The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1892-09-16

THE POET WHITTIER.
The death of John Greenleaf Whittier
was not wholly unexpected, for he was
an old man. He said good-b bye to the
four-score years which Moses allowed tc
unusual strength. And yet his mental
quickness, his interest in all things per.
tanning to humanity and his unfaulter
ing power of expression were so pro.
nounced that it now seems as if he were
taken away in the prime of manhood.
With one exception he was the last OF
the poets who sang so long together fol
the glory of New England, and in certain
respects he was the one poet who was
most fully possessed with the spirit OF
New England; the one who best por.
trayed in verse her landscapes and ex.
pressed most subtly as well as with the
sharpest realism the temper of her peo-
pie. For Longfellow was cosmopolitan
and it is easy to imagine the Lowell OF
later years as dwelling in comfort on for.
eign soil. Bryant could have chanted
his hymns to nature and to death under
different sky, and Emerson, in spite OF
his intense love of the New England soil,
was poet-philosopher of the universe.
But it is hard to think of Whittier with.
out at once coupling with his name New
England scenes and New England ideas.
His life prepared his poetry. First OF
all entered into his poetical equipment
heredity. He came of prosecuted stock,
and he naturally sympathized deeply
with the oppressed. Born on a farm, he
knew the life of farmer; but it was not
only the routine work that he could SO
well describe, or the dress and the ways
of life; he became the trusted friend OF
Nature, and to him she told her secrets
Eager for education, he made shoes, and
he taught school that he himself might
learn. His first published verses won
the praise and the sympathy of Garrison,
and his friendship with that jealous lib
orator, added to his natural inclinatiOns,
made him the poet of the anti-slavery
party. The stern New England spirit
that in his religious poetry was SC
strongly tempered by the optimism and
the sweetness of his sect, blazed with
the fiery Indignation of a Hebrew prophet
in denouncing the cruelty of the oppres-
or and in warning the Nation of the
wrath to come. He sang the promise of
those early days when Fremont was
leader; he aroused the Northern people
to lively sense of the arrogance of the
Shareholders; he exulted in memorable
verse when it was proclaimed through
out the land that those in bonds were set
free forever.
1t has been said by them whose talk is
of art for arts sake, that the poet was
overshadowed by the reformer; that the
sincerity of the latter made him despise
the polishing of verse; that in becoming
the bard of an epoch he forgot the re-
quirements of Time, the final judge. 1t
is true that Whittier was never a juggler
with words. There are provincialisms of
word and accent in his poems, whether
they treat of pastoral scenes or of slavery
and he was occasionally careless in his
rhymes. But the individuality of the
poet, as well as the New England indi-
viduality, would have suffered from the
Horatian labor of the file. The rugged
honesty of his excited thought could not
brook the delay necessary to the cutter
Of verbal gems. When, " dull nation
needed tho pick of a Jealous prophet it
would have seemed treachery to him to
have halted for the sake of a more felic-
itous expression. Poetry was to him in
those dark days before the war the read
lest tool to serve his purpose. A nation
al disgrace or national crime was never
merely material for poetry.
AS by his glowing lines he served his
country, so by his poetic illustrations of
homely New England life he glorified a
homely people; so by his religious verses
full of sweet charity and implicit trust
he appeased many doubling spirit and
brought consolation to many mourner.
The New Highlander of past years, stern
to severity, man of obstinate convic-
tint1c WI ipo nnacCibl tN tbo nd,
of justice; who in the routine of his
ton of things now thought necessary;
land or the sea a livelihood, paid little
al woods or setting suns, waves dashing
sky; whose grim humor was often dis
played in tragic situations; this New
finds his most kindly, sympa-
thetic and at the same time realistic in
terpreter in Whittier. The poet may
choose an episode in the history of New
England, as in his version of the long.
may treat of a pathetic superstition as in
represent alton of farm life
in winter, as in "SnowBound," and in
each and every case the graphic touch
or the faithful delineation never suggests
merely the cold, accurate observer; but
the lines glow with the warmth of hu-
man feeling and human appreciation.
He sees Nature as the friend of man. even
in her sterner moods; he does not use
her as a subject for metaphysical specu-
lation. Indeed, speculative as well as
poetry was foreign to him.
Nature and man and woman as they
were found in New England were his
subjects. These subjects were closely
bound together. He sang of the people
and the scenes near and familiar to him.
A man of the people, he wrote for the
people. They listened to him gladly.
They understood him. They loved him.