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through his efforts that the vote of censure against Sumner, who wished Civil War names expunged from army flags, was repealed.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 Essex 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,

10

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,

64

70

OUR fellow-countrymen in chains!
Slaves, in a land of light and law!
Slaves, crouching on the very plains
Where rolled the storm of Freedom's war!
A groan from Eutaw's haunted wood,

A wail where Camden's martyrs fell,

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.

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,

50

10

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,

20

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

40

50

1 Winnipesaukee. The Indian Lame 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