The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1892-12-20

Where the free 6urghers from the wall
Defed the mail-clad master.
Than yours. at Freedoms holy call
No craftsman rallied faster.
The Fishermen are TO remember that
Gods eye Is looking on Us.
And beneath US Is His hand.
and that
Our wet hands spread the car pc
And light the hearth OF home.
In the next period, Whittier's answers
to political and social questions are still
clear. He is not happy when he enters into
the details of European state-cra IL, put
he is right on the whole. Here are
few of his ans wers to riddles:
To war.
Peace nnweaponed conquers every wrong.
To capital and labor:
Solution there Is none
save in the Golden Rule OF Christ alone.
To immigration aud the assimilation
of the foreign element:
Freedoms chemistry Ishalll combine the allen
clemens OF man.
The nation which 'set the duskv mil
lions free" is deemed by the poet equal by
that sign to solving all other problems;
Shall II not deal with other Ills.
The Circean cup which shaines and Kills,
And labor full requtai maker
Alone TO such as fitly bear
The civic honors bid them fali
Aud call thy daughters forth TO share
The rights ANA duties pledged TO all.
Give every cLild his right to school,
Merge private greed IN public good.
And spare a trea sury overfull
The tax upon poor mans rood
Ia twelve lines the poet voices his sub
lime optimism that the Indian question,
temperance, the labor problem, honest
city government, womans rights: edu,
cation, monopolies, and the tarlu VIII
all be dealt with satisfactorily.
The passage from this large optimism
to the tone of some of his later poems is
significant. La THE Homestead (lSS6) or,
as il might be surnamed, 1.-The Deserted
Farm" Whittier has drawn an affecting
picture of well-kDown phase OF New
Englan life, or-death:
Against the wooded hill 1t stands.
Ghost OF a dead home, staring through
Its broken lights on wasted lands
Where old-ttme harvests grew.
Unploughed, unsown. by scythe unshorn,
Once rich and rife with golden corn
And pale green broadths OF rye
The leaning barn, about 20 fall
Resounds no more on husking ewes;
No cattle low In yard or stall
No thresher beats his sheaves.
So sad, so drear II Gems almost
Some haunting Presence makes its sign
That down yon shadowy lane some ghost
Might drive his spectral kline!
Whittier shows in this poem how indif-
ferent the rest of the country Is TO him,
when compared with his New England.
His only solution OF the difficulty is
that the wanderers from ancestral soiP'
q. Q. from New England) should return to
the "mother land"
Come back to bayberry scented slopes.
AM fragrant fern. and ground-nut vlne
Br, athe airs blown over holt and copse
Sweet with black birch and pine.
What matter II the gains small
That life's essential wants supply
Your honest ssd title gives you all
That idle wealth can buy
Your own sole makers freedom -willed.
With none TO bid you go or stay
TIL the old fields your fathers titled.
As manly men AS they!
There is not simbly the pathos Of con-
servative old age in this. Whittier's New
England, inhabited by the sturdy race he
kneS, is his all in ali. IL is the only soil
perfectly and in all respects adapted to
the growth of the moral virtues making
up his system.
But Whittier does not here face the
problem for the first time No great
statesman was ever more anxious that
| the ruling family should remain-in
| blood aud brain and character-all that
| il had been, than Whittier is to uphold
and ameliorate his dynasty in the moral
world, the noble New England strain or
men and women. In "rhe Huskers''
| c'Songs of Lsbor'') he is still happy in
the present:
| Let vapid idlers loll in silk
| Around their costly board:
| Give Us the bowl of samp and milk
| by home-span beauty poured
But soon we find him casting about for
ways and means of bringing rural New
England up to his ideal In his first pc
riod he had been socially, as well as po-
| liticaIly, democratic. Now QS6S) we lind
| him willing TO introduce the leaven OF
| beauty in the shape Of an ideal city
dame, who marries the country farmer.
| In The Huskers" his ideal had been
Girlhood with It's solid curves
| OF heathful strength AMI painless nerves.
But this new heroine is
Not fair alone in curve and line
| But something more aud better,
The sacred charm. e!udin ing art
| Its spirit not its letter.
An inborn grace that nothing lacked
| OF culture aud appliance,
| The warmth OF genial courtesy,
Her air. her smiles, her motions told
| music ~ OF household songs
| Was I'm her voice OF sweetness
Her story should be read entire. as in
deed the whole poem. Among tue Hills, ,
is of deep import, "a milestone, as it were
| on wSittier's journey. The story 1,
Maud Muller reversed, with a somewhat
similar protest:
Itell you love has naught 20 do
| With meetuess or unmeetncss.
But the protest, which In Maud Muller
was n helpless. half-despairing cry, !,
now availinx. IL points no longer q
that saddest might nave been" Low,
| is now
| Itself it, best excuse, % asks
| No leave of pride OF fashion.
| Mhsn silken rome or home-spnn frcck
| II s'trs with throbs % passion
The farmer fuds his wife. the idea
help.meet, and the golden age Of New