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Fold softly in thy long embrace

That heart so worn and broken, And cool its pulse of fire beneath Thy shadows old and oaken.

Shut out from him the bitter word And serpent hiss of scorning; Nor let the storms of yesterday Disturb his quiet morning. Breathe over him forgetfulness

Of all save deeds of kindness, And, save to smiles of grateful eyes, Press down his lids in blindness.

There, where with living ear and eye
He heard Potomac's flowing,
And, through his tall ancestral trees,
Saw autumn's sunset glowing,
He sleeps, still looking to the west,
Beneath the dark wood shadow,
As if he still would see the sun

Sink down on wave and meadow.

Bard, Sage, and Tribune! in himself
All moods of mind contrasting, -
The tenderest wail of human woe,

The scorn like lightning blasting;
The pathos which from rival eyes
Unwilling tears could summon,
The stinging taunt, the fiery burst
Of hatred scarcely human!

Mirth, sparkling like a diamond shower,
From lips of life-long sadness;

Clear picturings of majestic thought
Upon a ground of madness;

And over all Romance and Song
A classic beauty throwing,

And laurelled Clio at his side
Her storied pages showing.

All parties feared him: each in turn
Beheld its schemes disjointed,
As right or left his fatal glance
And spectral finger pointed.
Sworn foe of Cant, he smote it down
With trenchant wit unsparing,
And, mocking, rent with ruthless hand
The robe Pretence was wearing.

Too honest or too proud to feign A love he never cherished,

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probably written, according to Mr. Pickard, at the same time as the article. It was printed in the first number of the National Era issued after Whittier became corresponding editor, in January, 1847.

Beyond Virginia's border line
His patriotism perished.

While others hailed in distant skies
Our eagle's dusky pinion,

He only saw the mountain bird

Stoop o'er his Old Dominion!

Still through each change of fortune strange,

Racked nerve, and brain all burning,
His loving faith in Mother-land

Knew never shade of turning;
By Britain's lakes, by Neva's tide,
Whatever sky was o'er him,
He heard her rivers' rushing sound,
Her blue peaks rose before him.

He held his slaves, yet made withal
No false and vain pretences,

Nor paid a lying priest to seek
For Scriptural defences.

His harshest words of proud rebuke,
His bitterest taunt and scorning,
Fell fire-like on the Northern brow
That bent to him in fawning.

He held his slaves; yet kept the while
His reverence for the Human;

In the dark vassals of his will
He saw but Man and Woman!
No hunter of God's outraged poor

His Roanoke valley entered;
No trader in the souls of men

Across his threshold ventured.

And when the old and wearied man

Lay down for his last sleeping,
And at his side, a slave no more,
His brother-man stood weeping,

His latest thought, his latest breath,
To Freedom's duty giving,

With failing tongue and trembling hand
The dying blest the living.

Oh, never bore his ancient State
A truer son or braver!

None trampling with a calmer scorn
On foreign hate or favor.

He knew her faults, yet never stooped
His proud and manly feeling
To poor excuses of the wrong
Or meanness of concealing.

But none beheld with clearer eye

The plague-spot o'er her spreading,

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1 Dr. Charles Follen, a German patriot, who had come to America for the freedom which was denied him in his native land, allied himself with the abolitionists, and at a convention of delegates from all the anti-slavery organizations in New England, held at Boston in May, 1834, was chairman of a committee to prepare an address to the people of New England. Toward the close of the address occurred the passage which suggested these lines:

'The despotism which our fathers could not bear in their native country is expiring, and the sword of justice in her reformed hands has applied its exterminating edge to slavery. Shall the United States- the free United States, which could not bear the bonds of a king-cradle the bondage which a king is abolishing? Shall a Republic be less free than a Monarchy? Shall we, in the vigor and buoyancy of our manhood, be less energetic in righteousness than a kingdom in its age?' (WHITTIER.)

The original title of the poem was simply' Stanzas,' and later it was called 'Follen.' Garrison said of it when it first appeared:

Our gifted Brother Whittier has again seized the great trumpet of Liberty, and blown a blast that shall ring from Maine to the Rocky Mountains.'

The poem became popular throughout the North and West, and was for many years a favorite at declamation contests and anti-slavery meetings.

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Shall Belgium feel, and gallant France,
By Vendome's pile and Schoenbrun's wall,
And Poland, gasping on her lance,

The impulse of our cheering call?
And shall the slave, beneath our eye,
Clank o'er our fields his hateful chain?
And toss his fettered arms on high,
And groan for Freedom's gift, in vain ?

Oh, say, shall Prussia's banner be
A refuge for the stricken slave?
And shall the Russian serf go free
By Baikal's lake and Neva's wave?
And shall the wintry-bosomed Dane
Relax the iron hand of pride,

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Gone, gone, sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone;
Toiling through the weary day,
And at night the spoiler's prey.
Oh, that they had earlier died,
Sleeping calmly, side by side,
Where the tyrant's power is o'er,
And the fetter galls no more!

Gone, gone, -sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
From Virginia's hills and waters;
Woe is me, my stolen daughters!

Gone, gone, sold and gone,

To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
By the holy love He beareth;
By the bruised reed He spareth;
Oh, may He, to whom alone

All their cruel wrongs are known,
Still their hope and refuge prove,
With a more than mother's love.

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Gone, gone,- sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
From Virginia's hills and waters;
Woe is me, my stolen daughters !

THE MERRIMAC

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1838.

STREAM of my fathers! sweetly still
The sunset rays thy valley fill;
Poured slantwise down the long defile,
Wave, wood, and spire beneath them smile.
I see the winding Powow fold
The green hill in its belt of gold,
And following down its wavy line,

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Its sparkling waters blend with thine.
There's not a tree upon thy side,
Nor rock, which thy returning tide
As yet hath left abrupt and stark
Above thy evening water-mark;
No calm cove with its rocky hem,
No isle whose emerald swells begem
Thy broad, smooth current; not a sail
Bowed to the freshening ocean gale;
No small boat with its busy oars,
Nor gray wall sloping to thy shores;
Nor farm-house with its maple shade,
Or rigid poplar colonnade,
But lies distinct and full in sight,
Beneath this gush of sunset light.
Centuries ago, that harbor-bar,
Stretching its length of foam afar,
And Salisbury's beach of shining sand,
And yonder island's wave-smoothed strand,
Saw the adventurer's tiny sail,

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Flit, stooping from the eastern gale;
And o'er these woods and waters broke
The cheer from Britain's hearts of oak, 30
As brightly on the voyager's eye
Weary of forest, sea, and sky,
Breaking the dull continuous wood,
The Merrimac rolled down his flood;
Mingling that clear pellucid brock,
Which channels vast Agioochook

When spring-time's sun and shower unlock
The frozen fountains of the rock,
And more abundant waters given
From that pure lake,

Heaven,' 1

The Smile of

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1 Winnipesaukee. The Indian name was thought to mean 'The Smile of the Great Spirit.' See 'The Lakeside' and Summer by the Lakeside.'

2 The celebrated Captain Smith, after resigning the government of the Colony in Virginia, in his capacity of Admiral of New England,' made a careful survey of the coast from Penobscot to Cape Cod, in the summer of 1614. (WHITTIER.)

3 Captain Smith gave to the promontory now called

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Home of my fathers! I have stood
Where Hudson rolled his lordly flood:
Seen sunrise rest and sunset fade
Along his frowning Palisade;
Looked down the Appalachian peak
On Juniata's silver streak;
Have seen along his valley gleam
The Mohawk's softly winding stream;
The level light of sunset shine
Through broad Potomac's hem of pine;
And autumn's rainbow-tinted banner
Hang lightly o'er the Susquehanna;
Yet wheresoe'er his step might be,
Thy wandering child looked back to thee!
Heard in his dreams thy river's sound
Of murmuring on its pebbly bound,
The unforgotten swell and roar
Of waves on thy familiar shore;

And saw, amidst the curtained gloom

And quiet of his lonely room,

Thy sunset scenes before him pass;
As, in Agrippa's magic glass,
The loved and lost arose to view,
Remembered groves in greenness grew,
Bathed still in childhood's morning dew,
Along whose bowers of beauty swept
Whatever Memory's mourners wept,

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Cape Ann, the name of Tragabizanda, in memory of his young and beautiful mistress of that name, who, while he was a captive at Constantinople, like Desdemona, loved him for the dangers he had passed.' (WHITTIER.)

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bower,

Leaf after leaf, dew-moist and bright,
And stainless in its holy white,

Unfolding like a morning flower:
A heart, which, like a fine-toned lute,
With every breath of feeling woke,
And, even when the tongue was mute,
From eye and lip in music spoke.

How thrills once more the lengthening chain

Of memory, at the thought of thee! 20 Old hopes which long in dust have lain, Old dreams, come thronging back again, And boyhood lives again in me;

I feel its glow upon my cheek,

1 It was not without thought and deliberation, that in 1888 he directed this poem to be placed at the head of his Poems Subjective and Reminiscent. He had never before publicly acknowledged how much of his heart was wrapped up in this delightful play of poetic fancy. The poem was written in 1841, and although the romance it embalms lies far back of this date, possibly there is a heart still beating which fully understands its meaning. The biographer can do no more than make this suggestion, which has the sanction of the poet's explicit word. To a friend who told him that Memories was her favorite poem, he said, 'I love it too; but I hardly knew whether to publish it, it was so personal and near my heart.' (Pickard's Life of Whittier, vol. i, p. 276.)

See also Pickard's Whittier-Land, pp. 66-67, and the poem My Playmate.'

2 Whittier was especially fond of these two opening stanzas. He had already used the lines to describe an ideal character in Moll Pitcher,' published in 1832, but not now included in his collected works.

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