Narrative Poems, part 5, Among Hill etc

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
Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the
header without written permission.
Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is
important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how
the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a
donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since
1971**
*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers*****
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
0. START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, AMONG THE
HILLS, ETC. ***
This eBook was produced by David Widger [[email protected]
]
NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY
POEMS
B Y
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