The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1892-12-20
WHITTIER'S POETRY.
A Paper Read at the Friends School Ami
versary Exercises on Saturday Evening,
Dec. IL, by Prof Henry Wood Of Johns
Hopkins University. ,t,

Among Goethe's prose inaAi'
Following, in which he essays dehhltloh
Of religion from the point OF view OF ht-
erature. "There are two, and only two,
genuine religions: Both worship the dod
who dwslls about us and in us, but the
one reveres him without the aid OF forms.
and the other in the most beaut'iui
ferns. All religions that lie between
these two are idolatry." Suppose far
mer,s or mechanics boy, looking at life
through a gray New England country
landscape, or through the smoke OF Lon
don. with no resources of art, no unusual
accessories of culture, reared In the most
formless of all creeds, or IN certain Eng
lixh indifferentism. suppose sucn poi
endowed with genius OF rare oruer, ahus
inplnnt, besides In his soul an indes1ruc-
tibie love of beauty. IL the moral iibre
be strong enough, and the 9Sthetlcal en-,
dowment rare enough, you shall
behold A Keats or Whittier: the
noet of the most beautiful forms, or the
poet of the most II ter ormlessness, IN
which the Supreme Divine spirit that
souoht and worshipped Keats, su-
prsmely attracted TO the most beau tiiul
world of eve and ear and thought thaU
man has ever known--that or 6reece-re-
created that world in the depths OF MS
own rare soul, and informed ~ Win new
ana subtle interpretations Tor the mouerh
man. Whittier, not less strongly at,
tracted to that inner world OF spiritual
beauty which is revealed TO sixth sense,
"a IL were. through the symbonsms OF
nature:--a world Of beauty which char
acrerizes spiritualiZed Christianity. as
that other world glorifed the upllfUed
paoanism or Greece,-Whittier. l repeat,
has found that world for himself, has re-
yealed il TO Quakerism, and through II
TO widening circle OF persons and even
of nations, who have learned TO love TINS
uaclothed essence of spiritual beauty,
clothed upon by the art OF true poet.
Observing the law of contrasts and oppo-
sites familiar in the expression extremes
meet" il would not be strange, i thlnk,
to find line of conveyance, not between
Keats and Whittier, as individual poets,
but between the ranges OF Thought ana
feeling in which they lived.
And this is actually the case. No mod
ern poet seems to have been more I'M
questionable to outward beauty than
Whittier. and he himself confessed TO
very high degree of this lmpressionabili-
ty. Let anyone read, for instance, his
poem, ''The Pageant" noting that the
winter landscape is symbolical OF the
formlessness Of Quakerism, and then OBJ
serve how the poet strives 20 people the
and how at last he confesses himself un-
able TO carry out this unheard-of challenge
hurled in the face OF life itself, which is
beauty.
Rsbuks menot, o sapphire s,s heaven "a eas
Thy keen reproach OF purity,
Ifin this august presence chamber.
sigh for summers leai cal, green zee % gloom m,
Letthe strange fros.,work sink and ssrumble.
TIL all their bells OF silver ring.
Shine warmly down. thou sun Of noontlde
On this child pageant melt aud move
~ The winters frozen heart with love.
breathe through veil of tenderest haze
Thy prophecy OF summer days.
Come with thy green relief OF promise,
And 10 this dead cold spendor bring
The living jewels OF the spring.
Those who see in these verses only "the
compliments OF the season." do not know
Whittier. Keats would have understood
these lines. They are like hymn to
earthly beauty, wrung from the strug-
Cling soul of an anchorite.
A further analysis of Whittier's poetry
would reveal many analogies OF the kind
have exemplified.
But there Is another, shorther way of
Whittier approaches TO the spirit of
Greece.
Stedman ("victorian Poets'') has given
q clever and valuable comparison of Ten
nyson with Theocrtus. lie finds in The
Psincess," "Gnone," THE Lotus
Eaters, the "ldyls of the King" abun
dant evidence OF close study of the Greek
spondence Of theme, allowing for differ
ence of place and period, a similarity of
metrical purpose, and general analogy
Of atmosphere and tone.
This comparison is TO be subscribed To
fully as explaining much in the carefully
guarded and con cealed growth of Jenny
son's mind and art. But, in spite of IL,
I do not hesitate to claim for American
literature, and for Whittier in particu-
lar, a closer and more vital analogy with
Theocritus than is afforded by Tennyson.
In the first place, New England may
well be styled the Sicily of England, an
America has been-Ihns styled repeatedly
by Edward A. Freeman, ia his unfortu-
nately unfinished work on Sicily. Mr..
Freeman is never tired OF pointing out
this analogy. Sicily was Dorian col
ony, aud the broad. liquid Dorian speech
had many of the characteristics OF Yankee
English. Furthermore, tie Dorian char
acter stood in some res pects in IA a similar
position toward the Attic, that the puri-
tan Euglish and New England character
presents TO the general Engligh type The
tumble OF nationalities In Sicily, with
Dorian Greek however in secure control
the break up OF the old Greek polity and
other points as we'll, point ia the same
direction. But the most important re
main unmentioned They are a tendency
toward new conception of religion anC
mans attitude toward nature Theocritus
does not himself Immediately and eXplic
ttly illustrate the point OF religion, but h,
has been fellow student at Cos of Ora
tus, and sang OF him, the same Oratui
whom Paul quotes in his sermon on the
Areopagus AT Athens. "As Witness I,
Mans Instructive Consent In the Doc
trine of the Universal Fatherhood o
God" just as this doctrine has found III
strongest exponents in modern times Ia
those religious bodies which sDraug up il
England and Germany and found NOR
congeniai soil and atmos phere in Americ 4
and especially in New England and n
Pennsylvania, 50 in Magma Graecia, wheI
the Greek state religion was breaking up
we find alongside Of "a lax readiness q
bow down in the tempe OF an,
Oriental Rimmon. or Adouis,n another
spiritual belief In the universal father