Ichabod

By John Greenleaf Whittier

Ichabod, by John Greenleaf Whittier
So fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn
Which once he wore!
The glory from his gray hairs gone
Forevermore!

Revile him not, the Tempter hath

A snare for all;
And pitying tears, not scorn and wrath,
Befit his fall!

Oh, dumb be passion's stormy rage,

When he who might
Have lighted up and led his age,
Falls back in night.

Scorn! would the angels laugh, to mark

A bright soul driven,
Fiend-goaded, down the endless dark,
From hope and heaven!

Let not the land once proud of him

Insult him now,
Nor brand with deeper shame his dim,
Dishonored brow.

But let its humbled sons, instead,

From sea to lake,
A long lament, as for the dead,
In sadness make.

Of all we loved and honored, naught

Save power remains;
A fallen angel's pride of thought,
Still strong in chains.

All else is gone; from those great eyes

The soul has fled:
When faith is lost, when honor dies,
The man is dead!

Then, pay the reverence of old days

To his dead fame;
Walk backward, with averted gaze,
And hide the shame!
I Was A Stranger, And Ye Took Me In,
by John Greenleaf Whittier
'Neath skies that winter never knew
The air was full of light and balm,
And warm and soft the Gulf wind blew
Through orange bloom and groves of palm.

A stranger from the frozen North,

Who sought the fount of health in vain,
Sank homeless on the alien earth,
And breathed the languid air with pain.

God's angel came! The tender shade

Of pity made her blue eye dim;
Against her woman's breast she laid
The drooping, fainting head of him.

She bore him to a pleasant room,

Flower-sweet and cool with salt sea air,
And watched beside his bed, for whom
His far-off sisters might not care.

She fanned his feverish brow and smoothed

Its lines of pain with tenderest touch.
With holy hymn and prayer she soothed
The trembling soul that feared so much.

Through her the peace that passeth sight

Came to him, as he lapsed away
As one whose troubled dreams of night
Slide slowly into tranquil day.

The sweetness of the Land of Flowers

Upon his lonely grave she laid
The jasmine dropped its golden showers,
The orange lent its bloom and shade.

And something whispered in her thought,

More sweet than mortal voices be
'The service thou for him hast wrought
O daughter! hath been done for me.'
Immortal love, forever full,
by John Greenleaf Whittier
Immortal love, forever full,
Forever flowing free,
Forever shared, forever whole,
A never ebbing sea!

Our outward lips confess the name

All other names above;
Love only knoweth whence it came,
And comprehendeth love.

Blow, winds of God, awake and blow

The mists of earth away:
Shine out, O Light divine, and show
How wide and far we stray.

We may not climb the heavenly steeps

To bring the Lord Christ down;
In vain we search the lowest deeps,
For Him no depths can drown.

But warm, sweet, tender, even yet,

A present help is He;
And faith still has its Olivet,
And love its Galilee.

The healing of His seamless dress

Is by our beds of pain;
We touch Him in life’s throng and press,
And we are whole again.

Through Him the first fond prayers are said

Our lips of childhood frame,
The last low whispers of our dead
Are burdened with His Name.

O Lord and Master of us all,

Whate’er our name or sign,
We own Thy sway, we hear Thy call,
We test our lives by Thine.

The letter fails, the systems fall,

And every symbol wanes;
 The Spirit over brooding all,
Eternal Love remains.

In Memory: James T. Fields,

by John Greenleaf Whittier
As a guest who may not stay
Long and sad farewells to say
Glides with smiling face away,

Of the sweetness and the zest

Of thy happy life possessed
Thou hast left us at thy best.

Warm of heart and clear of brain,

Of thy sun-bright spirit's wane
Thou hast spared us all the pain.

Now that thou hast gone away,

What is left of one to say
Who was open as the day?

What is there to gloss or shun?

Save with kindly voices none
Speak thy name beneath the sun.

Safe thou art on every side,

Friendship nothing finds to hide,
Love's demand is satisfied.

Over manly strength and worth,

At thy desk of toil, or hearth,
Played the lambent light of mirth,--

Mirth that lit, but never burned;

All thy blame to pity turned;
Hatred thou hadst never learned.

Every harsh and vexing thing

At thy home-fire lost its sting;
Where thou wast was always spring.

And thy perfect trust in good,

 Faith in man and womanhood,
Chance and change and time, withstood.

Small respect for cant and whine,

Bigot's zeal and hate malign,
Had that sunny soul of thine.

But to thee was duty's claim

Sacred, and thy lips became
Reverent with one holy Name.

Therefore, on thy unknown way,

Go in God's peace! We who stay
But a little while delay.

Keep for us, O friend, where'er

Thou art waiting, all that here
Made thy earthly presence dear;

Something of thy pleasant past

On a ground of wonder cast,
In the stiller waters glassed!

Keep the human heart of thee;

Let the mortal only be
Clothed in immortality.

And when fall our feet as fell

Thine upon the asphodel,
Let thy old smile greet us well;

Proving in a world of bliss

What we fondly dream in this,--
Love is one with holiness!

In Peace, by John Greenleaf Whittier

A track of moonlight on a quiet lake,
Whose small waves on a silver-sanded shore
Whisper of peace, and with the low winds make
Such harmonies as keep the woods awake,
And listening all night long for their sweet sake
A green-waved slope of meadow, hovered o'er
By angel-troops of lilies, swaying light
 On viewless stems, with folded wings of white;
A slumberous stretch of mountain-land, far seen
Where the low westering day, with gold and green,
Purple and amber, softly blended, fills
The wooded vales, and melts among the hills;
A vine-fringed river, winding to its rest
On the calm bosom of a stormless sea,
Bearing alike upon its placid breast,
With earthly flowers and heavenly' stars impressed,
The hues of time and of eternity
Such are the pictures which the thought of thee,
O friend, awakeneth,--charming the keen pain
Of thy departure, and our sense of loss
Requiting with the fullness of thy gain.
Lo! on the quiet grave thy life-borne cross,
Dropped only at its side, methinks doth shine,
Of thy beatitude the radiant sign!
No sob of grief, no wild lament be there,
To break the Sabbath of the holy air;
But, in their stead, the silent-breathing prayer
Of hearts still waiting for a rest like thine.
O spirit redeemed! Forgive us, if henceforth,
With sweet and pure similitudes of earth,
We keep thy pleasant memory freshly green,
Of love's inheritance a priceless part,
Which Fancy's self, in reverent awe, is seen
To paint, forgetful of the tricks of art,
With pencil dipped alone in colors of the heart.