Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1868-12-16
Gbs frftman~
NEW BOOK =
" Among the Hills"

ple. and we predict for his new volume
quite as marked a popularity as has been ac-
corded t. his last two volumes. Among
the Hills . Il the title he gives his new ven
ture This, the principal poem in the book i,
i beautiful domestic story, full of rural
pictures and lovely Characterization. 1t is
written in quartrains as clear and flowing as
the river scenery in which the poem is laid
L p among the hills If New Hampshire. in
the vicinity of the Sandwich Mountains,
under the shadow of ChOcOrua, Whittier has
placed his heroine, true wife, a. perfect
woman nobly planned. = The prelude to the
narrative is in blank verse, and is full of the
sounds and sights Of the country. Here is
the keynote to the story
\ farmers son,
Proud Of fel1-lore and harvest craft and
feeling
All their fine possibilities, how rich
And restful even poverty, and toll
Become when beauty, harmony and love
Sit at their humble hearth as angels sat
At evening in the patriarch g tent, when man
Makes labor noble and his farmer ) frock
The symbol of a Christian chivalry
Tender and just, and generous to her
Who clothes with grace all duty still know
Too well the picture has another side
How wearily the grind of toll goes on,
Where love Is wanting. how the eye and ear
And heart are starved amidst the plentitude
OF nature, and how hard and colorless
Is life without an atmosphere look
Across the lapse Of half century
And call to mind old homesteads where no
flower
Told that the spring had come. but evil weeds,
Nightshade and rough-leayed burdock in the
place
of the sweet doorway greeting Of the rose
And h0neysuckle, whore the house walls
seemed
Blsterlng in sun without tree or vine
To cast the tremulOus shadow of its leaves
Across the curtainless windows from whose
panes
Fluttered the signal rags Of shiftlessness
Within, the cluttered Kitchen floor unwashed
Broom clean, think they call it, the bsst
room
Sitting with cellar damp. shut from the air
In hot midsummer, bookle.s, pictureIess
Save the inevitable sampler hung
Over the fireplace, or a mourning piece,
a green-haired woman, peony-checked,
beneath
Impo sible willows the wide-throated hearth
Bristling with faded ne-boughs half
cOncealing
The piled-up rubbish at the chimney. back
And in sad keeping with all things about
Shrill. querulous women, sour and sullen men
Untidy, loveless old before their time,
With scarce human interest save their own
Mon0tonous round Of small economies,
Or the poor scandal of the neghborhod
Blind u the beauty everywhere revealed,
Treading the May-hOwers with regardless
feet
For them the song sparrow and the bobolink
Sang not, nor winds made music in the leaves
For them in vain October's holocaust
Burned, gold and crimson over all the hills,
The sacramentaI mystery of the woods.
Church-goers, fearful Of the unseen Powers,
But grumbling over pulpit-tax and pew-rents
Saving, az shrewd economists. their soul,
And winter pork with the least possible
outlay
OF salt and sanetity: in daily life
Showing as little actual comprehension
Of Christian character and love and duty,
As if the sermon on the mount had been
Outdated like last years almanac
Rich in broad woodlands and in half titled
fields.
And vet so pinched and bare and comfortless
The veryest straggler limping in his rounds,
The and air his soul Inheritance,
Laughed at poverty that paid its taxes,
And hugged It's rags in selt-complacency
Not such should be the homestead of a land
Where whose wisely wills and acts may dwell
As king and lawgiver, in broad-acred state.
With beauty, art. taste. culture. books, to
make
OF f0urscore to the barons Of old time,
Our yeOmen should be equal to his home
Set in the fair green valleys, purple walled.
A man to watch his mountains, not to creep
Dwarfed and abased below them. | would
fain
In this light way (of which must needs own
With the knife-grinder of whom Canning
sings,
- Story, God bless you. have none to tell
YOU '')
Invite the eve to see and heart TO feel
The beauty and the JOY within their reach
Home, and home loves, and the beautitudes
of nature free to all. HAPPY in years
That WIT t. take the places of our own,
Heard where some breezy balcony looks down,
On happy homes, or where the lake in the
moon
Sleeps dreaming of the mountains, fair as
Ruth,
In the old Hebrew pastoral, at the feet
Of Bo5z, even this simple lay of mine
Nv seem the burden Of prophecy,
Finding irs late fulfilment in change
Slow as the oaks growth, lifting manhood up
Through broader culture, finer manners, love,
And reverence, to the level of the hills.
The germ of this beautiful narrative poem
appeared in the January (I868) number of
the Atlantic Monthly. The piece is there
called The Wife, an Idyl of Bearcamp
W dter. but W hitter pOcn
t. twice its original length, and packed it 50
thickly with beautiful verses that, as 1t
stands now, it is quite another thing. Such
lines as these now stud the poem with new
beauty
The early cricket sang; the stream
FLASHED through my friends narration
Her rustic patois of the hills
Lost in my free translation
Through Sandwich notch the west-wing sang
Good morrow the cotter
And once again Chocorua s horn
OF shadow pierced the water.
Above the broad lake Ossipee,
Once more the sunshine wearing
STOPPED, tracing on the silver shield
His grim armorial bearing.
Clear drawn against the hard blue sky
The peaks had winters keennees
And close on autumn's frost, the wales
Had more than Junes fresh greenness-
Again the soddcn forest floors
With golden lights were checkered,
Once more rejoicing leaves in wind
And sunshine danced and ilckered
Ii was as if the summers late
Atoning for it's sadness
Had borrowed every season charm
To end its days in gladness
His heroine is evidently sr1"o inch
with Whittier, for he praises hef IL
exquisite verses as these