Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892). The Poetical Works in Four Volumes. 1892.

Poems Subjective and Reminiscent

My Namesake

Addressed to Francis Greenleaf Allinson of Burlington, New Jersey.

YOU scarcely need my tardy thanks,

Who, self-rewarded, nurse and tend—

A green leaf on your own Green Banks—

The memory of your friend.

For me, no wreath, bloom-woven, hides

The sobered brow and lessening hair:

For aught I know, the myrtled sides

Of Helicon are bare.

Their scallop-shells so many bring

The fabled founts of song to try,

They ’ve drained, for aught I know, the spring

Of Aganippe dry.

Ah well!—The wreath the Muses braid

Proves often Folly’s cap and bell;

Methinks, my ample beaver’s shade

May serve my turn as well.

Let Love’s and Friendship’s tender debt

Be paid by those I love in life.

Why should the unborn critic whet

For me his scalping-knife?

Why should the stranger peer and pry

One’s vacant house of life about,

And drag for curious ear and eye

His faults and follies out?—

Why stuff, for fools to gaze upon,

With chaff of words, the garb he wore,

As corn-husks when the ear is gone

Are rustled all the more?

Let kindly Silence close again,

The picture vanish from the eye,

And on the dim and misty main

Let the small ripple die.

Yet not the less I own your claim

To grateful thanks, dear friends of mine.

Hang, if it please you so, my name

Upon your household line.

Let Fame from brazen lips blow wide

Her chosen names, I envy none:

A mother’s love, a father’s pride,

Shall keep alive my own!

Still shall that name as now recall

The young leaf wet with morning dew,

The glory where the sunbeams fall

The breezy woodlands through.

That name shall be a household word,

A spell to waken smile or sigh;

In many an evening prayer be heard

And cradle lullaby.

And thou, dear child, in riper days

When asked the reason of thy name,

Shalt answer: “One ’t were vain to praise

Or censure bore the same.

“Some blamed him, some believed him good,

The truth lay doubtless ’twixt the two;

He reconciled as best he could

Old faith and fancies new.

“In him the grave and playful mixed,

And wisdom held with folly truce,

And Nature compromised betwixt

Good fellow and recluse.

“He loved his friends, forgave his foes;

And, if his words were harsh at times,

He spared his fellow-men,—his blows

Fell only on their crimes.

“He loved the good and wise, but found

His human heart to all akin

Who met him on the common ground

Of suffering and of sin.

“Whate’er his neighbors might endure

Of pain or grief his own became;

For all the ills he could not cure

He held himself to blame.

“His good was mainly an intent,

His evil not of forethought done;

The work he wrought was rarely meant

Or finished as begun.

“Ill served his tides of feeling strong

To turn the common mills of use;

And, over restless wings of song,

His birthright garb hung loose!

“His eye was beauty’s powerless slave,

And his the ear which discord pains;

Few guessed beneath his aspect grave

What passions strove in chains.

“He had his share of care and pain,

No holiday was life to him;

Still in the heirloom cup we drain

The bitter drop will swim.

“Yet Heaven was kind, and here a bird

And there a flower beguiled his way;

And, cool, in summer noons, he heard

The fountains plash and play.

“On all his sad or restless moods

The patient peace of Nature stole;

The quiet of the fields and woods

Sank deep into his soul.

“He worshipped as his fathers did,

And kept the faith of childish days,

And, howsoe’er he strayed or slid,

He loved the good old ways.

“The simple tastes, the kindly traits,

The tranquil air, and gentle speech,

The silence of the soul that waits

For more than man to teach.

“The cant of party, school, and sect,

Provoked at times his honest scorn,

And Folly, in its gray respect,

He tossed on satire’s horn.

“But still his heart was full of awe

And reverence for all sacred things;

And, brooding over form and law,

He saw the Spirit’s wings!

“Life’s mystery wrapt him like a cloud;

He heard far voices mock his own,

The sweep of wings unseen, the loud,

Long roll of waves unknown.

“The arrows of his straining sight

Fell quenched in darkness; priest and sage,

Like lost guides calling left and right,

Perplexed his doubtful age.

“Like childhood, listening for the sound

Of its dropped pebbles in the well,

All vainly down the dark profound

His brief-lined plummet fell.

“So, scattering flowers with pious pains

On old beliefs, of later creeds,

Which claimed a place in Truth’s domains,

He asked the title-deeds.

“He saw the old-time’s groves and shrines

In the long distance fair and dim;

And heard, like sound of far-off pines,

The century-mellowed hymn!

“He dared not mock the Dervish whirl,

The Brahmin’s rite, the Lama’s spell;

God knew the heart; Devotion’s pearl

Might sanctify the shell.

“While others trod the altar stairs

He faltered like the publican;

And, while they praised as saints, his prayers

Were those of sinful man.

“For, awed by Sinai’s Mount of Law,

The trembling faith alone sufficed,

That, through its cloud and flame, he saw

The sweet, sad face of Christ!

“And listening, with his forehead bowed,

Heard the Divine compassion fill

The pauses of the trump and cloud

With whispers small and still.

“The words he spake, the thoughts he penned,

Are mortal as his hand and brain,

But, if they served the Master’s end,

He has not lived in vain!”

Heaven make thee better than thy name,

Child of my friends!—For thee I crave

What riches never bought, nor fame

To mortal longing gave.

I pray the prayer of Plato old:

God make thee beautiful within,

And let thine eyes the good behold

In everything save sin!

Imagination held in check

To serve, not rule, thy poisëd mind;

Thy Reason, at the frown or beck

Of Conscience, loose or bind.

No dreamer thou, but real all,—

Strong manhood crowning vigorous youth;

Life made by duty epical

And rhythmic with the truth.

So shall that life the fruitage yield

Which trees of healing only give,

And green-leafed in the Eternal field

Of God, forever live!

1856.