John Greenleaf Whittier (1807 – 1892)
American poet and abolitionist.
Low stir of leaves and dip of oars
And lapsing waves on quiet shores.
Tradition wears a snowy beard, romance is always young.
Sweeter than any sung
My songs that found no tongue;
Nobler than any fact
My wish that failed of act.
Others shall sing the song,
Others shall right the wrong,—
Finish what I begin,
And all I fail of win.
To eat the lotus of the Nile
And drink the poppies of Cathay.
Shoot, if you must, this old gray head,
But spare your country's flag," she said.
The hope of all who suffer,
The dread of all who wrong.
The harp at Nature's advent strung
Has never ceased to play;
The song the stars of morning sung
Has never died away.
Life is ever lord of Death
And Love can never lose its own.
Maud Muller, on a summer's day,
Raked the meadows sweet with hay.
Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth
Of simple beauty and rustic health.
Let the thick curtain fall;
I better know than all
How little I have gained,
How vast the unattained.
Again the shadow moveth o'er
The dial-plate of time.
God blesses still the generous thought,
And still the fitting word He speeds,
And Truth, at His requiring taught,
He quickens into deeds.
What is good looking, as Horace Smith remarks, but looking good? Be good, be womanly, be gentle,—generous in your sympathies, heedful of the well-being of all around you; and, my word for it, you will not lack kind words of admiration.
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!"
I know not where His islands lift
Their fronded palms in air;
I only know I cannot drift
Beyond His love and care.
Nature speaks in symbols and in signs.
Weary lawyers with endless tongues.
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".
We lack but open eye and ear
To find the Orient's marvels here;
The still small voice in autumn's hush,
Yon maple wood the burning bush.