The Sun that brief December dayRose cheerless over hills of gray,And, darkly circled, gave at noonA sadder light than waning moon.Slow tracing down the thickening skyIts mute and ominous prophecy,A portent seeming less than threat,It sank from sight before it set.A chill no coat, however stout,Of homespun stuff could quite shut out.A hard, dull bitterness of cold,That checked, mid-vein, the circling raceOf life-blood in the sharpened face,The coming of the snow-storm told.The wind blew east; we heard the roarOf Ocean on his wintry shore,And felt the strong pulse throbbing thereBeat with low rhythm our inland air.
Meanwhile we did our nightly chores,--Brought in the wood from out of doors,Littered the stalls, and from the mowsRaked down the herd's-grass for the cows:Heard the horse whinnying for his corn;And, sharply clashing horn on horn,Impatient down the stanchion rowsThe cattle shake their walnut bows;While, peering from his early perchUpon the scaffold's pole of birch,The cock his crested helmet bentAnd down his querulous challenge sentUnwarmed by any sunset lightThe gray day darkened into night,A night made hoary with the swarmAnd whirl-dance of the blinding storm,As zigzag wavering to and froCrossed and recrossed the winged snow:And ere the early bedtime cameThe white drift piled the window-frame,And through the glass the clothes-line postsLooked in like tall and sheeted ghosts.So all night long the storm roared on:The morning broke without a sun;In tiny spherule traced with linesOf Nature's geometric signs,In starry flake and pellicleAll day the hoary meteor fell;And, when the second morning shone,We looked upon a world unknown,On nothing we could call our own.Around the glistening wonder bentThe blue walls of the firmament,No cloud above, no earth below,--A universe of sky and snow!The old familiar sights of oursTook marvelous shapes; strange domes and towersRose up where sty or corn-crib stood,Or garden-wall or belt of wood;A smooth white mound the brush-pile showed,A fenceless drift what once was road;The bridle-post an old man satWith loose-flung coat and high cocked hat;The well-curb had a Chinese roof;And even the long sweep, high aloof,In its slant splendor, seemed to tellOf Pisa's leaning miracle.
A prompt, decisive man, no breathOur father wasted: "Boys, a path!"Well pleased, (for when did farmer boyCount such a summons less than joy?)Our buskins on our feet we drew;With mittened hands, and caps drawn low,To guard our necks and ears from snow,We cut the solid whiteness through;And, where the drift was deepest, madeA tunnel walled and overlaidWith dazzling crystal: we had readOf rare Aladdin's wondrous cave,And to our own his name we gave,With many a wish the luck were oursTo test his lamp's supernal powers.We reached the barn with merry din,And roused the prisoned brutes within.The old horse thrust his long head out,And grave with wonder gazed about;The cock his lusty greeting said,And forth his speckled harem led;The oxen lashed their tails, and hooked,And mild reproach of hunger looked;The hornèd patriarch of the sheep,Like Egypt's Amun roused from sleep,Shook his sage head with gesture mute,And emphasized with stamp of foot.
All day the gusty north-wind boreThe loosened drift its breath before;Low circling round its southern zone,The sun through dazzling snow-mist shone.No church-bell lent its Christian toneTo the savage air, no social smokeCurled over woods of snow-hung oak.A solitude made more intenseBy dreary-voicèd elements,The shrieking of the mindless wind,The moaning tree-boughs swaying blind,And on the glass the unmeaning beatOf ghostly finger-tips of sleet.Beyond the circle of our hearthNo welcome sound of toil or mirthUnbound the spell, and testifiedOf human life and thought outside.We minded that the sharpest earThe buried brooklet could not hear,The music of whose liquid lipHad been to us companionship,And, in our lonely life, had grownTo have an almost human tone.
As night drew on, and, from the crestOf wooded knolls that ridged the west,The sun, a snow-blown traveler, sankFrom sight beneath the smothering bank,We piled with care our nightly stackOf wood against the chimney-back,--The oaken log, green, huge, and thick,And on its top the stout back-stick;The knotty forestick laid apart,And filled between with curious artThe ragged brush; then, hovering near,We watched the first red blaze appear,Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleamOn whitewashed wall and sagging beam,Until the old, rude-furnished roomBurst, flower-like, into rosy bloom;While radiant with a mimic flameOutside the sparkling drift becameAnd through the bare-boughed lilac-treeOur own warm hearth seemed blazing free.The crane and pendent trammels showed,The Turk's heads on the andirons glowed;While childish fancy, prompt to tellThe meaning of the miracle,Whispered the old rhyme:"Under the tree,When fire outdoors burns merrily,There the witches are making tea."
The moon above the eastern woodShone at its full; the hill-range stoodTransfigured in the silver flood,Its blown snows flashing cold and keen,Dead white, save where some sharp ravineTook shadow, or the sombre greenOf hemlocks turned to pitchy blackAgainst the whiteness of their back.For such a world and such a nightMost fitting that unwarming light,Which only seemed where'er it fellTo make the coldness visible.
Shut in from all the world without,We sat the clean-winged hearth about,Content to let the north-wind roarIn baffled rage at pane and door,While the red logs before us beatThe frost-line back with tropic heat;And ever, when a louder blastShook beam and rafter as it passed,The merrier up its roaring draughtThe great throat of the chimney laughed,The house-dog on his paws outspreadLaid to the fire his drowsy head,The cat's dark silhouette on the wallA couchant tiger's seemed to fall;And, for the winter fireside meet,Between the andirons' straddling feet,The mug of cider simmered slow,The apples sputtered in a row,And, close at hand, the basket stoodWith nuts from brown October's wood.
What matter how the night behaved?What matter how the north-wind raved?Blow high, blow low, not all its snowCould quench our hearth-fire's ruddy glow.O Time and Change!--with hair as grayAs was my sire's that winter day,How strange it seems, with so much goneOf life and love, to still live on!Ah, brother! only I and thouAre left of all that circle now,--The dear home faces whereuponThat fitful firelight paled and shone.Henceforward, listen as we will,The voices of that hearth are still;Look where we may, the wide earth o'er,Those lighted faces smile no more.We tread the paths their feet have worn,We sit beneath their orchard trees,We hear, like them, the hum of beesAnd rustle of the bladed corn;We turn the pages that they read,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 seesThe stars shine through his cypress-trees!Who, hopeless, lays his dead away,Nor looks to see the breaking dayAcross 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."Our father rode again his rideOn Memphremagog's wooded side;Sat down again to moose and sampIn trapper's hut and Indian camp;Lived o'er the old idyllic easeBeneath St. François' hemlock trees;Again for him the moonlight shoneOn Norman cap and bodiced zone;Again he heard the violin playWhich led the village dance away,And mingled in its merry whirlThe grandam and the laughing girl.Or, nearer home, our steps he ledWhere Salisbury's level marshes spreadMile-wide as flies the laden bee;Where merry mowers, hale and strong,Swept, scythe on scythe, their swaths alongThe low green prairies of the sea.We shared the fishing off Boar's Head,And round the rocky Isles of ShoalsThe 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 toldTo sleepy listeners as they layStretched idly on the salted hay,Adrift along the winding shores,When favoring breezes deigned to blowThe square sail of the gundalow,And idle lay the useless oars.Our mother, while she turned her wheelOr run the new-knit stocking-heel,Told how the Indian hordes came downAt midnight on Cochecho town,And how her own great-uncle boreHis cruel scalp-mark to fourscore.Recalling, in her fitting phrase,So rich and picturesque and free(The common unrhymed poetryOf 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 lookAt the gray wizard's conjuring-book,The fame whereof went far and wideThrough 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, knewWhat flowers in wood and meadow grew,What sunny hillsides autumn-brownShe climbed to shake the ripe nuts down,Saw where in sheltered cove and bayThe ducks' black squadron anchored lay,And heard the wild geese calling loudBeneath the gray November cloud.Then, haply, with a look more grave,And soberer tone, some tale she gaveFrom painful Sewel's ancient tome,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 pursuedHis portly presence, mad for food,With dark hints muttered under breathOf casting lots for life or death,Offered, if Heaven withheld supplies,To be himself the sacrifice.Then, suddenly, as if to saveThe 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 sentBy Him who gave the tangled ramTo spare the child of Abraham."
Our uncle, innocent of books,Was rich in lore of fields and brooks,The ancient teachers never dumbOf 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 keysTo all the woodcraft mysteries;Himself to Nature's heart so nearThat all her voices in his earOf beast or bird had meanings clear,Like Apollonius of old,Who knew the tales the sparrows told,Or Hermes, who interpretedWhat the sage cranes of Nilus said;A simple, guileless, childlike man,Content to live where life began;Strong only on his native grounds,The little world of sights and soundsWhose girdle was the parish bounds,Whereof his fondly partial prideThe common features magnified,As Surrey hills to mountains grewIn White of Selborne's loving view,--He told how teal and loon he shot,And how the eagle's eggs he got,The feats on pond and river done,The prodigies of rod and gun;Till, warming with the tales he told,Forgotten was the outside cold,The bitter wind unheeded blew,From ripening corn the pigeons flew,The partridge drummed i' the wood, the minkWent fishing down the river-brink.In fields with bean or clover gay,The woodchuck, like a hermit gray,Peered from the doorway of his cell;The muskrat plied the mason's trade,And tier by tier his mud-walls laid;And from the shagbark overheadThe grizzled squirrel dropped his shell.
Next, the dear aunt, whose smile of cheerAnd voice in dreams I see and hear,--The sweetest woman ever FatePerverse denied a household mate,Who, lonely, homeless, not the lessFound peace in love's unselfishness,And welcome whereso'er she went,A calm and gracious element,Whose presence seemed the sweet incomeAnd womanly atmosphere of home,--Called up her girlhood memories,The huskings and the apple-bees,The sleigh-rides and the summer sails,Weaving through all the poor detailsAnd homespun warp of circumstanceA golden woof-thread of romance.For well she kept her genial moodAnd simple faith of maidenhood;Before her still a cloud-land lay,The mirage loomed across her way;The morning dew, that dried so soonWith others, glistened at her noon;Through years of toil and soil and care,From glossy tress to thin gray hair,All unprofaned she held apartThe virgin fancies of the heart.Be shame to him of woman bornWho had for such but thought of scorn.
There, too, our elder sister pliedHer evening task the stand beside;A full, rich nature, free to trust,Truthful and almost sternly just,Impulsive, earnest, prompt to act,And make her generous thought a fact,Keeping with many a light disguiseThe secret of self-sacrifice.O heart sore-tried! thou hast the bestThat Heaven itself could give thee,--rest,Rest from all bitter thoughts and things!How many a poor one's blessing wentWith thee beneath the low green tentWhose curtain never outward swings!
As one who held herself a partOf all she saw, and let her heartAgainst the household bosom lean,Upon the motley-braided matOur youngest and our dearest sat,Lifting her large, sweet, asking eyes,Now bathed within the fadeless greenAnd holy peace of Paradise.Oh, looking from some heavenly hill,Or from the shade of saintly palms,Or silver reach of river calms,Do those large eyes behold me still?With me one little year ago:--The chill weight of the winter snowFor months upon her grave has lain;And now, when summer south-winds blowAnd brier and harebell bloom again,I tread the pleasant paths we trod,I see the violet-sprinkled sod,Whereon she leaned, too frail and weakThe hillside flowers she loved to seek,Yet following me where'er I wentWith dark eyes full of love's content.The birds are glad; the brier-rose fillsThe air with sweetness; all the hillsStretch green to June's unclouded sky;But still I wait with ear and eyeFor something gone which should be nigh,A loss in all familiar things,In flower that blooms, and bird that sings.And yet, dear heart! remembering thee,Am I not richer than of old?Safe in thy immortality,What change can reach the wealth I hold?What chance can mar the pearl and goldThy love hath left in trust with me?And while in life's late afternoon,Where cool and long the shadows grow,I walk to meet the night that soonShall shape and shadow overflow,I cannot feel that thou art far,Since near at need the angels are;And when the sunset gates unbar,Shall I not see thee waiting stand,And, white against the evening star,The welcome of thy beckoning hand?
Brisk wielder of the birch and rule,The master of the district schoolHeld at the fire his favored place;Its warm glow lit a laughing faceFresh-hued and fair, where scarce appearedThe uncertain prophecy of beard.He teased the mitten-blinded cat,Played cross-pins on my uncle's hat,Sang songs, and told us what befallsIn classic Dartmouth's college halls.Born the wild Northern hills among,From whence his yeoman father wrungBy patient toil subsistence scant,Not competence and yet not want,He early gained the power to payHis cheerful, self-reliant way;Could doff at ease his scholar's gownTo peddle wares from town to town;Or through the long vacation's reachIn lonely lowland districts teach,Where all the droll experience foundAt stranger hearths in boarding round,The moonlit skater's keen delight,The sleigh-drive through the frosty night,The rustic party, with its roughAccompaniment of blind-man's-buff,And whirling plate, and forfeits paid,His winter task a pastime made.Happy the snow-locked homes whereinHe tuned his merry violin,Or played the athlete in the barn,Or held the good dame's winding yarn,Of mirth-provoking versions toldOf classic legends rare and old,Wherein the scenes of Greece and RomeHad all the commonplace of home,And little seemed at best the odds'Twixt Yankee peddlers and old gods;Where Pindus-born Arachthus tookThe guise of any grist-mill brook,And dread Olympus at his willBecame a huckleberry hill.A careless boy that night he seemed;But at his desk he had the lookAnd air of one who wisely schemed,And hostage from the future tookIn trainèd thought and lore of book.Another guest that winter nightFlashed back from lustrous eyes the light.Unmarked by time, and yet not young,The honeyed music of her tongueAnd words of meekness scarcely toldA nature passionate and bold,Strong, self-concentred, spurning guide,Its milder features dwarfed besideHer unbent will's majestic pride.She sat among us, at the best,A not unfeared, half-welcome guest,Rebuking with her cultured phraseOur homeliness of words and ways.A certain pard-like, treacherous graceSwayed the lithe limbs and dropped the lash,Lent the white teeth their dazzling flash;And under low brows, black with night,Rayed out at times a dangerous light;The sharp heat-lightnings of her facePresaging ill to him whom FateCondemned to share her love or hate.A woman tropical, intenseIn thought and act, in soul and sense,She blended in a like degreeThe vixen and the devotee,Revealing with each freak or feintThe temper of Petruchio's Kate,The raptures of Siena's saint.Her tapering hand and rounded wristHad facile power to form a fist;The warm, dark languish of her eyesWas never safe from wrath's surprise.Brows saintly calm and lips devoutKnew every change of scowl and pout;And the sweet voice had notes more highAnd shrill for social battle-cry.Since then what old cathedral townHas missed her pilgrim staff and gown,What convent-gate has held its lockAgainst the challenge of her knock!Through Smyrna's plague-hushed thoroughfares,Up sea-set Malta's rocky stairs,Gray olive slopes of hills that hemThy tombs and shrines, Jerusalem,Or startling on her desert throneThe crazy Queen of LebanonWith claims fantastic as her own,Her tireless feet have held their way;And still, unrestful, bowed and gray,She watches under Eastern skies,With hope each day renewed and fresh,The Lord's quick coming in the flesh,Whereof she dreams and prophesies!Where'er her troubled path may be,The Lord's sweet pity with her go!The outward wayward life we see,The hidden springs we may not know.Nor is it given us to discernWhat threads the fatal sisters spun,Through what ancestral years has runThe sorrow with the woman born,What forged her cruel chain of moods,What set her feet in solitudes,And held the love within her mute,What mingled madness in the blood,A lifelong discord and annoy,Water of tears with oil of joy,And hid within the folded budPerversities of flower and fruit.It is not ours to separateThe tangled skein of will and fate,To show what metes and bounds should standUpon the soul's debatable land,And between choice and ProvidenceDivide the circle of events;But He who knows our frame is just,Merciful and compassionate,And full of sweet assurancesAnd hope for all the language is,That He remembereth we are dust!
At last the great logs, crumbling low,Sent out a dull and duller glow,The bull's-eye watch, that hung in view,Ticking its weary circuit through,Pointed with mutely-warning signIts black hand to the hour of nine.That sign the pleasant circle broke:My uncle ceased his pipe to smoke,Knocked from its bowl the refuse gray,And laid it tenderly away,Then roused himself to safely coverThe dull red brand with ashes over.And while, with care, our mother laidThe work aside, her steps she stayedOne moment, seeking to expressHer grateful sense of happinessFor food and shelter, warmth and health,And love's contentment more than wealth,With simple wishes (not the weak,Vain prayers which no fulfilment seek,But such as warm the generous heart,O'er-prompt to do with Heaven its part)That none might lack, that bitter night,For bread and clothing, warmth and light.
Within our beds awhile we heardThe wind that round the gables roared,With now and then a ruder shock,Which made our very bedsteads rock.We heard the loosened clapboards tost,The board-nails snapping in the frost;And on us, through the unplastered wall,Felt the lightsifted snow-flakes fall;But sleep stole on, as sleep will doWhen hearts are light and life is new;Faint and more faint the murmurs grew,Till in the summer-land of dreamsThey softened to the sound of streams,Low stir of leaves, and dip of oars,And lapsing waves on quiet shores.
Next morn we wakened with the shoutOf merry voices high and clear;And saw the teamsters drawing nearTo break the drifted highways out.Down the long hillside treading slowWe saw the half-buried oxen go,Shaking the snow from heads uptost,Their straining nostrils white with frost.Before our door the straggling trainDrew up, an added team to gain.The elders threshed their hands a-cold,Passed, with the cider-mug, their jokesFrom lip to lip; the younger folksDown the loose snow-banks, wrestling, rolled,Then toiled again the cavalcadeO'er windy hill, through clogged ravine,And woodland paths that wound betweenLow drooping-pine-boughs winter-weighed.From every barn a team afoot,At every house a new recruit,Where, drawn by Nature's subtlest law,Haply the watchful young men sawSweet doorway pictures of the curlsAnd curious eyes of merry girls,Lifting their hands in mock defenseAgainst the snow-balls' compliments,And reading in each missive tostThe charm which Eden never lost.We heard once more the sleigh-bells' sound;And, following where the teamsters led,The wise old Doctor went his round,Just pausing at our door to say,In the brief autocratic wayOf one who, prompt at Duty's call,Was free to urge her claim on all,That some poor neighbor sick abedAt night our mother's aid would need.For, one in generous thought and deed,What mattered in the sufferer's sightThe Quaker matron's inward light,The Doctor's mail of Calvin's creed?All hearts confess the saints electWho, twain, in faith, in love agree,And melt not in an acid sectThe Christian pearl of charity!So days went on: a week had passedSince the great world was heard from last.The Almanac we studied o'er,Read and reread our little storeOf books and pamphlets, scarce a score;One harmless novel, mostly hidFrom younger eyes, a book forbid,And poetry, (or good or bad,A single book was all we had,)Where Ellwood's meek, drab-skirted Muse,A stranger to the heathen Nine,Sang, with a somewhat nasal whine,The wars of David and the Jews.At last the floundering carrier boreThe village paper to our door.Lo! broadening outward as we read,To warmer zones the horizon spread;In panoramic length unrolledWe saw the marvel that it told.Before us passed the painted Creeks,And daft McGregor on his raidsIn Costa Rica's everglades.And up Taygetus winding slowRode Ypsilanti's Mainote Greeks,A Turk's head at each saddle bow!Welcome to us its week-old news,Its corner for the rustic Muse,Its monthly gauge of snow and rain,Its record, mingling in a breathThe wedding bell and dirge of death;Jest, anecdote, and love-lorn tale,The latest culprit sent to jail;Its hue and cry of stolen and lost,Its vendue sales and goods at cost,And traffic calling loud for gain.We felt the stir of hall and street,The pulse of life that round us beat;The chill embargo of the snowWas melted in the genial glow;Wide swung again our ice-locked door,And all the world was ours once more!
Clasp, Angel of the backward lookAnd folded wings of ashen grayAnd voice of echoes far away,The brazen covers of thy book;The weird palimpsest old and vast,Wherein thou hid'st the spectral past;Where, closely mingling, pale and glowThe characters of joy and woe;The monographs of outlived years,Or smile-illumined or dim with tears,Green hills of life that slope to death,And haunts of home, whose vistaed treesShade off to mournful cypressesWith the white amaranths underneath.Even while I look, I can but heedThe restless sands' incessant fall,Importunate hours that hours succeed,Each clamorous with its own sharp need,And duty keeping pace with all.Shut down and clasp the heavy lids;I hear again the voice that bidsThe dreamer leave his dream midwayFor larger hopes and graver fears:Life greatens in these later years,The century's aloe flowers today!
Yet, haply, in some lull of life,Some Truce of God which breaks its strife,The worldling's eyes shall gather dew,Dreaming in throngful city waysOf winter joys his boyhood knew;And dear and early friends--the fewWho yet remain--shall pause to viewThese Flemish pictures of old days;Sit with me by the homestead hearth,And stretch the hands of memory forthTo warm them at the wood-fire's blaze!And thanks untraced to lips unknownShall greet me like the odors blownFrom unseen meadows newly mown,Or lilies floating in some pond,Wood-fringed, the wayside gaze beyond;The traveler owns the grateful senseOf sweetness near, he knows not whence,And, pausing, takes with forehead bareThe benediction of the air.
HELPS TO STUDY.
Notes and Questions.
What does "snow-bound" mean?
Find a line in the poem which explains the title.
Where is the scene of the poem laid? Find lines in the poem that tell you this.
Of whom did the circle gathered around the fire consist?
What members of the family are not described in the poem? Why?
Which one of the group can you see most plainly? Why?
Select the lines which please you most in the description of each.
Read four lines which show that the evening's pleasure was not disturbed by the storm.
In what respects does the room described differ from one in your home?
How long was the family "snow-bound"?
Of what did their library consist?
What does Whittier tell us about the brook?
What other poem have you read which describes a brook in Winter? By whom was it written?
What messenger put the household again in touch with the outside world? What did he bring?
Explain, what Whittier means by saying the family looked on nothing they could call their own after the heavy snow?
What is the meaning of the reference to "Pisa's leaning miracle"?
Who was Aladdin?
What were his "lamp's supernal powers"?
What effect did the moonlight have upon the night?
Of what are cypress trees a symbol?
What do the stars shining through the cypress trees symbolize?
What is the voice which Whittier says bids the dreamer leave his dream!
What lines do you think best show the poet's appreciation of beauty in nature?
Choose the lines which you like best as showing his deep affections.
Read lines which show his faith.
Of what is the poet thinking when he speaks of the "restless sands' incessant fall"?
To what mythological characters does he refer when he speaks of the "threads the fatal sisters spun"?
What mythological characters are meant by "the heathen Nine"?
Words and Phrases for Discussion.
"Apollonius""Hermes""Egypt's Amun""Surrey hills""silhouette""White of Selborne""clean-winged hearth.""Petruchio'a Kate""Siena's saint""cranes of Nilua"
THE SHIP-BUILDERS
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER
The sky is ruddy in the east,The earth is gray below,And, spectral in the river-mist,The ship's white timbers show.Then let the sounds of measured strokeAnd grating saw begin;The broad-axe to the gnarled oak,The mallet to the pin!
Hark!--roars the bellows, blast on blast,The sooty smithy jars,And fire-sparks, rising far and fast,Are fading with the stars.All day for us the smith shall standBeside that flashing forge;All day for us his heavy handThe groaning anvil scourge.
From far-off hills, the panting teamFor us is toiling near;For us the raftsmen down the streamTheir island barges steer.Rings out for us the axe-man's strokeIn forests old and still,--For us the century-circled oakFalls crashing down his hill.
Up!--up!--in nobler toil than oursNo craftsmen bear a part:We make of Nature's giant powersThe slaves of human Art.Lay rib to rib and beam to beam,And drive the treenails free;Nor faithless joint nor yawning seamShall tempt the searching sea!
Where'er the keel of our good shipThe sea's rough field shall plough,--Where'er her tossing spars shall dripWith salt-spray caught below--That ship must heed her master's beck,Her helm obey his hand,And seamen tread her reeling deckAs if they trod the land.
Her oaken ribs the vulture-beakOf Northern ice may peel;The sunken rock and coral peakMay grate along her keel;And know we well the painted shellWe give to wind and wave,Must float, the sailor's citadel,Or-sink, the sailor's grave!
Ho!--strike away the bars and blocks,And set the good ship free!Why lingers on these dusty rocksThe young bride of the sea?Look! how she moves adown the grooves,In graceful beauty now!How lowly on the breast she lovesSinks down her virgin prow!
God bless her! wheresoe'er the breezeHer snowy wing shall fan,Aside the frozen Hebrides,Or sultry Hindostan!Where'er, in mart or on the main,With peaceful flag unfurled,She helps to wind the silken chainOf commerce round the world!
Be hers the Prairie's golden grain,The Desert's golden sand,The clustered fruits of sunny Spain,The spice of Morning-land!Her pathway on the open mainMay blessings follow free,And glad hearts--welcome back againHer white sails from the sea!
HELPS TO STUDY.
Notes and Questions.
What time of day is indicated in the first and second stanzas?
What tells you this?
How does the smith "scourge" the anvil?
What effect does the poet fancy this has upon the anvil?
Which of these two thoughts do you suppose first occurred to the poet?
What are the "island barges"?
What is a "century-circled oak"? Did you ever see one?
What is Whittier's idea of a shipbuilder's work?
In what way would a "yawning seam" tempt the sea?
What is the "painted shell"?
How is a ship launched?
What other poem have you read which describes the launching of a ship? Who wrote it?
Which poem do you like better? Why?
Words and Phrases for Discussion.
"gnarled oak""faithless joint""coral peak""the sailor's citadel""snowy wing""Desert's golden sand""spice of Morningland"
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES
Oliver Wendell Holmes's birth year, 1809, was made memorable on both sides of the Atlantic by the births of Lincoln, Tennyson, Poe, and Gladstone. His father, of colonial descent, was a Congregational minister at Cambridge. On his mother's side--the Wendells or Vondels--he was of Dutch descent.
Holmes was brought up very simply in the old gambrel-roofed house, half parsonage and half farm house. He read the "New England Primer," "Pilgrim's Progress" and such poems as were to be found in the early school books. Later he was a student at Harvard, a member of the class of 1829, which, while not to be compared for literary genius with the Bowdoin class of 1825, was one of Harvard's most famous classes. Not long after his graduation, the class of 1829 began to held annual dinners and Holmes was regularly called upon to furnish an ode for the occasion. It was on the thirtieth anniversary that he wrote and recited "The Boys." In 1889, at the sixtieth anniversary, he wrote the last class poem, "After the Curfew."
It was in the first year after his graduation that his verses went into type and then he says he had his first attack of "lead poisoning." After leaving Harvard he studied law for a while and then turned to medicine and surgery, spending two years in study in Paris. It is a singular coincidence and shows his double work in life, that in 1836 when he published his first volume of poems he also took his degree as doctor of medicine. As a physician he was always deeply interested in the problems of heredity and he wrote several novels in which inherited characteristics play an important part.
It was in September, 1830, that Holmes chanced to read in a newspaper of the proposal of the Navy Department to dismantle the frigate Constitution, which had done such good service in 1812 but which was then lying, old and unseaworthy, in the navy yard at Charleston. He wrote at once with a lead pencil on a scrap of paper the stirring verses "Old Ironsides" and sent them to the Boston Daily Advertiser, from which they were copied in all the papers of the country. The frigate was converted into a school-ship, and Oliver Wendell Holmes became known as a poet.
On every public occasion which could be enlivened or dignified by a special poem, Dr. Holmes was called upon. Such a position is a trying one and one to which only men with a sense of humor are often called. The doctor rarely refused to respond; so that nearly one-half of his verse is of this occasional character. Much of his verse is in lighter vein, but of the serious, surest in their hold upon his readers are "The Last Leaf" and "The Chambered Nautilus." But Holmes, while he had a genuine gift of song, was no persistent singer like Longfellow or Whittier, and so he reached almost the age of fifty without feeling that the reading public had any special interest in him. Then in 1857, when the Atlantic Monthly was established, and Lowell took the editorship only on condition that Holmes would be a contributor, he wrote the "Autocrat of the Breakfast Table." In this role of talker, comfortable, brilliant, and witty, Holmes made friends wherever the Autocrat was read.
Holmes's intellect remained bright and he continued an active worker into extreme old age. In 1890 he published his last volume, "Over the Teacups." As one by one this brilliant company of New England writers left the world, Holmes sang to each a farewell song. When his own time came he was really "The Last Leaf upon the Tree." The end came peacefully as he was talking to his son, October 7, 1894.
THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES
This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,Sails the unshadowed main--The venturous bark that flingsOn the sweet summer wind its purpled wings,In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,And coral reefs lie bare,Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.
Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;Wrecked is the ship of pearl!And every chambered cell,Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,Before thee lies revealed--Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!
Year after year beheld the silent toilThat spread his lustrous coil;Still, as the spiral grew,He left the past year's dwelling for the new,Stole with soft step its shining archway through,Built up its idle door,Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.
Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,Child of the wandering sea,Cast from her lap, forlorn!Prom thy dead lips a clearer note is bornThan ever Triton blew from wreathed horn!While on mine ear it rings,Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:
Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,As the swift seasons roll!Leave thy low-vaulted past!Let each new temple, nobler than the last,Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,Till thou at length art free,Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!
HELPS TO STUDY.
Notes and Questions.
What does the word nautilus mean?
What thought must have been in the mind of those who gave the chambered nautilus this name?
Who does Holmes tell us have given expression to this fancy?
Can you think of any bodies of water which might be called "enchanted gulfs"?
Give reasons for your answer.
What are coral reefs? Where are they found?
What kind of beings--were "sea-maids" supposed to be?
What are they more commonly called?
To whom is the poet speaking?
What name do we give to such a speech?
How does the soul build mansions?
In what directions must a dome be extended to make it "more vast"?
What does the poet mean by the "outgrown shell" of the soul?
What is the lesson of the poem?
Which stanza do you like best? Why?
Words and Phrases for Discussion.
"Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl""dim dreaming life""sunless crypt""caves of thought""lustrous coil""cast from her lap forlorn""low-vaulted past""irised ceiling""life's unresting sea"
THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE: OR THE WONDERFUL "ONE-HOSS SHAY"
A LOGICAL STORY
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES