Narrative Poems, part 5, Among Hill etc

䤖Project Gutenberg EBook, Among the Hills and Others, by Whittier From Volume I., The Works of Whittier: Narrative and Legendary Poems #9 in our series by John Greenleaf Whittier
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Title: Narrative and Legendary Poems: Among the Hills and Others
From Volume I., The Works of Whittier
Author: John Greenleaf Whittier
Release Date: Dec, 2005 [EBook #9564]?[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]?[This file was first posted on October 2, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
? START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, AMONG THE HILLS, ETC. ***
This eBook was produced by David Widger [[email protected] ]
NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY
POEMS
BY
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER
CONTENTS:
AMONG THE HILLS
PRELUDE?AMONG THE HILLS
THE DOLE OF JARL THORKELL?THE TWO RABBINS?NOREMBEGA?MIRIAM?MAUD MULLER?MARY GARVIN?THE RANGER?NAUHAUGHT, THE DEACON?THE SISTERS?MARGUERITE?THE ROBIN
AMONG THE HILLS
This poem, when originally published, was dedicated to Annie Fields, wife of the distinguished publisher, James T. Fields, of Boston, in grateful acknowledgment of the strength and inspiration I have found in her friendship and sympathy. The poem in its first form was entitled The Wife: an Idyl of Bearcamp Water, and appeared in The Atlantic Monthly for January, 1868. When I published the volume Among the Hills, in December of the same year, I expanded the Prelude and filled out also the outlines of the story.
PRELUDE.
ALONG the roadside, like the flowers of gold?That tawny Incas for their gardens wrought,?Heavy with sunshine droops the golden-rod,?And the red pennons of the cardinal-flowers?Hang motionless upon their upright staves.?The sky is hot and hazy, and the wind,?Vying-weary with its long flight from the south,?Unfelt; yet, closely scanned, yon maple leaf?With faintest motion, as one stirs in dreams,?Confesses it. The locust by the wall?Stabs the noon-silence with his sharp alarm.?A single hay-cart down the dusty road?Creaks slowly, with its driver fast asleep?On the load's top. Against the neighboring hill,?Huddled along the stone wall's shady side,?The sheep show white, as if a snowdrift still?Defied the dog-star. Through the open door?A drowsy smell of flowers-gray heliotrope,?And white sweet clover, and shy mignonette--?Comes faintly in, and silent chorus lends?To the pervading symphony of peace.?No time is this for hands long over-worn?To task their strength; and (unto Him be praise?Who giveth quietness!) the stress and strain?Of years that did the work of centuries?Have ceased, and we can draw our breath once more?Freely and full. So, as yon harvesters?Make glad their nooning underneath the elms?With tale and riddle and old snatch of song,?I lay aside grave themes, and idly turn?The leaves of memory's sketch-book, dreaming o'er?Old summer pictures of the quiet hills,?And human life, as quiet, at their feet.
And yet not idly all. A farmer's son,?Proud of field-lore and harvest craft, and feeling?All their fine possibilities, how rich?And restful even poverty and toil?Become when beauty, harmony, and love?Sit at their humble hearth as angels sat?At evening in the patriarch's tent, when man?Makes labor noble, and his farmer's frock?The symbol of a Christian chivalry?Tender and just and generous to her?Who clothes with grace all duty; still, I know?Too well the picture has another side,--?How wearily the grind of toil goes on?Where love is wanting, how the eye and ear?And heart are starved amidst the plenitude?Of nature, and how hard and colorless?Is life without an atmosphere. I look?Across the lapse of half a century,?And call to mind old homesteads, where no flower?Told that the spring had come, but evil weeds,?Nightshade and rough-leaved burdock in the place?Of the sweet doorway greeting of the rose?And honeysuckle, where the house walls seemed?Blistering in sun, without a tree or vine?To cast the tremulous shadow of its leaves?Across the curtainless windows, from whose panes?Fluttered the signal rags of shiftlessness.?Within, the cluttered kitchen-floor, unwashed?(Broom-clean I think they called it); the best room?Stifling with cellar damp, shut from