow\nFor fines, as they took your horse and plough,\nAnd the bed from under you.\" \"Even so,\"\nShe said; \"they are cruel as death, I know.\"\n\nThen on they passed, in the waning day,\nThrough Seabrook woods, a weariful way;\nBy great salt meadows and sand-hills bare,\nAnd glimpses of blue sea here and there.\n\nBy the meeting-house in Salisbury town,\nThe sufferers stood, in the red sundown,\nBare for the lash! O pitying Night,\nDrop swift thy curtain and hide the sight.\n\nWith shame in his eye and wrath on his lip\nThe Salisbury constable dropped his whip.\n\"This warrant means murder foul and red;\nCursed is he who serves it,\" he said.\n\n\"Show me the order, and meanwhile strike\nA blow at your peril!\" said Justice Pike.\nOf all the rulers the land possessed,\nWisest and boldest was he and best.\n\nHe scoffed at witchcraft; the priest he met\nAs man meets man; his feet he set\nBeyond his dark age, standing upright,\nSoul-free, with his face to the morning light.\n\nHe read the warrant: \"These convey\nFrom our precincts; at every town on the way\nGive each ten lashes.\" \"God judge the brute!\nI tread his order under my foot!\n\n\"Cut loose these poor ones and let them go;\nCome what will of it, all men shall know\nNo warrant is good, though backed by the Crown,\nFor whipping women in Salisbury town!\"\n\nThe hearts of the villagers, half released\nFrom creed of terror and rule of priest,\nBy a primal instinct owned the right\nOf human pity in law's despite.\n\nFor ruth and chivalry only slept,\nHis Saxon manhood the yeoman kept;\nQuicker or slower, the same blood ran\nIn the Cavalier and the Puritan.\n\nThe Quakers sank on their knees in praise\nAnd thanks. A last, low sunset blaze\nFlashed out from under a cloud, and shed\nA golden glory on each bowed head.\n\nThe tale is one of an evil time,\nWhen souls were fettered and thought was crime,\nAnd heresy's whisper above its breath\nMeant shameful scourging and bonds and death!\n\nWhat marvel, that hunted and sorely tried,\nEven woman rebuked and prophesied,\nAnd soft words rarely answered back\nThe grim persuasion of whip and rack.\n\nIf her cry from the whipping-post and jail\nPierced sharp as the Kenite's driven nail,\nO woman, at ease in these happier days,\nForbear to judge of thy sister's ways!\n\nHow much thy beautiful life may owe\nTo her faith and courage thou canst not know,\nNor how from the paths of thy calm retreat\nShe smoothed the thorns with her bleeding feet.\n1883.\n\n\n\n\nSAINT GREGORY'S GUEST.\n\nA TALE for Roman guides to tell\nTo careless, sight-worn travellers still,\nWho pause beside the narrow cell\nOf Gregory on the Caelian Hill.\n\nOne day before the monk's door came\nA beggar, stretching empty palms,\nFainting and fast-sick, in the name\nOf the Most Holy asking alms.\n\nAnd the monk answered, \"All I have\nIn this poor cell of mine I give,\nThe silver cup my mother gave;\nIn Christ's name take thou it, and live.\"\n\nYears passed; and, called at last to bear\nThe pastoral crook and keys of Rome,\nThe poor monk, in Saint Peter's chair,\nSat the crowned lord of Christendom.\n\n\"Prepare a feast,\" Saint Gregory cried,\n\"And let twelve beggars sit thereat.\"\nThe beggars came, and one beside,\nAn unknown stranger, with them sat.\n\n\"I asked thee not,\" the Pontiff spake,\n\"O stranger; but if need be thine,\nI bid thee welcome, for the sake\nOf Him who is thy Lord and mine.\"\n\nA grave, calm face the stranger raised,\nLike His who on Gennesaret trod,\nOr His on whom the Chaldeans gazed,\nWhose form was as the Son of God.\n\n\"Know'st thou,\" he said, \"thy gift of old?\"\nAnd in the hand he lifted up\nThe Pontiff marvelled to behold\nOnce more his mother's silver cup.\n\n\"Thy prayers and alms have risen, and bloom\nSweetly among the flowers of heaven.\nI am The Wonderful, through whom\nWhate'er thou askest shall be given.\"\n\nHe spake and vanished. Gregory fell\nWith his twelve guests in mute accord\nProne on their faces, knowing well\nTheir eyes of flesh had seen the Lord.\n\nThe old-time legend is not vain;\nNor vain thy art, Verona's Paul,\nTelling it o'er and o'er again\nOn gray Vicenza's frescoed wall.\n\nStill wheresoever pity shares\nIts bread with sorrow, want, and sin,\nAnd love the beggar's feast prepares,\nThe uninvited Guest comes in.\n\nUnheard, because our ears are dull,\nUnseen, because our eyes are dim,\nHe walks our earth, The Wonderful,\nAnd all good deeds are done to Him.\n1883.\n\n\n\n\nBIRCHBROOK MILL.\n\nA NOTELESS stream, the Birchbrook runs\nBeneath its leaning trees;\nThat low, soft ripple is its own,\nThat dull roar is the sea's.\n\nOf human signs it sees alone\nThe distant church spire's tip,\nAnd, ghost-like, on a blank of gray,\nThe white sail of a ship.\n\nNo more a toiler at the wheel,\nIt wanders at its will;\nNor dam nor pond is left to tell\nWhere once was Birchbrook mill.\n\nThe timbers of that mill have fed\nLong since a farmer's fires;\nHis doorsteps are the stones that ground\nThe harvest of his sires.\n\nMan trespassed here; but Nature lost\nNo right of her domain;\nShe waited, and she brought the old\nWild beauty back again.\n\nBy day the sunlight through the leaves\nFalls on its moist, green sod,\nAnd wakes the violet bloom of spring\nAnd autumn's golden-rod.\n\nIts birches whisper to the wind,\nThe swallow dips her wings\nIn the cool spray, and on its banks\nThe gray song-sparrow sings.\n\nBut from it, when the dark night falls,\nThe school-girl shrinks with dread;\nThe farmer, home-bound from his fields,\nGoes by with quickened tread.\n\nThey dare not pause to hear the grind\nOf shadowy stone on stone;\nThe plashing of a water-wheel\nWhere wheel there now is none.\n\nHas not a cry of pain been heard\nAbove the clattering mill?\nThe pawing of an unseen horse,\nWho waits his mistress still?\n\nYet never to the listener's eye\nHas sight confirmed the sound;\nA wavering birch line marks alone\nThe vacant pasture ground.\n\nNo ghostly arms fling up to heaven\nThe agony of prayer;\nNo spectral steed impatient shakes\nHis white mane on the air.\n\nThe meaning of that common dread\nNo tongue has fitly told;\nThe secret of the dark surmise\nThe brook and birches hold.\n\nWhat nameless horror of the past\nBroods here forevermore?\nWhat ghost his unforgiven sin\nIs grinding o'er and o'er?\n\nDoes, then, immortal memory play\nThe actor's tragic part,\nRehearsals of a mortal life\nAnd unveiled human heart?\n\nGod's pity spare a guilty soul\nThat drama of its ill,\nAnd let the scenic curtain fall\nOn Birchbrook's haunted mill\n1884.\n\n\n\n\nTHE TWO ELIZABETHS.\nRead at the unveiling of the bust of Elizabeth Fry at the  Friends'\nSchool, Providence, R. I.\n\nA. D. 1209.\n\nAMIDST Thuringia's wooded hills she dwelt,\nA high-born princess, servant of the poor,\nSweetening with gracious words the food she dealt\nTo starving throngs at Wartburg's blazoned door.\n\nA blinded zealot held her soul in chains,\nCramped the sweet nature that he could not kill,\nScarred her fair body with his penance-pains,\nAnd gauged her conscience by his narrow will.\n\nGod gave her gifts of beauty and of grace,\nWith fast and vigil she denied them all;\nUnquestioning, with sad, pathetic face,\nShe followed meekly at her stern guide's call.\n\nSo drooped and died her home-blown rose of bliss\nIn the chill rigor of a discipline\nThat turned her fond lips from her children's kiss,\nAnd made her joy of motherhood a sin.\n\nTo their sad level by compassion led,\nOne with the low and vile herself she made,\nWhile thankless misery mocked the hand that fed,\nAnd laughed to scorn her piteous masquerade.\n\nBut still, with patience that outwearied hate,\nShe gave her all while yet she had to give;\nAnd then her empty hands, importunate,\nIn prayer she lifted that the poor might live.\n\nSore pressed by grief, and wrongs more hard to bear,\nAnd dwarfed and stifled by a harsh control,\nShe kept life fragrant with good deeds and prayer,\nAnd fresh and pure the white flower of her soul.\n\nDeath found her busy at her task: one word\nAlone she uttered as she paused to die,\n\"Silence!\"--then listened even as one who heard\nWith song and wing the angels drawing nigh!\n\nNow Fra Angelico's roses fill her hands,\nAnd, on Murillo's canvas, Want and Pain\nKneel at her feet. Her marble image stands\nWorshipped and crowned in Marburg's holy fane.\n\nYea, wheresoe'er her Church its cross uprears,\nWide as the world her story still is told;\nIn manhood's reverence, woman's prayers and tears,\nShe lives again whose grave is centuries old.\n\nAnd still, despite the weakness or the blame\nOf blind submission to the blind, she hath\nA tender place in hearts of every name,\nAnd more than Rome owns Saint Elizabeth!\n\n\n\nA. D. 1780.\n\nSlow ages passed: and lo! another came,\nAn English matron, in whose simple faith\nNor priestly rule nor ritual had claim,\nA plain, uncanonized Elizabeth.\n\nNo sackcloth robe, nor ashen-sprinkled hair,\nNor wasting fast, nor scourge, nor vigil long,\nMarred her calm presence. God had made her fair,\nAnd she could do His goodly work no wrong.\n\nTheir yoke is easy and their burden light\nWhose sole confessor is the Christ of God;\nHer quiet trust and faith transcending sight\nSmoothed to her feet the difficult paths she trod.\n\nAnd there she walked, as duty bade her go,\nSafe and unsullied as a cloistered nun,\nShamed with her plainness Fashion's gaudy show,\nAnd overcame the world she did not shun.\n\nIn Earlham's bowers, in Plashet's liberal hall,\nIn the great city's restless crowd and din,\nHer ear was open to the Master's call,\nAnd knew the summons of His voice within.\n\nTender as mother, beautiful as wife,\nAmidst the throngs of prisoned crime she stood\nIn modest raiment faultless as her life,\nThe type of England's worthiest womanhood.\n\nTo melt the hearts that harshness turned to stone\nThe sweet persuasion of her lips sufficed,\nAnd guilt, which only hate and fear had known,\nSaw in her own the pitying love of Christ.\n\nSo wheresoe'er the guiding Spirit went\nShe followed, finding every prison cell\nIt opened for her sacred as a tent\nPitched by Gennesaret or by Jacob's well.\n\nAnd Pride and Fashion felt her strong appeal,\nAnd priest and ruler marvelled as they saw\nHow hand in hand went wisdom with her zeal,\nAnd woman's pity kept the bounds of law.\n\nShe rests in God's peace; but her memory stirs\nThe air of earth as with an angel's wings,\nAnd warms and moves the hearts of men like hers,\nThe sainted daughter of Hungarian kings.\n\nUnited now, the Briton and the Hun,\nEach, in her own time, faithful unto death,\nLive sister souls! in name and spirit one,\nThuringia's saint and our Elizabeth!\n1885.\n\n\n\n\nREQUITAL.\n\nAs Islam's Prophet, when his last day drew\nNigh to its close, besought all men to say\nWhom he had wronged, to whom he then should pay\nA debt forgotten, or for pardon sue,\nAnd, through the silence of his weeping friends,\nA strange voice cried: \"Thou owest me a debt,\"\n\"Allah be praised!\" he answered. \"Even yet\nHe gives me power to make to thee amends.\nO friend! I thank thee for thy timely word.\"\nSo runs the tale. Its lesson all may heed,\nFor all have sinned in thought, or word, or deed,\nOr, like the Prophet, through neglect have erred.\nAll need forgiveness, all have debts to pay\nEre the night cometh, while it still is day.\n1885.\n\n\n\n\nTHE HOMESTEAD.\n\nAGAINST the wooded hills it stands,\nGhost of a dead home, staring through\nIts broken lights on wasted lands\nWhere old-time harvests grew.\n\nUnploughed, unsown, by scythe unshorn,\nThe poor, forsaken farm-fields lie,\nOnce rich and rife with golden corn\nAnd pale green breadths of rye.\n\nOf healthful herb and flower bereft,\nThe garden plot no housewife keeps;\nThrough weeds and tangle only left,\nThe snake, its tenant, creeps.\n\nA lilac spray, still blossom-clad,\nSways slow before the empty rooms;\nBeside the roofless porch a sad\nPathetic red rose blooms.\n\nHis track, in mould and dust of drouth,\nOn floor and hearth the squirrel leaves,\nAnd in the fireless chimney's mouth\nHis web the spider weaves.\n\nThe leaning barn, about to fall,\nResounds no more on husking eves;\nNo cattle low in yard or stall,\nNo thresher beats his sheaves.\n\nSo sad, so drear! It seems almost\nSome haunting Presence makes its sign;\nThat down yon shadowy lane some ghost\nMight drive his spectral kine!\n\nO home so desolate and lorn!\nDid all thy memories die with thee?\nWere any wed, were any born,\nBeneath this low roof-tree?\n\nWhose axe the wall of forest broke,\nAnd let the waiting sunshine through?\nWhat goodwife sent the earliest smoke\nUp the great chimney flue?\n\nDid rustic lovers hither come?\nDid maidens, swaying back and forth\nIn rhythmic grace, at wheel and loom,\nMake light their toil with mirth?\n\nDid child feet patter on the stair?\nDid boyhood frolic in the snow?\nDid gray age, in her elbow chair,\nKnit, rocking to and fro?\n\nThe murmuring brook, the sighing breeze,\nThe pine's slow whisper, cannot tell;\nLow mounds beneath the hemlock-trees\nKeep the home secrets well.\n\nCease, mother-land, to fondly boast\nOf sons far off who strive and thrive,\nForgetful that each swarming host\nMust leave an emptier hive.\n\nO wanderers from ancestral soil,\nLeave noisome mill and chaffering store:\nGird up your loins for sturdier toil,\nAnd build the home once more!\n\nCome back to bayberry-scented slopes,\nAnd fragrant fern, and ground-nut vine;\nBreathe airs blown over holt and copse\nSweet with black birch and pine.\n\nWhat matter if the gains are small\nThat life's essential wants supply?\nYour homestead's title gives you all\nThat idle wealth can buy.\n\nAll that the many-dollared crave,\nThe brick-walled slaves of 'Change and mart,\nLawns, trees, fresh air, and flowers, you have,\nMore dear for lack of art.\n\nYour own sole masters, freedom-willed,\nWith none to bid you go or stay,\nTill the old fields your fathers tilled,\nAs manly men as they!\n\nWith skill that spares your toiling hands,\nAnd chemic aid that science brings,\nReclaim the waste and outworn lands,\nAnd reign thereon as kings\n1886.\n\n\n\n\nHOW THE ROBIN CAME.\n\nAN ALGONQUIN LEGEND.\n\nHAPPY young friends, sit by me,\nUnder May's blown apple-tree,\nWhile these home-birds in and out\nThrough the blossoms flit about.\nHear a story, strange and old,\nBy the wild red Indians told,\nHow the robin came to be:\n\nOnce a great chief left his son,--\nWell-beloved, his only one,--\nWhen the boy was well-nigh grown,\nIn the trial-lodge alone.\nLeft for tortures long and slow\nYouths like him must undergo,\nWho their pride of manhood test,\nLacking water, food, and rest.\n\nSeven days the fast he kept,\nSeven nights he never slept.\nThen the young boy, wrung with pain,\nWeak from nature's overstrain,\nFaltering, moaned a low complaint\n\"Spare me, father, for I faint!\"\nBut the chieftain, haughty-eyed,\nHid his pity in his pride.\n\"You shall be a hunter good,\nKnowing never lack of food;\nYou shall be a warrior great,\nWise as fox and strong as bear;\nMany scalps your belt shall wear,\nIf with patient heart you wait\nBravely till your task is done.\nBetter you should starving die\nThan that boy and squaw should cry\nShame upon your father's son!\"\n\nWhen next morn the sun's first rays\nGlistened on the hemlock sprays,\nStraight that lodge the old chief sought,\nAnd boiled sainp and moose meat brought.\n\"Rise and eat, my son!\" he said.\nLo, he found the poor boy dead!\n\nAs with grief his grave they made,\nAnd his bow beside him laid,\nPipe, and knife, and wampum-braid,\nOn the lodge-top overhead,\nPreening smooth its breast of red\nAnd the brown coat that it wore,\nSat a bird, unknown before.\nAnd as if with human tongue,\n\"Mourn me not,\" it said, or sung;\n\"I, a bird, am still your son,\nHappier than if hunter fleet,\nOr a brave, before your feet\nLaying scalps in battle won.\nFriend of man, my song shall cheer\nLodge and corn-land; hovering near,\nTo each wigwam I shall bring\nTidings of the corning spring;\nEvery child my voice shall know\nIn the moon of melting snow,\nWhen the maple's red bud swells,\nAnd the wind-flower lifts its bells.\nAs their fond companion\nMen shall henceforth own your son,\nAnd my song shall testify\nThat of human kin am I.\"\n\nThus the Indian legend saith\nHow, at first, the robin came\nWith a sweeter life from death,\nBird for boy, and still the same.\nIf my young friends doubt that this\nIs the robin's genesis,\nNot in vain is still the myth\nIf a truth be found therewith\nUnto gentleness belong\nGifts unknown to pride and wrong;\nHappier far than hate is praise,--\nHe who sings than he who slays.\n\n\n\n\nBANISHED FROM MASSACHUSETTS.\n\n1660.\n\nOn a painting by E. A. Abbey. The General Court of Massachusetts enacted\nOct. 19, 1658, that \"any person or persons of the cursed sect of\nQuakers\" should, on conviction of the same, be banished, on pain\nof death, from the jurisdiction of the common-wealth.\n\n\nOVER the threshold of his pleasant home\nSet in green clearings passed the exiled Friend,\nIn simple trust, misdoubting not the end.\n\"Dear heart of mine!\" he said, \"the time has come\nTo trust the Lord for shelter.\" One long gaze\nThe goodwife turned on each familiar thing,--\nThe lowing kine, the orchard blossoming,\nThe open door that showed the hearth-fire's blaze,--\nAnd calmly answered, \"Yes, He will provide.\"\nSilent and slow they crossed the homestead's bound,\nLingering the longest by their child's grave-mound.\n\"Move on, or stay and hang!\" the sheriff cried.\nThey left behind them more than home or land,\nAnd set sad faces to an alien strand.\n\nSafer with winds and waves than human wrath,\nWith ravening wolves than those whose zeal for God\nWas cruelty to man, the exiles trod\nDrear leagues of forest without guide or path,\nOr launching frail boats on the uncharted sea,\nRound storm-vexed capes, whose teeth of granite ground\nThe waves to foam, their perilous way they wound,\nEnduring all things so their souls were free.\nOh, true confessors, shaming them who did\nAnew the wrong their Pilgrim Fathers bore\nFor you the Mayflower spread her sail once more,\nFreighted with souls, to all that duty bid\nFaithful as they who sought an unknown land,\nO'er wintry seas, from Holland's Hook of Sand!\n\nSo from his lost home to the darkening main,\nBodeful of storm, stout Macy held his way,\nAnd, when the green shore blended with the gray,\nHis poor wife moaned: \"Let us turn back again.\"\n\"Nay, woman, weak of faith, kneel down,\" said he,\nAnd say thy prayers: the Lord himself will steer;\nAnd led by Him, nor man nor devils I fear!\nSo the gray Southwicks, from a rainy sea,\nSaw, far and faint, the loom of land, and gave\nWith feeble voices thanks for friendly ground\nWhereon to rest their weary feet, and found\nA peaceful death-bed and a quiet grave\nWhere, ocean-walled, and wiser than his age,\nThe lord of Shelter scorned the bigot's rage.\nAquidneck's isle, Nantucket's lonely shores,\nAnd Indian-haunted Narragansett saw\nThe way-worn travellers round their camp-fire draw,\nOr heard the plashing of their weary oars.\nAnd every place whereon they rested grew\nHappier for pure and gracious womanhood,\nAnd men whose names for stainless honor stood,\nFounders of States and rulers wise and true.\nThe Muse of history yet shall make amends\nTo those who freedom, peace, and justice taught,\nBeyond their dark age led the van of thought,\nAnd left unforfeited the name of Friends.\nO mother State, how foiled was thy design\nThe gain was theirs, the loss alone was thine.\n\n\n\n\nTHE BROWN DWARF OF RUGEN.\n\nThe hint of this ballad is found in Arndt's Miirchen, Berlin, 1816. The\nballad appeared first in St. Nicholas, whose young readers were advised,\nwhile smiling at the absurd superstition, to remember that bad\ncompanionship and evil habits, desires, and passions are more to be\ndreaded now than the Elves and Trolls who frightened the children of\npast ages.\n\n\nTHE pleasant isle of Rugen looks the Baltic water o'er,\nTo the silver-sanded beaches of the Pomeranian\nshore;\n\nAnd in the town of Rambin a little boy and maid\nPlucked the meadow-flowers together and in the\nsea-surf played.\n\nAlike were they in beauty if not in their degree\nHe was the Amptman's first-born, the miller's\nchild was she.\n\nNow of old the isle of Rugen was full of Dwarfs\nand Trolls,\nThe brown-faced little Earth-men, the people without\nsouls;\n\nAnd for every man and woman in Rugen's island\nfound\nWalking in air and sunshine, a Troll was\nunderground.\n\nIt chanced the little maiden, one morning, strolled\naway\nAmong the haunted Nine Hills, where the elves\nand goblins play.\n\nThat day, in barley-fields below, the harvesters had\nknown\nOf evil voices in the air, and heard the small horns\nblown.\n\nShe came not back; the search for her in field and\nwood was vain\nThey cried her east, they cried her west, but she\ncame not again.\n\n\"She's down among the Brown Dwarfs,\" said the\ndream-wives wise and old,\nAnd prayers were made, and masses said, and\nRambin's church bell tolled.\n\nFive years her father mourned her; and then John\nDeitrich said\n\"I will find my little playmate, be she alive or\ndead.\"\n\nHe watched among the Nine Hills, he heard the\nBrown Dwarfs sing,\nAnd saw them dance by moonlight merrily in a\nring.\n\nAnd when their gay-robed leader tossed up his cap\nof red,\nYoung Deitrich caught it as it fell, and thrust it\non his head.\n\nThe Troll came crouching at his feet and wept for\nlack of it.\n\"Oh, give me back my magic cap, for your great\nhead unfit!\"\n\n\"Nay,\" Deitrich said; \"the Dwarf who throws his\ncharmed cap away,\nMust serve its finder at his will, and for his folly\npay.\n\n\"You stole my pretty Lisbeth, and hid her in the\nearth;\nAnd you shall ope the door of glass and let me\nlead her forth.\"\n\n\"She will not come; she's one of us; she's\nmine!\" the Brown Dwarf said;\nThe day is set, the cake is baked, to-morrow we\nshall wed.\"\n\n\"The fell fiend fetch thee!\" Deitrich cried, \"and\nkeep thy foul tongue still.\nQuick! open, to thy evil world, the glass door of\nthe hill!\"\n\nThe Dwarf obeyed; and youth and Troll down, the\nlong stair-way passed,\nAnd saw in dim and sunless light a country strange\nand vast.\n\nWeird, rich, and wonderful, he saw the elfin\nunder-land,--\nIts palaces of precious stones, its streets of golden\nsand.\n\nHe came unto a banquet-hall with tables richly\nspread,\nWhere a young maiden served to him the red wine\nand the bread.\n\nHow fair she seemed among the Trolls so ugly and\nso wild!\nYet pale and very sorrowful, like one who never\nsmiled!\n\nHer low, sweet voice, her gold-brown hair, her tender\nblue eyes seemed\nLike something he had seen elsewhere or some.\nthing he had dreamed.\n\nHe looked; he clasped her in his arms; he knew\nthe long-lost one;\n\"O Lisbeth! See thy playmate--I am the\nAmptman's son!\"\n\nShe leaned her fair head on his breast, and through\nher sobs she spoke\n\"Oh, take me from this evil place, and from the\nelfin folk,\n\n\"And let me tread the grass-green fields and smell\nthe flowers again,\nAnd feel the soft wind on my cheek and hear the\ndropping rain!\n\n\"And oh, to hear the singing bird, the rustling of\nthe tree,\nThe lowing cows, the bleat of sheep, the voices of\nthe sea;\n\n\"And oh, upon my father's knee to sit beside the\ndoor,\nAnd hear the bell of vespers ring in Rambin\nchurch once more!\"\n\nHe kissed her cheek, he kissed her lips; the Brown\nDwarf groaned to see,\nAnd tore his tangled hair and ground his long\nteeth angrily.\n\nBut Deitrich said: \"For five long years this tender\nChristian maid\nHas served you in your evil world and well must\nshe be paid!\n\n\"Haste!--hither bring me precious gems, the\nrichest in your store;\nThen when we pass the gate of glass, you'll take\nyour cap once more.\"\n\nNo choice was left the baffled Troll, and, murmuring,\nhe obeyed,\nAnd filled the pockets of the youth and apron of\nthe maid.\n\nThey left the dreadful under-land and passed the\ngate of glass;\nThey felt the sunshine's warm caress, they trod the\nsoft, green grass.\n\nAnd when, beneath, they saw the Dwarf stretch up\nto them his brown\nAnd crooked claw-like fingers, they tossed his red\ncap down.\n\nOh, never shone so bright a sun, was never sky so\nblue,\nAs hand in hand they homeward walked the pleasant\nmeadows through!\n\nAnd never sang the birds so sweet in Rambin's\nwoods before,\nAnd never washed the waves so soft along the Baltic\nshore;\n\nAnd when beneath his door-yard trees the father\nmet his child,\nThe bells rung out their merriest peal, the folks\nwith joy ran wild.","title":"Bay of Seven Islands, and other poems: Part 7 From Volume I of The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":6715}