New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1888-12-09
WHITTIER'S POEMS.
A BEAUTIFUL NEW EDITION

THE WRITINGS OF JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER
Riverside Edition. With portraits In seven
volumes. lcmo Vols l. II, ILL., ". Houghton,
MIffiln & Co
library edition of Whittiers works was pun
published in SOC and after an intervai OF twenty
two years this new rcarranged ana dehhiti'e
edition. beautifully printed and neatly bound Is
put forth with the final touches oil inc poet IL
is in all respects an edition worthy of his genius
and the classification may be regarded as IN
dicating his ultimate Judgment upon those OF MS
earlier poems which-too firmly fixed IN the al
lection IF the putlc to be discarded-are as
signed the most modest position by being rele-
GATED 10 an appendix. Every care has been
taken 10 ascertain the chronology OF this body OF
verse aud when Mr.. Whittier has not been aoie
10 fix dates with certainty the poems have been
GROUPED in accordance with their subjects and
the period suggested by internal evidence Full
indexes and chronological tables are also given,
and the new edition is enriched by series OF
portraits Of the author, taken at different periods
of his HE
So important literary event as the issue OF
the defnitive edition of the works of Mr.. Whittier
may well be taken as the text for some ohserva-
lions upon the verse Of one who has special and
pecu}ar claims 10 the title of an American poet
and much of whose poetry is indissoluby con-
nccted with the greatest social moral ana po-
litical CONFUSION that ever shook the founda-
tions Of the Republic. Whittier has been styled
the 81 Poet of Ncw-Englnnd' and the Quaker
Poet Both designations are significant out
neither Is comprehensive enough. lie represents
truly, and as no other poet has done, the OLD
Puritan sense of duIy and the old Puritan lervor
Of religious feeling. But he has breadth and
a fundamental tenderness which the old Puritan
did not possess. The Quaker in him is so blended
with The Puritan that to the strength OF the
latter is Joined the sweetness of the former.
There are times when Whittiers verse burns with
a whitehead of righteous wrath; when his words
fash and blaze against the iniQuty of slavery
with scathng energy. There are times when the
solemn denunciaton of National sin falls from
his hrs with the sonorous vibration of Hebrew
prophecy and whcr the elevat on OF his spirit
seems to belitte the objects Of his commlnanon
ms WITH Inc crash and sweep of Sinaitic thunder
But in his fcrcest moods it is always the sin
rather than the sinner that he smltei, and his
aim is is ever reconciliation and not revenge
1t has become rather thu custom of late TO
affect fine aesthetic depreciation OF Winters
an;i-s!avcry poems This is perhars character
istic of period ir which the decline OF earnest
ross and the tightening of the yoke of duty are
prominent tendencies. but it is mistake Matthew
Arnold observes, in his essay on Wordsworth: " 1t
is important 10 hold fast TO this, that poetry
at bottom is a criticism of life; that the great
ness of a poet lies in his powerful and beautiful
application of ideas TO life-to the question: How
10 live" Let US see how this observation applies
70 Whittier When he began what from any
point of view must be considered his most I'M
portant life work. he found the morals of society
in n sophisticated condition. Even his native
New-England had suffered the inevitable corrup-
ton attendant upon evil communications Con-
t,a
one hand, political opportunism on the other, had
brought moral atrophy from which only
the heroic remedies applied by Garrison and
Whittier could have relieved the community. AT
such periods compromise is aggravatiOn, for it
is o scdative. II stupefcS the patient, but does
not mitigate the disease. 1t needed GarrlsonS
prose and Whittiers poetry TO rouse the public
conscience. when even the ministers of Christ had
found in Ills Gospel an apology for slavery, and
the chains of the fugitive slaves were reshackled
under the very shadow of the Cross.
To new generation there may seem somewhat
of extravaeance in the anti slavery lyrics of that
bygone time, but to the clear-eycd student OF
history they must ever appear no less natural,
fit and wholesome than the thunderstorm which
forms the climax to a season Of oppressive and
relaxing heat and whose electric commissions cool
and clear and mosten the air. The season had
was little response even TO the thunder. Mems
sciences were drugged. The Abolitionist7
hardly less hated at the North than at the South
Hardly less Perhaps the North de;ested him
The more for at the North the excuse for the
covenant with He'll was less than at the South
it was the excuse only OF base expedlency
Whittiers bolts were shot into the strongholds
Of hypocrisy and can't and they stung to the
soul wherever they struck
His verses stirred mems souls as they had never
been stirred before. Here was no euphemism, no
blinking of the question. National sin was forced
home to the national conscience with directness,
a force, a fire, which commanded and compelled
attention. All through that long, and as il some
times appeared, that hopeless struggle, Whittiers
poems rang out like trumpet-calls He neglected
no opportunity and he never spoke without mani
Testing that heated conviction, that divine rage
at passively endured wrong, which give life and
reforming power to all human expression.
The anti-slavery poems are often ragged, no
doubt 1t would be easy to show faults of tech
nique in them and lapses oil melody, but such
criticism would be in the circumstances frivolous
and out of place. They need not be regarded
from an artistic point of view They must he
considercd high moral agencies as the vehicle
of great teaching, which took the form of poetry
naturally because poetry is the destined lnstru-
mcnt of the loftiest and noblest IDEAS and which
are as much q. part Of national history as the
chronicle of the battles and campaigns fought
aftTward in final settlement Of that irrcpress-
ible conflict which these spiritual pons
strongly contributed TO precipitatc. Whittiers
anti-savery poems arc the highest, pureSt express
sion Of the national soul They combine the
Puritan intolerance of sin with the Quaker COM
passion They arc, so to speak, the Higher Self
Of America rebuking the Lower Self; scorning the
mercenary spirit which Rugged the idea of eternal
compromise, contemning the moral cowardcc
which condoned a fragrant wrong; putting the
whole question on that supreme plane Of Christian
ethics where to contemplate it hut for moment