The record-union., 1892-11-03
TRIBUTE TO WHITTIER.
His Character and Genius Reviewed
by a Sacramentan.
A Charming Retrospect of the Dead
Poets Life-Norl], by Ralph Turner,
Late of This City.

The Honolulu Bulletin of October 18th
contained the following article on the
death of the poet Whittier, from the pen
of Ralph Turner late OF this city, and
son of ex-Mayor Jabez Turner. The
youthful writer, as Sacramentans well
know, is himself the author of many
charming poems. He has been residing
in Honolulu for the last three years:
The death CT Whittier at the age of So
years, writes Mr.. Turner, should cause
no feeling OF regret among his admirers,
for his life was rounded to full COM
pleteness, and came to peaceful end af-
ter career devoted to the cause Of free
dom, and the social and moral elevation
of his fellows.
None of his contemporaries have sung
themselves so deeply into the hearts of
the masses in America as he, and we must
look beyong the common love of song for
the reason.
His work has none of the finished ele-
gance Of Longiellow, none OF the spark
ling wit Of Holmes, nor was he capable
OF the grand flights OF Bryant and Lowell.
But IN spite OF his ignorance OF prOsody
there is "A natural melody in all that he
wrote that has at least gained him a ter
restrial immortality.
He was essentially poet of the people !;
his friends were among the lowly or
among those who, like himself, had
sprung from the ranks and fought their
way to the van by sheer force of intellect.
There never was a ragged urchin whom
he deemed beneath his notice, for beneath
the dust and CRIME and the tattered gar
ments his clear prophetic vision saw the
future man.
His early life on a New England farm
imbued him with that passionate love for
nature that is so gracefully expressed in
his poems. 1t was while working there
that he formed a romantic attachment for
ms employers daughter, whose image
haunted him all of his life and to whose
memory he consecrated his love of do
mesticity and remained a bachelor.
lie has given us an exquisite picture of
this love episode of his boyhood in My
Playmate" so fun Of homely pathos as
TO thrill the laggard pulses and dim the
sunken eyes OF age with sentimental
memories of life's prime:
Ny playmate left her home.
And took with her the laughing spring.
The music aud the bloom.
**% **~ *#@
walk with noiseless feet the round
OF unevenJful years;
stjll DER and DER SOW the spring
And reap the autumn years.
see her face, I hear her voice;
Does she remember mine?
And what TO her is now tse boy
Who led her fathers kline?
This hopeless passion did not, how
ever, embltter his kindly nature, nor
did he allow it to burden his songs, with
the exception Of the one quoted and a
similar tender lyric entitled, ''In School
Days"
The true poet is never maudlin senti-
mentalist, and Whittier, who sang as the
birds sing, spontaneously from inherent
love OF melody, had worthier use for his
Tyre than to offer its strains on an altar of
self-immOlation to be lost in the sacri-
fcial flames of unreauited love.
j. L. Trow bridge wrote an amusing
commemorative poem on Whittier's sew
enteth birthday in which he described
the ludicrous efforts of two little Quaker
lads to lift themselves bodily over Il
fence i'll defiance Of the laws OF gravity.
one of these ingenious youngsters after
ward sung his way to renown in the
Natt0BaJ ErG under the initials J. G.. w,
and the other-well, the other must have
somehow got over the fence and into the
field of oblivion.
1t is a rather sad commentary upon
Whittiers forcible anti-Slavery songs,
his vigorous and eloquent protests against
imprisonment for debt, and his manly
appeals in behalf OF labor, that his death
has called forth less favorable comment
upon his life work than did the demise of
the good gray poet" Walt Whitman,
whose claim to future distinction must
rest upon the merits Of Leaves of Grass, -
work familiar only to students of litera-
ture and re-read only by that class that
delight IN perusing the Decameron. In
no sense can Whitman be deemed the
peer OF Whittier as poet. The former
attained an undeserved audience through
the kind praise OF Il. w. Emerson, who.
il we except the ''Rhodora," the lines on
the death OF his idolized son, ''the deep
eyed boy" and a few minor poems that
were written under stress Of emotions
that stirred the profound soul of the
philosopher to its depths, was as unmu-
sically mechanical in mis- verse as Whit
man.
Poets male and female, have always
been creatures OF clay" brimming over
with romance and a boundless capacity
for falling in love, legally or illicitly,
and the lives of the masters will not bear
TOO close a scrutiny.
Meredith tells us that "a poet loved a
starr and won the luminary only to ex-
claim: Il miss from Heaven a starr:
and the star sighed: Il miss from earth
a poet"
Y ct Whittier has escaped all calumny.
No slanderous tongue has ever assailed
the spotless purity of his life. His long
Intimacy with Lucy Larcon, the Lowell
factory girl, who drew her inspiration
from the hum of looms and whose sweet
madrigals breathe 4 hope TO quote her
own words) for "a second life. more
spiritual than the first-a life won only
out of DEATH" caused nc idle gossip. but