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. 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!” Then the wife of the skipper lost at sea Poor Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, By the women of Marblehead? EXTRACTS. The riches of a commonwealth Are free, strong minds and hearts of health, THE BAREFOOT BOY. JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. Blessings on thee, little man, Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan; With the 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 Thwugh 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 inore than he can buy In the reach of ear and eyeOutward 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, Koowledge 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 arcbitectural 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 boybood'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 spouted mole bis 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 the sand-rimmed pickerel pond; 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, When he hummed in court an old love tune; Smoothing his horse's chestnut mane. And the young girl mused beside the well, He drew his bridle in the shade Till the rain on the unraked clover fell. Of the apple-trees, to greet the maid, He wedded a wife of richest dower, And ask a draft from the spring that flowed Who lived for fashion as he for power. Through the meadow, across the road. Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow, She stopped where the cool spring bubbled up, He watched a picture come and go; And filled for him her small tin cup, And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes And blushed as she gave it, looking down Looked out in their innocent surprise. On her feet so bare, and tattered gown. Oft, when the wine in his glass was red, .. Thanks!" said the Judge, a sweeter draught | He longed for the wayside well instead, From a fairer hand was never quaffed." And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms, He spoke of the grass and flowers and trees, To dream of meadows and clover blooms: Of the singing birds and the humming bees; And the proud man sighed with a secret pain, Then talked of haying, and wondered whether “Ah, that I were free again! The cloud in the west would bring foul weather. Free as when I rode that day And Maud forgot her brier-torn gown, Where the barefoot maiden raked the hay." And her graceful ankles, bare and brown, She wedded a man unlearned and poor, And listened, while a pleased surprise And many children played round her door. Looked from her long-lashed hazel eyes. But care and sorrow and child-birth pain, At last, like one who for delay Left their traces on heart and brain. Seeks a vain excuse, he rode away. And oft, when the summer sun shone hot Maud Muller looked and sighed: «Ah me! On the new-mown hay on the meadow lot, That I the Judge's bride might be! And she heard the little spring brook fall - He would dress me up in silks so fine, Over the roadside, through the wall, In the shade of the apple-tree again And, gazing down with a timid grace, She felt his pleased eyes read her face. And the baby should have a new toy each day. Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls “And I'd feed the hungry and clothe the poor Stretched away into stately halls; And all should bless me who left our door." The weary wheel to a spinnet turned, The Judge looked back as he climbed the hill, The tallow-candle an astral burned; And saw Maud Muller standing still: And for him who sat by the chimmey lug, "A form more fair, a face more sweet, Dozing and grumbling o'er pipe and mug, Ne'er hath it been my lot to meet. A manly form at her side she saw, "And her modest answer and graceful air And joy was duty and love was law. Show her wise and good as she is fair. Then she took up her burden of life again, Would she were mine, and I to-day, Saying only, “ It might have been." Alas for maiden, alas for judge, God pity them both! and pity us all, ..But low of cattle, and song of birds Who vainly the dreams of youth recall; And health, and quiet, and loving words." For of all sad words of tongue or pen, But he thought of his sister, proud and cold, The saddest are these: -. It might have been!" And his mother, vain of her rank and gold. Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on, Deeply buried from human eyes; And Maud was left in the field alone. And, in the hereafter, angels may But the lawyers smiled that afternoon, Roll the stone from its grave away! WILL HARBERT OGBORN. BORN: HENDERSON, ILL., MAY 15, 1854. Whas 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 And a blackness no night can feel; [shreined, That only God's hand can reveal. There's a silence no clangor can break; [est, And a calm that no terror can shake; man dream, Beyond the solution of man. Since time and creation began? [breast, 'Tis the deep unexpressed, in each human Of God's inscrutable plan. But ever perfectible dream, A ray from the Eternal Beam; prisoned power, AMOROSO, And bright, lithe messengers, Wherein the soft wind stirs, Rang hills and valleys o'er, Of some sweet queen, surpassing fair, To reign the earth once more;mit. Later on he contributed to Gems of Poe- | The maiden Queen was coming of the year, try, a New York Magazine, the best one of And winter must be warned, for Spring was which, entitled Betrayed, won for him a prize. near. After leaving the farm, Mr. Ogborn became a school teacher, a profession which through the "Ah!" so they said, with shaggy head, great misfortune of his loss of hearing, he had King Winter thus replied: to abandon. His best poems have appeared in I'll longer keep my throne instead;the Chicago Inter-Ocean, Current, and other Queen Spring shall be my bride;" leading periodicals. In person, Mr. Ogborn And so he laid his head within her lap, Weighs 160 pounds, is very tall, and has dark While she caressed him to a drowsy nap. hair and blue eyes. 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, And feelings for words too deep; Spring sighed and be returned; ah, maiden bold. There are scenes past all earthly vision, There are griefs that no tears can weep; And then she drew from skies so blue, And golden, vernal sun, There's a harp unswept, in each bosom kept, A life and warmth as if 'twere true That only God's hand can sweep. The Summer had begun; There are riches past all earthly treasure, And though King Winter, yet with frosty And objection no gold can conceal; night, There are tints never reached on the palette, Still lingered, Summer's roses drew in sight. “Ah, fortunate and happy fate!” Spring, naughty maiden, said To Winter, - need we longer wait The day when we shall wed? That every rose made haste Upon Spring's bosom chaste; OLD TIME HAUNTS. Whose memory is ever dear, For that which no more can appear? With a greeting for us close pressed; Or the cry of surprise down the shaky lane, From the lips that we love the best? And met with a sturdy grasp; For our kiss, that we meet and clasp: Or Father, with grasp so strong, As we loiter the way along. As sweet as the bubbling spring, quatt, And a glance as from Cupid's bow; And a voice as the Zephyrs low. As we tread those old time haunts! And the hearts feels its keenest wants. Through each treasured, childhood way; And we bury again life's young dream, alas? In those old time haunts to-day. Those periods together twixt which sways Some awful crisis, where our blood stands cold How can we doubt but that his loving band 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 to day. 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 bear 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 chusm 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 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-iike clasp, across each storm, each strife Each hidden danger, like the course of suns, And birth with death is linked; and wben we gaze Upon the slender thing that seems to hold 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. |