The Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier

THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM.

367

There, through the gathered stillness | Did the boy's whistle answer back the multiplied thrushes? And made intense by sympathy, outside Did light girl laughter ripple through The sparrows sang, and the gold-robin

the bushes,

As brooks make merry over roots and rushes?

Strict to himself, of other men no spy,

Or, without spoken words, low breath- He made his own no circuit-judge to try ings stole

The freer conscience of his neighbors by.

Of a diviner life from soul to soul,
Baptizing in one tender thought the With love rebuking, by his life alone,
Gracious and sweet, the better way was

whole.

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The joy of one, who, seeking not his own,

And faithful to all scruples, finds at last
The thorns and shards of duty overpast,
And daily life, beyond his hope's forecast,

Pleasant and beautiful with sight and
sound,

Down the green vistas of the woodland And flowers upspringing in its narrow

strayed,

delayed.

round,

Whispered and smiled and oft their feet | And all his days with quiet gladness crowned.

He sang not; but, if sometimes tempted strong,

He hummed what seemed like Altorf's Burschen-song,

His good wife smiled, and did not count it wrong.

For well he loved his boyhood's brother band;

His Memory, while he trod the New World's strand,

A double-ganger walked the Fatherland!

If, when on frosty Christmas eves the light Shone on his quiet hearth, he missed the sight

Of Yule-log, Tree, and Christ-child all in white;

And closed his eyes, and listened to the

sweet

Old wait-songs sounding down his native

street,

And watched again the dancers' mingling feet;

Yet not the less, when once the vision passed,

He held the plain and sober maxims fast Of the dear Friends with whom his lot was cast.

Still all attuned to nature's melodies, He loved the bird's song in his dooryard trees,

And the low hum of home-returning bees;

The blossomed flax, the tulip-trees in bloom

Down the long street, the beauty and perfume

Of apple-boughs, the mingling light and gloom

Of Sommerhausen's woodlands, woven through

With sun-threads; and the music the wind drew,

Who owned it first) upon the circle fell, Mournful and sweet, from leaves it over- Hushed Anna's busy wheel, and laid its

was stirred

Of sound; nor eye was raised nor hand | Nay, were the plant itself but mythical,
Set in the fresco of tradition's wall
Like Jotham's bramble, mattereth not
at all.

In that soul-sabbath, till at last some word

Of tender counsel or low prayer was heard.

Then guests, who lingered but farewell

to say

And take love's message, went their homeward way;

So passed in peace the guileless Quaker's day.

His was the Christian's unsung Age of
Gold,

A truer idyl than the bards have told
Of Arno's banks or Arcady of old.
Where still the Friends their place of

burial keep,

And century-rooted mosses o'er it creep, The Nürnberg scholar and his helpmeet sleep.

And Anna's aloe? If it flowered at last In Bartram's garden, did John Wool

man cast

A glance upon it as he meekly passed?
And did a secret sympathy possess
That tender soul, and for the slave's
redress

Lend hope, strength, patience? It were vain to guess.

MISCELLANEOUS.

THE PAGEANT.

A SOUND as if from bells of silver,
Or elfin cymbals smitten clear,
Through the frost-pictured panes I

hear.

A brightness which outshines the morning,

A splendor brooking no delay,
Beckons and tempts my feet away.

I leave the trodden village highway
For virgin snow-paths glimmering
through

A jewelled elm-tree avenue ;

Where, keen against the walls of sapphire,

The gleaming tree-bolls, ice-embossed,

Hold up their chandeliers of frost.

I tread in Orient halls enchanted,

I dream the Saga's dream of caves Gem-lit beneath the North Sea waves!

I walk the land of Eldorado,

I touch its mimic garden bowers, Its silver leaves and diamond flowers !

THE SINGER.

YEARS since (but names to me before),
Two sisters sought at eve my door;
Two song-birds wandering from their
nest,

A gray old farm-house in the West.

How fresh of life the younger one,
Half smiles, half tears, like rain in

sun!

Her gravest mood could scarce displace
The dimples of her nut-brown face.

Wit sparkled on her lips not less
For quick and tremulous tenderness;
And, following close her merriest glance,
Dreamed through her eyes the heart's

romance.

Timid and still, the elder had
Even then a smile too sweetly sad;
The crown of pain that all must wear
Too early pressed her midnight hair.

Yet ere the summer eve grew long,
Her modest lips were sweet with song;
A memory haunted all her words
Of clover-fields and singing birds.

Her dark, dilating eyes expressed
The broad horizons of the west;

371

Her life was earnest work, not play;
Her tired feet climbed a weary way;
And even through her lightest strain
We heard an undertone of pain.

Unseen of her her fair fame grew,
The good she did she rarely knew,
Unguessed of her in life the love
That rained its tears her grave above.

When last I saw her, full of peace,
She waited for her great release;
And that old friend so sage and bland,
Our later Franklin, held her hand.

For all that patriot bosoms stirs
Had moved that woman's heart of
hers,

And men who toiled in storm and sun
Found her their meet companion.

Our converse, from her suffering bed
To healthful themes of life she led :
The out-door world of bud and bloom
And light and sweetness filled her

room.

Yet evermore an underthought
Of loss to come within us wrought,
And all the while we felt the strain
Of the strong will that conquered pain.

Her speech dropped prairie flowers; the God giveth quietness at last!

gold

Of harvest wheat about her rolled.

Fore-doomed to song she seemed to

me:

I queried not with destiny:
I knew the trial and the need,
Yet, all the more, I said, God speed!

What could I other than I did?
Could I a singing-bird forbid?
Deny the wind-stirred leaf? Rebuke
The music of the forest brook?

She went with morning from my door,
But left me richer than before;
Thenceforth I knew her voice of cheer,
The welcome of her partial ear.

Years passed through all the land her

name

A pleasant household word became :
All felt behind the singer stood
A sweet and gracious womanhood.

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