Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-03-20
SIMPLEST MEASURES
POET WHITTIER DISCUSSED BY
JUSTICE STAFFORD.
Members Of Mems League of Calvary
Baptist Church and Congrega-
ton the Audience.

church and congregation met last evening
In the Sunday school house, President w.
s. Shallenberger, presiding. Mr.. j. Walter
HUMPHREY, bass soloist of the Congrega-
tional Church, rendered the music, and
Justice Wendell Phillips Stafford of the
Supreme Court of the District of Columbia
delivered an address Whittier, the Poet
Laureate OF Freedom Justice Stafford
saio in part:
Il suppose Whittier was the best known
man of letters we had. Everybody knew
him-knew where he lived and what the
manner of his life has been, and every
body who cared for poetry at all knew
the characteristics of his verse. The rea-
son is not far to seek. He wrote upon
subjects of common interest, and he wrote
in style which everybody could compre-
bend and appreciate. AS Macaulay said
of John Bunyan, no ever read sem
tenee of his twice to find out what it meant.
&c common people admired him because
he put their own thoughts and imaginingS
into musical words, and they loved him
because they knew that his heart was as
warm and his daily life as simple and
homely as their own.
There was much in the mere form OF
his verse to make it popular. He never
wrote in those involved and intricate meas
ures which demand special metrical gift
or patient study. His poems are all cast
in the simplest measures, where the ear
knows lust when to expect the accent and
the rhyme, and is never disappointed or
confused.
Then. again, his language was popular
He always chose the sweet, strong. famil-
tar words we have known from our cradles.
Poet of the People.
'It was these qualities-smplicity in
thought simplicity in language and In mel
ody, added to the marvellous fire and eio-
ouence of his best moments, that mace
him far and away the poet OF the people,
and this Is his special distinction Other
poets, no doubt other American poets, have
surpassed him in other ways homes was
more witty, Lowell more brilliant and YER
sattle, Longfellow more refined and grace
full, Bryant more massive and sonorous ana
Emerson now and then sent stray smart
above them all. But none of these ever
crept quite so near the popular heart some
how the people felt tnat Whittier WAS OH
their own
This feeling was partly due to his per-
sonality. We never thought or MN as
book scholar hedged round with lbrar4es.
He was the plain Quaker poet, fired at
times by great missions, inspired to hymns
and prayers that were revelations of spirit
power, yet never ceasing to be the son Oh
the farmer, the child of the SOIL
Quotations were made from Snow Bouhd
and other poems to present picture OF
Winters life a New England FARMER
bow. and of the characteristic home circle
to which he belonged.
Early Disadvantages.
The sneaker said learned men had often
spoken pftyingly of Winters early dis
ADVANTAGES" but that he had never been
able to find out what they were. 1t was
contended that his surroundings We're ex-
actly what was needed to make him the
poet of the people, and that 1t was more
than doubtful whether Harvard would have
improved him. The true scholar life is
revolt against worldliness, the lust of the
eyes and the pride OF life.
But any account Of Whittier, however
brief, that failed to pause at his religious
verse might better have been left unsaid,
Justice Stafford went on to say. lone
early disadvantage he did have, and 1t fol-
lowed him like his own shadow through his
brightest days. I mean i'll health. Fran ne
was always-worn and thin with suffering
the slight body often became-but how the
spirit beamed within! How it famed at
times and nghtened like the scourge of
God!
How venerable he grew as the strong
years beat him Down and left him weaker.
No judcious lover would care to rest his
fame on anything he wrote during the last
ten years Of his life; yet what decade
could equal that in influence? All the songs
he had ever sung We're vocal about him in
those days. He didn't need to sing any
more-his silence was song now
Anti-slavery Agitation.
In closing, the speaker dwelt upon the
part taken by Whittier in the anti-slavery
agitation, Of which he was the poet lau-
reate claiming that this was his highest
and most enduring title to fame.
His real claim upon our gratitude is that
the gift of verse became in his hand not a
Lutte but a trumpet not toy, but a wea-
pom. and he wore not his sword like
dancer" it was declared He is not the
poet of nature: Bryant surpassed him there.
He is not the poet of old-world culture and
memories; there Longfelow was easily his
master. He was not the poet of mysticism;
Emerson was there before him, and will
keep his throne long after he is gone.
He is not the poet of versatile gift of
manifold achievement; he was narrow be-
side Lowell. But he was the poet of hu.
man freedom in a sense in which they
never were. with force and fire none of
them could ever hope to match. Here his
inspiration like rushing wind sway
ing him like a reed, possessing him, not
possessed by him, leapfng into forms which
should not be criticised as literature, which
are not to be tried by any of the rules of
art. but which overtop all art, and put all
art to shame by their own spontaneous
elemental force and fire, like revelations of
the Deity. Whittier was a voice that cried
to sluggard conscience, sleep no more'-a
cry that split the ears of a coward and
wrapped his frail body like a fame and
gave his puny arm the strength of His who
Scourged the money changers from His
Fathers house. Whittier will live forever
the poet of the anti-slavery conflict"