moral in human action are disclosed by a number of poems, drawn from a wide range of historical fact, dealing with a great variety of religious faiths and circumstances of life, but always pointing to some sweet and strong truth of the divine life. Of such are The Brother of Mercy, The Gift of Tritemius, The Two Rabbis, and others. Whittier's Prose Works are comprised in three volumes, and consist mainly of his contributions to journals and of Leaves from Margaret Smith's Journal, a fictitious diary of a visitor to New England in 1678.
Mr. Whittier died at Hampton Falls, N. H., September 7, 1892. His life has been written by his literary executor, Samuel T. Pickard, under the title Life and Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier.
"As the Spirits of Darkness be stronger in the dark, so good Spirits which be Angels of Light are augmented not only by the Divine light of the Sun, but also by our common VVood fire: and as the Celestial Fire drives away dark spirits, so also this our Fire of VVood doth the same."-COR. AGRIPPA, Occult Philosophy, Book I. ch. v.
"Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow; and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight; the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven,
And veils the farm-house at the garden's end.
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, inclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm."
EMERSON, The Snow-Storm.
THE sun that brief December day
Rose cheerless over hills of gray,
And, darkly circled, gave at noon
A sadder light than waning moon.
Slow tracing down the thickening sky
Its 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 race
Of life-blood in the sharpened face,
The coming of the snow-storm told.
The wind blew east; we heard the roar
Of Ocean on his wintry shore,
And felt the strong pulse throbbing there
Beat 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 mows
Raked 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 rows
The cattle shake their walnut bows;
While, peering from his early perch
Upon the scaffold's pole of birch,
The cock his crested helmet bent
And down his querulous challenge sent.
Unwarmed by any sunset light
The gray day darkened into night,
A night made hoary with the swarm
And whirl-dance of the blinding storm,
As zigzag wavering to and fro
Crossed and recrossed the wingéd snow:
And ere the early bedtime came
The white drift piled the window-frame,
And through the glass the clothes-line posts
Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts.
So all night long the storm roared on:
The morning broke without a sun;
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