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LOCAL AND NATIONAL POETS OF AMERICA.

JOHN G. WHITTIER.

BORN: HAVERHILL, MASS., DEC. 17, 1807. THE boyhood days of John Greenleaf Whittier was spent on a farm, where he worked in the summer, and in winter he assisted his father, who was a shoemaker. His family were members of the Society of Friends, and for that reason the poet is usually spoken of as the ..Quaker poet." Mr. Whittier received only a

And, more to her than gold or grain,
The cunning hand and cultured brain.
For still in mutual sufferance lies
The secret of true living;
Love scarce is love that never knows
The sweetness of forgiving.

We shape ourselves the joy or fear
Of which the coming life is made,
And fill our future atmosphere
With sunshine or with shade.

[graphic]

The tissues of life to be

We weave with colors all our own,

And in the field of destiny

We reap as we have sown.

Dream not helm and harness

The sign of valor true:

Peace hath higher tests of manhood

Than battle ever knew.

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. common school education: yet, on becoming of age, he assumed the editorship of a paper, and has ever since devoted himself to literature. Although he has written both prose and poetry, he is chiefly distinguished as a poet, borrowing his inspiration largely from current events. The best poems of Mr. Whittier are: Maud Muller, My Psalm, My Playmate, Snow Bound and Centennial Hymn. His principal prose works are Old Portraits and Modern Sketches, and Literary Recreations. In the poems of Whittier we find masculine vigor combined with womanly tenderness; a fierce hatred of wrong, with an all-embracing charity and love. He is unmarried, and has resided at Amesbury, Massachusetts, since 1840.

EXTRACTS.

The riches of a commonwealth

Are free, strong minds and hearts of health,

SKIPPER IRESON'S RIDE.
EXTRACTS.

Small pity for him!-He sailed away
From a leaking ship, in Chaleur Bay,-
Sailed away from a sinking wreck,

With his own towns-people on her deck!
"Lay by lay by!" they called to him.
Back he answered, "Sink or swim!

Brag of your catch of fish again!"

And off he sailed through the fog and rain!

Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,
Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart
By the women of Marblehead!

Through the street, on either side,
Up flew windows, doors swung wide;
Sharp tongued spinsters, old wives gray,
Treble lent the fish-horn's bray.
Sea-worn grandsires, cripple-bound,
Hulks of old sailors run aground,
Shook head, and fist, and hat, and cane,
And cracked with curses the hoarse refrain:
Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt,
Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt
By the women o' Morble'ead!"

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Then the wife of the skipper lost at sea
Said, "God has touched him!-why should we?"
Said an old wife mourning her only son,
..Cut the rogues tether and let him run!"
So with soft relentings and rude excuse,
Half scorn, half pity, they cut him loose.
And gave him a cloak to hide him in,
And left him alone with his shame and sin.
Poor Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,
Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart
By the women of Marblehead?

Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel pond; Mine the walnut slopes beyond;

THE BAREFOOT BOY.
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.
Blessings on thee, little man,
Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan;
With thy turned-up pantaloons,
And thy merry whistled tunes;
With thy red lip, redder still
Kissed by strawberries on the hill;
With the sunshine on thy face
Through thy torn brim's jaunty grace!
From my heart I give thee joy:

I was once a barefoot boy.

Prince thou art: the grown-up man
Only is republican..

Let the million-dollared ride:
Barefoot, trudging at his side,
Thou hast more than he can buy
In the reach of ear and eye-
Outward sunshine, inward joy.
Blessings on thee, barefoot boy!
Oh for boyhood's painless play,
Sleep that wakes in laughing day,
Health that mocks the doctor's rules,
Knowledge never learned of schools,-
Of the wild bee's morning chase;
Of the wild-flower's time and place:
Flight of fowl, and habitude
Of the tenants of the wood;
How the tortoise bears his shell;
How the woodchuck digs his cell;
And the ground-mole sinks his well;
How the robin feeds her young;
How the oriole's nest is hung;
Where the whitest lillies blow;
Where the freshest berries grow;
Where the groundnut trails its vine;
Where the wood-grape's clusters shine;

Of the black wasp's cunning way,
Mason of his walls of clay;
And the architectural plans
Of gray hornet-artisans!
For, eschewing books and tasks,
Nature answers all he asks.
Hand in hand with her he walks,
Face to face with her he talks,
Part and parcel of her joy:
Blessing on the barefoot boy!
Oh for boyhood's time of June,
Crowding years in one brief moon
When all things I heard or saw,
Me, their master, waited for!
I was rich in flowers or trees,
Humming-birds and honey-bees;
For my sport the squirrel played,
Plied the snouted mole his spade;
For my taste the blackberry-cone
Purpled over hedge and stone;.
Laughed the brook for my delight
Through the day and through the night,
Whispering at the garden-wall,
Talked to me from fall to fall;

Mine, on bending orchard trees,
Apples of Hesperides!
Still, as my horizon grew,
Larger grew my riches too:
All the world I saw or knew
Seemed a complex Chinese toy,
Fashioned for a barefoot boy.
Oh for festal dainties spread,
Like my bowl of milk and bread
(Pewter spoon and bowl of wood)
On the doorstone gray and rude!
O'er me, like a regal tent,
Cloudy-ribbed, the sunset bent,
Purple-curtained, fringed with gold,
Looped in many a wind-swung fold;
While for music came the play

Of the pied frogs' orchestra,
And to light the noisy choir
Lit the fly his lamp of fire.
I was monarch: pomp and joy
Waited on the barefoot boy.
Cheerily, then, my little man,
Live and laugh, as boyhood can.
Though the flinty slopes be hard,
Stubble-speared the new-mown sward,
Every morn shall lead thee through

Fresh baptisms of the dew;

Every evening, from thy feet
Shall the cool wind kiss the heat;

All too soon these feet must hide
In the prison-cells of pride;
Lose the freedom of the sod;
Like a colt's, for work be shod;
Made to tread the mills of toil,
Up and down in ceaseless moil,
Happy if their track be found
Never on forbidden ground;
Happy if they sink not in

Quick and treacherous sands of sin.
Ah that thou couldst know thy joy
Ere it passes, barefoot boy!

MAUD MULLER.

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

Maud Muller, on a summer's day
Raked the meadow sweet with hay.
Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth
Of simple beauty and rustic health.
Singing, she wrought, and her merry glee
The mock-bird echoed from his tree.

But, when she glanced to the far off town,
White from its hill-slope looking down,
The sweet song died, and a vague unrest
And a nameless longing filled her breast,-
A wish, that she hardly dared to own,
For something better than she had known.

The Judge rode slowly down the lane,
Smoothing his horse's chestnut mane.

He drew his bridle in the shade

Of the apple-trees, to greet the maid,

And ask a draft from the spring that flowed
Through the meadow, across the road.

She stopped where the cool spring bubbled up,
And filled for him her small tin cup,
And blushed as she gave it, looking down
On her feet so bare, and tattered gown.
..Thanks!" said the Judge, "a sweeter draught
From a fairer hand was never quaffed."
He spoke of the grass and flowers and trees,
Of the singing birds and the humming bees;
Then talked of haying, and wondered whether
The cloud in the west would bring foul weather.
And Maud forgot her brier-torn gown,
And her graceful ankles, bare and brown,
And listened, while a pleased surprise
Looked from her long-lashed hazel eyes.
At last, like one who for delay
Seeks a vain excuse, he rode away.
Maud Muller looked and sighed: "Ah me!
That I the Judge's bride might be!
"He would dress me up in silks so fine,
And praise and toast me at his wine.

My father should wear a broadcloth coat,
My brother should sail a painted boat.
..I'd dress my mother so grand and gay,
And the baby should have a new toy each day.
"And I'd feed the hungry and clothe the poor
And all should bless me who left our door."
The Judge looked back as he climbed the hill,
And saw Maud Muller standing still:

"A form more fair, a face more sweet, Ne'er hath it been my lot to meet.

"And her modest answer and graceful air Show her wise and good as she is fair.

"Would she were mine, and I to-day, Like her a harvester of hay.

"No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs,
Nor weary lawyers with endless tongues,
"But low of cattle, and song of birds
And health, and quiet, and loving words."
But he thought of his sister, proud and cold,
And his mother, vain of her rank and gold.

So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on,
And Maud was left in the field alone.

But the lawyers smiled that afternoon,

When he hummed in court an old love tune;

And the young girl mused beside the well,
Till the rain on the unraked clover fell.

He wedded a wife of richest dower,
Who lived for fashion as he for power.

Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow,
He watched a picture come and go;
And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes
Looked out in their innocent surprise.
Oft, when the wine in his glass was red,
He longed for the wayside well instead,
And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms,
To dream of meadows and clover blooms:
And the proud man sighed with a secret pain,
"Ah, that I were free again!

Free as when I rode that day
Where the barefoot maiden raked the hay."
She wedded a man unlearned and poor,
And many children played round her door.
But care and sorrow and child-birth pain,
Left their traces on heart and brain.

And oft, when the summer sun shone hot
On the new-mown hay on the meadow lot,
And she heard the little spring brook fall
Over the roadside, through the wall,

In the shade of the apple-tree again
She saw a rider draw his rein,

And, gazing down with a timid grace,
She felt his pleased eyes read her face.
Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls
Stretched away into stately halls;
The weary wheel to a spinnet turned,
The tallow-candle an astral burned;
And for him who sat by the chimmey lug,
Dozing and grumbling o'er pipe and mug,

A manly form at her side she saw,
And joy was duty and love was law.
Then she took up her burden of life again,
Saying only, It might have been."
Alas for maiden, alas for judge,
For rich repiner and household drudge!
God pity them both! and pity us all,
Who vainly the dreams of youth recall;
For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: "It might have been!"

Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies
Deeply buried from human eyes;
And, in the hereafter, angels may
Roll the stone from its grave away!

WILL HARBERT OGBORN.

BORN: HENDERSON, ILL., MAY 15, 1854. WHEN but a year old his parents removed to Iowa, where he now resides in Oscaloosa. Commencing to write at the age of sixteen, he continued to contribute poems to various local papers from time to time as leisure would per

WILL HARBERT OGBORN. mit. Later on he contributed to Gems of Poetry, a New York Magazine, the best one of which, entitled Betrayed, won for him a prize. After leaving the farm. Mr. Ogborn became a school teacher, a profession which through the great misfortune of his loss of hearing, he had to abandon. His best poems have appeared in the Chicago Inter-Ocean, Current, and other leading periodicals. In person, Mr. Ogborn weighs 160 pounds, is very tall, and has dark hair and blue eyes.

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And a blackness no night can feel; [shreined, There's a jewel unmined, in each heart enThat only God's hand can reveal. There's a language by words never spoken, There's a silence no clangor can break; [est, There are storms beyond earth's wildest tempAnd a calm that no terror can shake; There's a thirst for a stream, in each deep human dream,

That only God's hand can slake.

Oh! what this mysterious problem,

Beyond the solution of man,

For which he hath ever been striving,

Since time and creation began?

[graphic]

[breast,

'Tis the deep unexpressed, in each human Of God's inscrutable plan.

So, then, in man's ever unfinished,

But ever perfectible dream,

Lies proof of his infinite nature,

A ray from the Eternal Beam;

And in death there's an hour, when this earth

prisoned power,

God's merciful hand will redeem.

AMOROSO.

For many a day, in liveries gay
And bright, lithe messengers,
In rapid transit, swept the way,

Wherein the soft wind stirs,

And tills the nodding daisy, or in tone,

Low whispered, seeks the violet found alone.

And every where the lambent air

Rang hills and valleys o'er,

Of some sweet queen, surpassing fair,
To reign the earth once more;-
The maiden Queen was coming of the year,
And winter must be warned, for Spring was

near.

"Ah!" so they said, with shaggy head,
King Winter thus replied:
"I'll longer keep my throne instead;-
Queen Spring shall be my bride;"
And so he laid his head within her lap,
While she caressed him to a drowsy nap.

He tarried on, nor would be gone
For many and many a day;
And oft his frosty breath, at dawn,

On Spring's green mantel lay;

And when at last he would have gone, 'tis told, Spring sighed and he returned; ah, maiden bold.

And then she drew from skies so blue,

And golden, vernal sun,

A life and warmth as if 'twere true
The Summer had begun;

And though King Winter, yet with frosty

night,

Still lingered, Summer's roses drew in sight.

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OLD TIME HAUNTS.

How oft do we tread some old time haunt,
Whose memory is ever dear,

And feel the pain of a wasting want,

For that which no more can appear?
For the face that is oft at the window pane,
With a greeting for us close pressed;
Or the cry of surprise down the shaky lane,
From the lips that we love the best?

Perhaps 'twas the Father who saw us first,
And met with a sturdy grasp;

Or a Mother or Sister, whose lips are athirst
For our kiss, that we meet and clasp:
But Mother or Sister, with welcome kiss,
Or Father, with grasp so strong,

I think of one else we more sadly miss,
As we loiter the way along.

A face as fair as the sky; and a laugh
As sweet as the bubbling spring,

That jets from the rocks where you stoop to quaff,

For the thirst that these memories bring.

A step as light as the fairies' tread,

And a glance as from Cupid's bow;

A cluster of tangled curls at her head,
And a voice as the Zephyrs low.

Ah! these are the memories that now return,
As we tread those old time haunts!
And the fires of passion more fiercely burn,
And the hearts feels its keenest wants.
Alas! we see them no more as we pass

Through each treasured, childhood way; And we bury again life's young dream, alas? In those old time haunts to-day.

GOD SPANS EACH ABYSS O'ER. How strange the thread that binds the ends of life,

Which, though 'tis but a thread, unbroken

runs

A hair-like clasp, across each storm, each

strife

Each hidden danger, like the course of suns, And birth with death is linked; and when we

gaze

Upon the slender thing that seems to hold

Those periods together twixt which sways Some awful crisis, where our blood stands cold How can we doubt but that his loving hand Hath for our helpless feet each abyss spanned? Our infant prattler, just from mother's knee, When Summer's zephyrs softly play around, Wild in its rapture, now that it is free, Creeps up to some oid, flower-grown, rocky mound,

And, prattling sweetly o'er some shining thing,
Is just now grasping it in childish bliss;
When hark! the flutter of an angel's wing
Attracts the innocent away from this.
A hissing adder there in ambush lay,

And God had spanned the awful chasm today.

Along the dangerous path of childhood years
We watch the pilgrimage of its young feet,
And in some epidemic, Death appears,
And asks the mother for her darling sweet;
We tremble lest the quivering thread shall part,
That through this crisis runs; for now we

hear

The wail of many a mother's bleeding heart, As low she bows beside her infant's bier:O God! prepare us for the blow," we pray, And, answering us, He lets our darling stay Then in life's later years, when speed of steam May hurl our noblest down to instant death, Somewhere along the way, a startled scream Tells of the fated victim's dying breath. O anguish! 'twas that train which from us bore Our hope and care of all these wasting years; And with our swimming eyes we tremble o'er The column where the fated list appears; But finding not our loved one's name, 'tis then We know God's hand hath spanned the chasm

again.

'Tis thus He watched o'er His helpless sheep, And fills His loved ones full of golden years, And who, at last lie sweetly down to sleep, Until the gray of dawn again appears; And when, through that sweet dreamy night they've past,

And wake in peace upon the other shore, "Twill fully be revealed to them at last How God had spanned in life each abyss o'er; And threw o'er death's dark chasm a shining way, [day. Where, lulled to sleep, they woke in endless

EXTRACT.

You may see a fellow mortal

Passing through his way in life, Who may seem to you so tranquil,

You may think he knows no strife; Wealth may seem to dance around him, Happiness his daily guest;

Do not envy him, he's drinking

Sweet and bitter with the rest.

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