John Greenleaf Whittier

"When first I saw our banner wave     Above the nation's council-hall,     I heard beneath its marble wall     The clanking fetters of the slave"

"In the old Hebrew myth the lion's frame,     So terrible alive,     Bleached by the desert's sun and wind, became     The wandering wild bees'"

"John Brown of Ossawatomie spake on his dying day:     "I will not have to shrive my soul a priest in Slavery's pay.     But let some poor slave-"

"My garden roses long ago     Have perished from the leaf-strewn walks;     Their pale, fair sisters smile no more     Upon the sweet-brier stal"

"For Dorothea L. Dix.     Stranger and traveller,     Drink freely and bestow     A kindly thought on her     Who bade this fountain flow,"

"A strength Thy service cannot tire,     A faith which doubt can never dim,     A heart of love, a lip of fire,     O Freedom's God! be Thou to"

"Yes, let them gather! Summon forth     The pledged philanthropy of Earth.     From every land, whose hills have heard     The bugle blast of Fr"

"Ah! weary Priest! with pale hands pressed     On thy throbbing brow of pain,     Baffled in thy life-long quest,     Overworn with toiling vain"

"Men said at vespers: "All is well!"     In one wild night the city fell;     Fell shrines of prayer and marts of gain     Before the fiery hurr"

"Up the hillside, down the glen,     Rouse the sleeping citizen;     Summon out the might of men!     Like a lion growling low,     Like a nigh"

"Of all that Orient lands can vaunt     Of marvels with our own competing,     The strangest is the Haschish plant,     And what will follow on"

"From Alton Bay to Sandwich Dome,     From Mad to Saco river,     For patriarchs of the primal wood     We sought with vain endeavor.     And"

"As o'er his furrowed fields which lie     Beneath a coldly dropping sky,     Yet chill with winter's melted snow,     The husbandman goes forth"

"A shallow stream, from fountains     Deep in the Sandwich mountains,     Ran lake ward Bearcamp River;     And, between its flood-torn shores,"

"Beams of noon, like burning lances, through the tree-tops flash and glisten,     As she stands before her lover, with raised face to look and lis"

"The tossing spray of Cocheco's fall     Hardened to ice on its rocky wall,     As through Dover town in the chill, gray dawn,     Three women p"

"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,"

"Up and down the village streets     Strange are the forms my fancy meets,     For the thoughts and things of to-day are hid,     And through th"

"From the hills of home forth looking, far beneath the tent-like span     Of the sky, I see the white gleam of the headland of Cape Ann.     Well"

"As they who watch by sick-beds find relief     Unwittingly from the great stress of grief     And anxious care, in fantasies outwrought     Fro"

"O painter of the fruits and flowers,     We own wise design,     Where these human hands of ours     May share work of Thine!     Apart from"

"George Fuller     Haunted of Beauty, like the marvellous youth     Who sang Saint Agnes' Eve! How passing fair     Her shapes took color in th"

"Hands off! thou tithe-fat plunderer! play     No trick of priestcraft here!     Back, puny lordling! darest thou lay     A hand on Elliott's bi"

"Who, looking backward from his manhood's prime,     Sees not the spectre of his misspent time?     And, through the shade     Of funeral cypres"

""Bring out your dead!" The midnight street     Heard and gave back the hoarse, low call;     Harsh fell the tread of hasty feet,     Glanced th"

"In my dream, methought I trod,     Yesternight, a mountain road;     Narrow as Al Sirat's span,     High as eagle's flight, it ran.     Overh"

""Let there be light!" God spake of old,     And over chaos dark and cold,     And through the dead and formless frame     Of nature, life and o"

"If I have seemed more prompt to censure wrong     Than praise the right; if seldom to thine ear     My voice hath mingled with the exultant chee"

""Get ye up from the wrath of God's terrible day!     Ungirded, unsandalled, arise and away!     'T is the vintage of blood, 't is the fulness of"

"Well speed thy mission, bold Iconoclast!     Yet all unworthy of its trust thou art,     If, with dry eye, and cold, unloving heart,     Thou t"

"Across the sea I heard the groans     Of nations in the intervals     Of wind and wave. Their blood and bones     Cried out in torture, crushed"

"No aimless wanderers, by the fiend Unrest     Goaded from shore to shore;     No schoolmen, turning, in their classic quest,     The leaves of"

"Amidst these glorious works of Thine,     The solemn minarets of the pine,     And awful Shasta's icy shrine,     Where swell Thy hymns from w"

"Sunlight upon Judha's hills!     And on the waves of Galilee;     On Jordan's stream, and on the rills     That feed the dead and sleeping sea!"

"Strike home, strong-hearted man! Down to the root     Of old oppression sink the Saxon steel.     Thy work is to hew down. In God's name then"

"Leagues north, as fly the gull and auk,     Point Judith watches with eye of hawk;     Leagues south, thy beacon flames, Montauk!     Lonely a"

"The Indians speak of a beautiful river, far to the south, which they call Merrimac. - SIEUR. DE MONTS, 1604.     Stream of my fathers! sweetly s"

"Gone to thy Heavenly Father's rest!     The flowers of Eden round thee blowing,     And on thine ear the murmurs blest     Of Siloa's waters so"

"Prelude     I sing the Pilgrim of a softer clime     And milder speech than those brave men's who brought     To the ice and iron of our wint"

"A free paraphrase of the German.     To weary hearts, to mourning homes,     God's meekest Angel gently comes     No power has he to banish p"

"The harp at Nature's advent strung     Has never ceased to play;     The song the stars of morning sung     Has never died away.     And pray"

"In trance and dream of old, God's prophet saw     The casting down of thrones. Thou, watching lone     The hot Sardinian coast-line, hazy-hilled"

"Here is the place; right over the hill     Runs the path I took;     You can see the gap in the old wall still,     And the stepping-stones in"

"Saint Patrick, slave to Milcho of the herds     Of Ballymena, wakened with these words     Arise, and flee     Out from the land of bondage, a"

"A sound of tumult troubles all the air,     Like the low thunders of a sultry sky     Far-rolling ere the downright lightnings glare;     The h"

"I.     Sound over all waters, reach out from all lands,     The chorus of voices, the clasping of hands;     Sing hymns that were sung by the stars"

"Up from the meadows rich with corn,     Clear in the cool September morn,     The clustered spires of Frederick stand     Green-walled by the"

"The elder folks shook hands at last,     Down seat by seat the signal passed.     To simple ways like ours unused,     Half solemnized and half"

"In Westminster's royal halls,     Robed in their pontificals,     England's ancient prelates stood     For the people's right and good.     Cl"

"In sky and wave the white clouds swam,     And the blue hills of Nottingham     Through gaps of leafy green     Across the lake were seen,"

"Oh, well may Essex sit forlorn     Beside her sea-blown shore;     Her well beloved, her noblest born,     Is hers in life no more!     No la"

"The storm and peril overpast,     The hounding hatred shamed and still,     Go, soul of freedom! take at last     The place which thou alone ca"

"Massachusetts Bay, 1760.     The robins sang in the orchard, the buds into blossoms grew;     Little of human sorrow the buds and the robins k"

"The winding way the serpent takes     The mystic water took,     From where, to count its beaded lakes,     The forest sped its brook.     A"

"Poor and inadequate the shadow-play     Of gain and loss, of waking and of dream,     Against lifes solemn background needs must seem     At t"

"The goodman sat beside his door     One sultry afternoon,     With his young wife singing at his side     An old and goodly tune.     A glimm"

"The land, that, from the rule of kings,     In freeing us, itself made free,     Our Old World Sister, to us brings     Her sculptured Dream of"

"I do believe, and yet, in grief,     I pray for help to unbelief;     For needful strength aside to lay     The daily cumberings of my way."

"For a summer festival at The Laurels on the Merrimac.     Once more on yonder laurelled height     The summer flowers have budded;     Once mor"

"Seeress of the misty Norland,     Daughter of the Vikings bold,     Welcome to the sunny Vineland,     Which thy fathers sought of old!     S"