JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

THE

HE year of 1892 has come and gone, and it will be commemorated in history as having taken from the world of letters four great poets; Whitman, Lowell, Whittier and Tennyson, each supreme in his own realm of versification. Of this notable quartette, Lowell and Tennyson more nearly resembled each other, while nothing could exceed the dissimilarity existing between Whittier and Whitman. Indeed, some have even gone so far as to say Whitman was not a poet. Poetical prose, is the title they bestow on his writings. Whittier's position, and his right to the bay have, however, never been questioned. His place in the hearts of the American people is unique, and can only find a parallel with that of Helen Hunt. Lowell, Longfellow, Holmes, and others of our poets are admired for the products of their genius, and a great amount of respect is felt towards the possessor of so manifestly great capabilities; but with Whittier, love mingles and even predominates in the tribute paid to him, and as the years roll on apace, it will come to be said how we admired those illustrious ones of the past, but how we loved the "Good Gray Poet."

John Greenleaf Whittier was born in Haverhill, Mass., December 17th, 1807. His parents were members of the Society of Friends, and to their beliefs and principles he adhered throughout his life. His American ancestry dates from the year 1638. Whittier was born on a farm, and his boyhood occupations were such as farmer's boys usually engage in. He learned shoemaking from one of the farm hands and by that means secured enough money to enable himself to attend Haverhill academy six months during 1829. This served as a polishing to his previous education and he then began teaching in the district school of West Amesbury, which supplied him with the means for another six months in the academy. In his nineteenth year he began contributing poems, anonymously, to the Free Press, then edited by W. L. Garrison. By this means an acquaintance with Mr. Garrison was established, and thus was gained another pen to espouse the cause of the abolitionists. His father died and for five years Mr. Whittier conducted the farm. In 1835 he was sent to the general court from Haverhill. From the year 1829 he edited at different periods, the American Manufacturer, Boston, the Haverhill Gazette, the New England Weekly Review, Hartford, Conn., the Pennsylvania Freeman, Philadelphia, and the Middlesex Standard, Lowell, Mass. He was fearless in doing what he believed to be right, and he was a strong factor

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in preparing that which later culminated in the Republican Party. Mr. Whittier was a voluminous writer and he has left a colossal monument which time will never efface. H. M.

BAYARD TAYLOR.

He brought us wonders of the new and old.
We shared all climes with him. The Arab's tent
To him its story-telling secret lent,
And, pleased, we listened to the tales he told.
His task, beguiled with songs that shall endure,
In manly, honest thoroughness he wrought;
From humble home-lays to the heights of thought
Slowly he climbed, but every step was sure.
How, with the generous pride that friendship hath,
We, who so loved him, saw at last the crown
Of civic honor on his brows pressed down;
Rejoiced, and knew not that the gift was death.
And now for him, whose praise in deafened ears
Two nations speak, we answer but with tears.
-Bayard Taylor

O. W. HOLMES.

His still the keen analysis

Of men and moods, electric wit, Free play of mirth and tenderness

To heal the slightest wound from it.
And his the pathos touching all

Lifes, sorrows and regrets,
It's hopes and fears, it's final call
And rest beneath the violets.
His sparkling surface scarce betrays
The thoughtful tide beneath it rolled,
The wishes of the latter days

And tender memories of the old.
-Our Autocrat.

MARTYRS.

Earth may not claim thee. Nothing here
Could be for thee a meet reward;
Thine is a treasure far more dear,—
Eye hath not seen it, nor the ear

Of living mortal heard

The joys prepared, the promised bliss above, The holy presence of Eternal Love!

-The Female Martyr.
PATIENCE.

There's quiet in that Angel's glance,
There's rest in his still countenance!
He mocks no grief with idle cheer,
Nor wounds with words the mourner's ear
But ills and woes he may not cure
He kindly trains us to endure.

-The Angel of Patience.

Oh! when the soul, once pure and high,
Is stricken down from Virtue's sky,
As with the downcast star of morn,
Some gems of light are with it drawn,
And through its night of darkness, play
Some tokens of its primal day,
Some lofty feelings linger still;

The strength to dare, the nerve to meet
Whatever threatens with defeat
Its all indomitable will;

But lacks the mean of mind and heart,
Though eager for the gains of crime,
Oft, at his chosen place and time,
The strength to bear his evil part,
And, shielded by his very vice,
Escapes from crime by cowardice.

SPRING.

-Ibid.

'Tis springtime on the eastern hills!
Like torrents gush the summer rills;
Through winter's moss and dry dead leaves
The bladed grass revives and lives,
Pushes the mouldering waste away,
And glimpses to the April day.
In kindly shower and sunshine bud
The branches of the dull gray wood;
Out from its sunned and sheltered nooks
The blue eye of the violet looks;

The southwest wind is warmly blowing,
And odors from the springing grass,
The pine-tree and the sassafras,
Are with it on its errands going.

EUTHANASIA.

-Ibid.

"Oh, in her meek, forgiving eye There was a brightness not of mirth,

A light whose clear intensity

Was borrowed not of earth.

Along her cheek a deepening red,
Told where the feverish hectic fed;
And yet, each fatal token gave
To the mild beauty of her face
A newer and a dearer grace,

Unwarning of the grave.

'Twas like the hue which Autumn gives
To yonder changed and dying leaves,
Breathed over by her frosty breath;
Scarce can the gazer feel that this
Is but the spoiler's treacherous kiss,
The mocking-smile of death!

LOVE.

Fond longings dimly understood,

-Ibid.

The glow of passion's quickening blood,
And cherished fantasies which press
The young lip with a dream's caress,-
The heart's forecast and prophecy
Took form and life before my eye,
Seen in the glance which met my own,
Heard in the soft and pleading tone,
Felt in the arms around me cast,
And warm heart-pulses beating fast.
Ah! scarcely yet to God above
With deeper trust, with stronger love,
Has prayerful saint his meek heart lent,
Or cloistered nun at twilight bent,
Than I, before a human shrine,
As mortal and as frail as mine,

With heart, and soul, and mind, and form,
Knelt madly to a fellow worm.

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Thank God! that I have lived to see the time
When the great truth begins at last to find
An utterance from the deep heart of mankind,
Earnest and clear, that ALL REVENGE IS
CRIME!

That man is holier than a creed;-that all
Restraint upon him must consult his good,
Hope's sunshine linger on his prison wall,

And Love look in upon his solitude.
The beautiful lesson which our Savior taught
Through long, dark centuries its way hath wrought
Into the common mind and popular thought;
And words, to which by Galilee's lake shore
The humble fishers listened, with hushed oar,
Have found an echo in the general heart,
And of the public faith become a living part.
-Lines.

RANDOLPH.

All parties feared him: each in turn
Beheld its schemes disjointed,

As right or left his fatal glance

And spectral finger pointed. Sworn foe of Cant, he smote it down With trenchant wit unsparing, And, mocking, rent with ruthless hand The robe Pretence was wearing. -Randolph of Roanoke.

BESTIALITY.

God be praised for every instinct which rebels against a lot

Where the brute survives the human, and man's upright form is not!

As the serpent-like bejuco winds his spiral fold on fold

Round the tall and stately ceiba, till it withers in his hold,

Slow decays the forest monarch, closer girds the fell embrace,

Till the tree is seen no longer, and the vine is in its

place,

So a base and bestial nature round the vassal's manhood twines,

And the spirit wastes beneath it, like the ceiba choked with vines.

-The Slaves of Martinique.