The Frost Spirit

HE comes, - he comes, - the Frost Spirit comes!

You may trace his footsteps now

On the naked woods and the blasted fields

And the brown hill's withered brow.

He has smitten the leaves of the gray old trees

Where their pleasant green came forth,

And the winds, which follow wherever he goes,

Have shaken them down to earth.

He comes, - he comes, - the Frost Spirit comes!

From the frozen Labrador,

From the icy bridge of the northern seas,

Which the white bear wanders o'er,

Where the fisherman's sail is stiff with ice,

And the luckless forms below

In the sunless cold of the lingering night

Into marble statues grow!

He comes, - he comes, - the Frost Spirit comes!

On the rushing Northern blast,

And the dark Norwegian pines have bowed

As his fearful breath went past.

With an unscorched wing he has hurried on,

Where the fires of Hecla glow

On the darkly beautiful sky above

And the ancient ice below.

He comes, - he comes, - the Frost Spirit comes!

And the quiet lake shall feel

The torpid touch of his glazing breath,

And ring to the skater's heel;

And the streams which danced on the broken rocks,

Or sang to the leaning grass,

Shall bow again to their winter chain,

And in mournful silence pass.

He comes, - he comes, - the Frost Spirit comes!

Let us meet him as we may,

And turn with the light of the parlor-fire

His evil power away;

And gather closer the circle 'round,

When the firelight dances high,

And laugh at the shriek of the baffled Fiend

As his sounding wing goes by!

John Greenleaf Whittier

The Pumpkin

OH, greenly and fair in the lands of the sun,

The vines of the gourd and the rich melon run,

And the rock and the tree and the cottage enfold,

With broad leaves all greenness and blossoms all gold,

Like that which o'er Nineveh's prophet once grew,

While he waited to know that his warning was true,

And longed for the storm-cloud, and listened in vain

For the rush of the whirlwind and red fire-rain.

On the banks of the Xenil the dark Spanish maiden

Comes up with the fruit of the tangled vine laden;

And the Creole of Cuba laughs out to behold

Through orange-leaves shining the broad spheres of gold;

Yet with dearer delight from his home in the North,

On the fields of his harvest the Yankee looks forth,

Where crook-necks are coiling and yellow fruit shines,

And the sun of September melts down on his vines.

Ah! on Thanksgiving day, when from East and from West,

From North and from South comes the pilgrim and guest;

When the gray-haired New Englander sees round his board

The old broken links of affection restored;

When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once more,

And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled before;

What moistens the lip and what brightens the eye,

What calls back the past, like the rich Pumpkin pie?

Oh, fruit loved of boyhood! the old days recalling,

When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts were falling!

When wild, ugly faces we carved in its skin,

Glaring out through the dark with a candle within!

When we laughed round the corn-heap, with hearts all in tune,

Our chair a broad pumpkin, - our lantern the moon,

Telling tales of the fairy who travelled like steam

In a pumpkin-shell coach, with two rats for her team!

Then thanks for thy present! none sweeter or better

E'er smoked from an oven or circled a platter!

Fairer hands never wrought at a pastry more fine,

Brighter eyes never watched o'er its baking, than thine!

And the prayer, which my mouth is too full to express,

Swells my heart that thy shadow may never be less,

That the days of thy lot may be lengthened below,

And the fame of thy worth like a pumpkin-vine grow,

And thy life be as sweet, and its last sunset sky

Golden-tinted and fair as thy own Pumpkin pie!

John Greenleaf Whittier

Flowers in Winter

HOW strange to greet, this frosty morn,

In graceful counterfeit of flower,

These children of the meadows, born

Of sunshine and of showers!

How well the conscious wood retains

The pictures of its flower-sown home,

The lights and shades, the purple stains,

And golden hues of bloom!

It was a happy thought to bring

To the dark season's frost and rime

This painted memory of spring,

This dream of summertime.

Our hearts are lighter for its sake,

Our fancy's age renews its youth,

And dim-remembered fictions take

The guise of present truth.

A wizard of the Merrimac, -

So old ancestral legends say, -

Could call green leaf and blossom back

To frosted stem and spray.

The dry logs of the cottage wall,

Beneath his touch, put out their leaves;

The clay-bound swallow, at his call,

Played round the icy eaves.

The settler saw his oaken flail

Take bud, and bloom before his eyes;

From frozen pools he saw the pale

Sweet summer lilies rise.

To their old homes, by man profaned

Came the sad dryads, exiled long,

And through their leafy tongues complained

Of household use and wrong.

The beechen platter sprouted wild,

The pipkin wore its old-time green,

The cradle o'er the sleeping child

Became a leafy screen.

Haply our gentle friend hath met,

While wandering in her sylvan quest,

Haunting his native woodlands yet,

That Druid of the West;

And while the dew on leaf and flower

Glistened in the moonlight clear and still,

Learned the dusk wizard's spell of power,

And caught his trick of skill.

But welcome, be it new or old,

The gift which makes the day more bright,

And paints, upon the ground of cold

And darkness, warmth and light!

Without is neither gold nor green;

Within, for birds, the birch-logs sing;

Yet, summer-like, we sit between

The autumn and the spring.

The one, with bridal blush of rose,

And sweetest breath of woodland balm,

And one whose matron lips unclose

In smiles of saintly calm.

Fill soft and deep, O winter snow!

The sweet azalea's oaken dells,

And hide the banks where roses blow

And swing the azure bells!

O'erlay the amber violet's leaves,

The purple aster's brookside home,

Guard all the flowers her pencil gives

A live beyond their bloom.

And she, when spring comes round again,

By greening slope and singing flood

Shall wander, seeking, not in vain

Her darlings of the wood.

John Greenleaf Whittier

Barbara Frietchie

UP from the meadows rich with corn,

Clear in the cool September morn,

The clustered spires of Frederick stand

Green-walled by the hills of Maryland.

Round about them orchards sweep,

Apple and peach trees fruited deep,

Fair as the garden of the Lord

To the eyes of the famished rebel horde,

On that pleasant morn of the early fall

When Lee marched o'er the mountain-wall;

Over the mountains winding down,

Horse and foot, into Frederick town.

Forty flags with their silver stars,

Forty flags with their crimson bars,

Flapped in the morning wind: the sun

Of noon looked down, and saw not one.

Up rose old Barbara Frietchie then,

Bowed with her fourscore years and ten;

Bravest of all in Frederick town,

She took up the flag the men hauled down;

In her attic window the staff she set,

To show that one heart was loyal yet.

Up the street came the rebel tread,

Stonewall Jackson riding ahead.

Under his slouched hat left and right

He glanced; the old flag met his sight.

"Halt!" - the dust-brown ranks stood fast.

"Fire!" - out blazed the rifle-blast.

It shivered the window, pane and sash;

It rent the banner with seam and gash.

Quick, as it fell, from the broken staff

Dame Barbara snatched the silken scarf.

She leaned far out on the window-sill,

And shook it forth with a royal will.

"Shoot, if you must, this old gray head,

But spare your country's flag," she said.

A shade of sadness, a blush of shame,

Over the face of the leader came;

The nobler nature within him stirred

To life at that woman's deed and word;

"Who touches a hair of yon gray head

Dies like a dog! March on!" he said.

All day long through Frederick street

Sounded the tread of marching feet:

All day long that free flag tost

Over the heads of the rebel host.

Ever its torn folds rose and fell

On the loyal winds that loved it well;

And through the hillgaps sunset light

Shone over it with a warm good-night.

Barbara Frietchie's work is o'er,

And the Rebel rides on his raids no more.

Honor to her! and let a tear

Fall, for her sake, on Stonewall's bier.

Over Barbara Frietchie's grave,

Flag of Freedom and Union, wave!

Peace and order and beauty draw

Round thy symbol of light and law;

And ever the stars above look down

On thy stars below in Frederick town!

John Greenleaf Whittier

The Sycamores

IN the outskirts of the village

On the river's winding shores

Stand the Occidental plane-trees,

Stand the ancient sycamores.

One long century hath been numbered,

And another half-way told

Since the rustic Irish gleeman

Broke for them the virgin mould.

Deftly set to Celtic music

At his violin's sound they grew,

Through the moonlit eves of summer,

Making Amphion's fable true.

Rise again, thou poor Hugh Tallant!

Pass in erkin green along

With thy eyes brim full of laughter,

And thy mouth as full of song.

Pioneer of Erin's outcasts

With his fiddle and his pack-

Little dreamed the village Saxons

Of the myriads at his back.

How he wrought with spade and fiddle,

Delved by day and sang by night,

With a hand that never wearied

And a heart forever light,---

Still the gay tradition mingles

With a record grave and drear

Like the rollic air of Cluny

With the solemn march of Mear.

When the box-tree, white with blossoms,

Made the sweet May woodlands glad,

And the Aronia by the river

Lighted up the swarming shad,

And the bulging nets swept shoreward

With their silver-sided haul,

Midst the shouts of dripping fishers,

He was merriest of them all.

When, among the jovial huskers

Love stole in at Labor's side

With the lusty airs of England

Soft his Celtic measures vied.

Songs of love and wailing lyke-wake

And the merry fair's carouse;

Of the wild Red Fox of Erin

And the Woman of Three Cows,

By the blazing hearths of winter

Pleasant seemed his simple tales,

Midst the grimmer Yorkshire legends

And the mountain myths of Wales.

How the souls in Purgatory

Scrambled up from fate forlorn

On St. Keven's sackcloth ladder

Slyly hitched to Satan's horn.

Of the fiddler who at Tara

Played all night to ghosts of kings;

Of the brown dwarfs, and the fairies

Dancing in their moorland rings!

Jolliest of our birds of singing

Best he loved the Bob-o-link.

"Hush!" he'd say, "the tipsy fairies!

Hear the little folks in drink!"

Merry-faced, with spade and fiddle,

Singing through the ancient town,

Only this, of poor Hugh Tallant

Hath Tradtion handed down.

Not a stone his grave discloses;

But if yet his spirit walks

Tis beneath the trees he planted

And when Bob-o-Lincoln talks.

Green memorials of the gleeman!

Linking still the river-shores,

With their shadows cast by sunset

Stand Hugh Tallant's sycamores!

When the Father of his Country

Through the north-land riding came

And the roofs were starred with banners,

And the steeples rang acclaim,---

When each war-scarred Continental

Leaving smithy, mill,.and farm,

Waved his rusted sword in welcome,

And shot off his old king's-arm,---

Slowly passed that august Presence

Down the thronged and shouting street;

Village girls as white as angels

Scattering flowers around his feet.

Midway, where the plane-tree's shadow

Deepest fell, his rein he drew:

On his stately head, uncovered,

Cool and soft the west-wind blew.

And he stood up in his stirrups,

Looking up and looking down

On the hills of Gold and Silver

Rimming round the little town,---

On the river, full of sunshine,

To the lap of greenest vales

Winding down from wooded headlands,

Willow-skirted, white with sails.

And he said, the landscape sweeping

Slowly with his ungloved hand

"I have seen no prospect fairer

In this goodly Eastern land."

Then the bugles of his escort

Stirred to life the cavalcade:

And that head, so bare and stately

Vanished down the depths of shade.

Ever since, in town and farm-house,

Life has had its ebb and flow;

Thrice hath passed the human harvest

To its garner green and low.

But the trees the gleeman planted,

Through the changes, changeless stand;

As the marble calm of Tadmor

Mocks the deserts shifting sand.

Still the level moon at rising

Silvers o'er each stately shaft;

Still beneath them, half in shadow,

Singing, glides the pleasure craft;

Still beneath them, arm-enfolded,

Love and Youth together stray;

While, as heart to heart beats faster,

More and more their feet delay.

Where the ancient cobbler, Keezar,

On the open hillside justice wrought,

Singing, as he drew his stitches,

Songs his German masters taught.

Singing, with his gray hair floating

Round a rosy ample face,---

Now a thousand Saxon craftsmen

Stitch and hammer in his place.

All the pastoral lanes so grassy

Now are Traffic's dusty streets;

From the village, grown a city,

Fast the rural grace retreats.

But, still green and tall and stately,

On the river's winding shores,

Stand the occidental plane-trees,

Stand Hugh Tallant's sycamores.

John Greenleaf Whittier

In School Days

STILL sits the school-house by the road,

A ragged beggar sleeping;

Around it still the sumachs grow,

And blackberry-vines are creeping.

Within, the master's desk is seen,

Deep-scarred by raps official;

The warping floor, the battered seats,

The jack-knife's carved initial;

The charcoal frescoes on its wall;

Its door's worn sill, betraying

The feet that, creeping slow to school,

Went storming out to playing!

Long years ago a winter sun

Shone over it at setting;

Lit up its western window-panes,

And low eaves' icy fretting.

It touched the tangled golden curls,

And brown eyes full of grieving,

Of one who still her steps delayed

When all the school were leaving.

For near it stood the little boy

Her childish favor singled;

His cap pulled low upon a face

Where pride and shame were mingled.

Pushing with restless feet the snow

To right and left, he lingered;---

As restlessly her tiny hands

The blue-checked apron fingered.

He saw her lift her eyes; he felt

The soft hand's light caressing,

And heard the tremble of her voice,

As if a fault confessing.

"I'm sorry that I spelt the word:

I hate to go above you,

Because,"---the brown eyes lower fell,---

"Because, you see, I love you!"

Still memory to a gray-haired man

That sweet child-face is showing.

Dear girl! the grasses on her grave

Have forty years been growing!

He lives to learn, in life's hard school,

How few who pass above him

Lament their triumph and his loss,

Like her, because they love him.

John Greenleaf Whittier

Stanzas for the Times

[Written in 1835 following a pro-slavery meeting at Faneuil Hall in Boston. Speakers there proposed restrictions on free speech in order to quiet the abolitionists.]

IS this the land our fathers loved,

The freedom which they toiled to win?

Is this the soil whereon they moved?

Are these the graves they slumber in?

Are we the sons by whom are borne

The mantles which the dead have worn?

And shall we crouch above these graves,

With craven soul and fettered lip?

Yoke in with marked and branded slaves,

And tremble at the driver's whip?

Bend to the earth our pliant knees,

And speak but as our masters please?

Shall outraged Nature cease to feel?

Shall Mercy's tears no longer flow?

Shall ruffian threats of cord and steel,

The dungeon's gloom, the assassin's blow,

Turn back the spirit roused to save

The Truth, our Country, and the slave?

Of human skulls that shrine was made,

Round which the priests of Mexico

Before their loathsome idol prayed;

Is Freedom's altar fashioned so?

And must we yield to Freedom's God,

As offering meet, the negro's blood?

Shall tongue be mute, when deeds are wrought

Which well might shame extremest hell?

Shall freemem lock the indignant thought?

Shall Pity's bosom cease to swell?

Shall Honor bleed?- shall Truth succumb?

Shall pen, and press, and soul be dumb?

No; by each spot of haunted ground,

Where Freedom weeps her children's fall;

By Plymouth's rock, and Bunker's mound;

By Griswold's stained and shattered wall;

By Warren's ghost, by Langdon's shade;

By all the memories of our dead!

By their enlarging souls, which burst

The bands and fetters round them set;

By the free Pilgrim spirit nursed

Within our inmost bosoms, yet,

By all above, around, below,

Be ours the indignant answer,- No!

No; guided by our country's laws,

For truth, and right, and suffering man,

Be ours to strive in Freedom's cause,

As Christians may, as freemen can!

Still pouring on unwilling ears

That truth oppression only fears.

What! shall we guard our neighbor still,

While woman shrieks beneath his rod,

And while he trampels down at will

The image of a common God?

Shall watch and ward be round him set,

Of Northern nerve and bayonet?

And shall we know and share with him

The danger and the growing shame?

And see our Freedom's light grow dim,

Which should have filled the world with flame?

And, writhing, feel, where'er we turn,

A world's reproach around us burn?

Is't not enough that this is borne?

And asks our haughty neighbor more?

Must fetters which his slaves have worn

Clank round the Yankee farmer's door?

Must he be told, beside his plough,

What he must speak, and when, and how?

Must he be told his freedom stands

On Slavery's dark foundations strong;

On breaking hearts and fettered hands,

On robbery, and crime, and wrong?

That all his fathers taught is vain,-

That Freedom's emblem is the chain?

Its life, its soul, from slavery drawn!

False, foul, profane! Go, teach as well

Of holy Truth from Falsehood born!

Of Heaven refreshed by airs from Hell!

Of Virtue in the arms of Vice!

Of Demons planting Paradise!

Rail on, then, brethren of the South,

Ye shall not hear the truth the less;

No seal is on the Yankee's mouth,

No fetter on the Yankee's press!

From our Green Mountains to the sea,

One voice shall thunder, We are free!

John Greenleaf Whittier

The Barefoot Boy

BLESSINGS on thee, little man,

Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan!

With thy turned-up pantaloons,

And thy merry whistled tunes;

With thy red lip, redder still

Kissed by strawberries on the hill;

With the sunshine on thy face,

Through thy torn brim's jaunty grace;

From my heart I give thee joy,-

I was once a barefoot boy!

Prince thou art,- the grown-up man

Only is republican.

Let the million-dollared ride!

Barefoot, trudging at his side,

Thou hast more than he can buy

In the reach of ear and eye,-

Outward sunshine, inward joy:

Blessings on thee, barefoot boy!

Oh for boyhood's painless play,

Sleep that wakes in laughing day,

Health that mocks the doctor's rules,

Knowledge never learned of schools,

Of the wild bee's morning chase,

Of the wild flower's time and place,

Flight of fowl and habitude

Of the tenants of the wood;

How the tortoise bears his shell,

How the woodchuck digs his cell,

And the round mole sinks his well

How the robin feeds her young,

How the oriole's nest is hung;

Where the whitest lilies blow,

Where the freshest berries grow,

Where the groundnut trails its vine,

Where the wood grape's clusters shine;

Of the black wasp's cunning way,

Mason of his walls of clay,

And the architectural plans

Of gray hornet artisans!-

For, eschewing books and tasks,

Nature answers all he asks;

Hand in hand with her he walks,

Face to face with her he talks,

Part and parcel of her joy,-

Blessings on thee, barefoot boy!

Oh for boyhood's time of June,

Crowding years in one brief moon,

When all things I heard or saw

Me, their master, waited for.

I was rich in flowers and trees,

Humming birds and honeybees;

For my sport the squirrel played,

Plied the snouted mole his spade;

For my taste the blackberry cone

Purpled over hedge and stone;

Laughed the brook for my delight

Through the day and through the night,

Whispering at the garden wall,

Talked with me from fall to fall;

Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel pond,

Mine the walnut slopes beyond,

Mine, on bending orchard trees,

Apples of Hesperides!

Still, as my horizon grew,

Larger grew my riches too;

All the world I saw or knew

Seemed a complex Chinese toy,

Fashioned for a barefoot boy!

Oh for festal dainties spread,

Like my bowl of milk and bread,-

Pewter spoon and bowl of wood,

On the doorstone, gray and rude!

O're me, like a regal tent,

Cloudy-ribbed, the sunset bent,

Purple-curtained, fringed with gold;

Looped in many a wind-swung fold;

While for music came the play

Of the pied frog's orchestra;

And to light the noisy choir,

Lit the fly his lamp of fire.

I was monarch: pomp and joy

Waited on thebarefoot boy!

Cheerily, then my little man,

Live and laugh, as boyhood can!

Though the flinty slopes be hard,

Stubble-speared the new-mown sward,

Every morn shall lead thee through

Fresh baptisms of the dew;

Every evening from thy feet

Shall the cool wind kiss the heat:

All too soon these feet must hide

In the prison cells of pride,

Lose the freedom of the sod,

Like a colt's for work be shod,

Made to tread the mills of toi,

Up and down in ceaseless moil:

Happy if their track be found

Never on forbidden ground;

Happy if they sink not in

Quick and treacherous sands of sin.

Ah! that thou shouldst know thy joy

Ere it passes, barefoot boy!

John Greenleaf Whittier