THE CROSS OF SNOW 1

In the long, sleepless watches of the night, A gentle face the face of one long dead Looks at me from the wall, where round

its head

The night-lamp casts a halo of pale light. Here in this room she died; and soul more white

Never through martyrdom of fire was led
To its repose; nor can in books be read
The legend of a life more benedight.
There is a mountain in the distant West,
That, sun-defying, in its deep ravines
Displays a cross of snow upon its side.
Such is the cross I wear upon my breast
These eighteen years, through all the chang-
ing scenes

And seasons, changeless since the day she died.

INTO the darkness and hush of night
Slowly the landscape sinks, and fades away,
And with it fade the phantoms of the day,
The ghosts of men and things, that haunt
the light.

The crowd, the clamor, the pursuit, the flight,

The unprofitable splendor and display,
The agitations, and the cares that prey
Upon our hearts, all vanish out of sight.
The better life begins; the world no more
Molests us; all its records we erase
From the dull commonplace book of our
lives,

That like a palimpsest is written o'er
With trivial incidents of time and place,
And lo! the ideal, hidden beneath, revives.

1879.

L'ENVOI

THE POET AND HIS SONGS

As the birds come in the spring,
We know not from where;
As the stars come at evening
From depths of the air;

(1880.)

As the rain comes from the cloud, And the brook from the ground;

1 See the note on Divina Commedia,' p. 240.

1880.

THE VAUDOIS TEACHER 1

'O LADY fair, these silks of mine are beautiful and rare, The richest web of the Indian loom, which beauty's queen might wear; And my pearls are pure as thy own fair neck, with whose radiant light they vie; I have brought them with me a weary way, will my gentle lady buy ?’

The lady smiled on the worn old man through the dark and clustering

curls Which veiled her brow, as she bent to view his silks and glittering pearls; And she placed their price in the old man's hand and lightly turned away, But she paused at the wanderer's earnest call, 'My gentle lady, stay!

1 This poem was suggested by the account given of the manner in which the Waldenses disseminated their principles among the Catholic gentry. They gained access to the house through their occupation as peddlers of silks, jewels, and trinkets. Having disposed of some of their goods,' it is said by a writer who quotes the inquisitor Rainerus Sacco, they cautiously intimated that they had commodities far more valuable than these, inestimable jewels, which they would show if they could be protected from the clergy. They would then give their purchasers a Bible or Testament, and thereby many were deluded into heresy.' (WHITTIER.)

The poem was early translated into French and Italian, and became a favorite among all the Waldenses, who however did not know of its American origin. When the Waldensian synod learned of this, in 1875, they instructed their Moderator to send Whittier a letter of thanks and appreciation. This letter, which Whittier greatly prized, began :—

Dear and Honored Brother, -I have recently learned by a letter from my friend, J. C. Fletcher, now residing in Naples, that you are the author of the charming little poem, "The Vaudois Colporteur," which was translated several years ago in French by Professor de Felicé, of Montauban, and of which there is also an excellent Italian translation, made by M. Giovanni Nicolini, Professor of our College at Torré Pellicé. There is not a single Vaudois who has received any education who cannot repeat from memory "The Vau dois Colporteur" in French or in Italian.'

See the whole letter, in Pickard's Life of Whittier, vol. ii, pp. 607-608. Whittier's reply (given in the Life, pp. 608-609) was translated into Italian and circulated throughout Italy.

'O lady fair, I have yet a gem which a purer lustre flings,

Than the diamond flash of the jewelled crown on the lofty brow of kings; A wonderful pearl of exceeding price, whose virtue shall not decay,

Whose light shall be as a spell to thee and a blessing on thy way!'

The lady glanced at the mirroring steel where her form of grace was seen, Where her eye shone clear, and her dark locks waved their clasping pearls between;

Bring forth thy pearl of exceeding worth, thou traveller gray and old,

And name the price of thy precious gem, and my page shall count thy gold.'

The cloud went off from the pilgrim's brow, as a small and meagre book, Unchased with gold or gem of cost, from his folding robe he took! 'Here, lady fair, is the pearl of price, may it prove as such to thee!

Nay, keep thy gold- I ask it not, for the word of God is free!'

The hoary traveller went his way, but the gift he left behind

Hath had its pure and perfect work on that highborn maiden's mind, And she hath turned from the pride of sin to the lowliness of truth,

And given her human heart to God in its beautiful hour of youth!

And she hath left the gray old halls, where an evil faith had power,

The courtly knights of her father's train, and the maidens of her bower; And she hath gone to the Vaudois vales by lordly feet untrod,

Where the poor and needy of earth are rich in the perfect love of God!

1830.

1 The earliest poem in this division [the Anti-Slavery Poems] was my youthful tribute to the great reformer when, himself a young man, he was sounding his trumpet in Essex County. (WHITTIER.)

On Whittier's early relations with Garrison, see Pickard's Life of Whittier, pp. 50-52. See also the article on Garrison in Whittier's Prose Works, iii, 189-192.

Whittier's anti-slavery poems must necessarily occupy a large place in any selection at all representative of his work. For more than thirty years they formed the chief part of his poetical production. Even to-day no one can fail to recognize the intense sincerity and strength of such poems as Expostulation,'' Massachusetts to Virginia, Ichabod,' The Rendition,' etc. On his role in the anti-slavery movement, and the sacrifices which he made to it, see especially Professor Carpenter's Whittier, chapters iv and v. See also the notes on 'Ichabod' and on Lowell's 'Stanzas on Freedom,' and the passage on Whittier in Lowell's Fable for Critics.'

After the war Whittier was one of the most earnest workers against sectional prejudice in the North. It was largely through his efforts that the vote of censure against Sumner, who wished Civil War names expunged from army flags, was repealed. But he would never consent that the anti-slavery poems should be omitted from any edition of his works. His attitude is well shown by a passage in Pickard's Life of Whittier, with its significant quotation from one of his letters:

Some other American poets, even those who had written bravely against the system of slavery, consented to leave out of their collected works such poems as would be offensive to their Southern readers. Whittier never made this concession . . . and issued no edition of his works that did not present him as an uncompromising foe of slavery. But it was easy to see that his enmity to the institution did not extend to individuals. All his life he numbered among his personal friends not only apologists for slavery, but slaveholders themselves. In replying to the charge of a Southern paper that he was an enemy of the South, he once wrote to a friend: "I was never an enemy to the South or the holders of slaves. I inherited from my Quaker ancestry hatred of slavery, but not of slaveholders. To every call of suffering or distress in the South I have promptly responded to the extent of my ability. I was one of the very first to recognize the rare gift of the Carolinian poet Timrod, and I was the intimate friend of the lamented Paul H. Hayne, though both wrote fiery lyrics against the North.""

This poem was read at the Convention in Philadelphia which founded the American Anti-Slavery Society, in December, 1833. Whittier was a delegate from Massachusetts. I set a higher value on my name as appended to the Anti-Slavery Declaration of 1833,' he said in later life, than on the title-page of any book.'

2 In an article published in the Essez Gazette, in July, 1833, less than a month after Randolph's death, Whittier says: The late noble example of the eloquent statesman of Roanoke, the manumission of his slaves, speaks volumes to his political friends. In the last hour of his existence, when his soul was struggling from its broken tenement, his latest effort was the confirmation of this generous act of a former period. Light rest the turf upon him, beneath his patrimonial oaks! The prayers of many hearts made happy by his benevolence shall linger over his grave, and bless it.' The poem was

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,

ΤΟ

20

30

40

50

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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