Among the Hills, and other poems Part 5 From Volume I of The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier

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 the air In hot midsummer, bookless, pictureless, Save the inevitable sampler hung Over the fireplace, or a mourning piece, A green-haired woman, peony-cheeked, beneath Impossible willows; the wide-throated hearth Bristling with faded pine-boughs half concealing The piled-up rubbish at the chimney's back; And, in sad keeping with all things about them, Shrill, querulous-women, sour and sullen men, Untidy, loveless, old before their time, With scarce a human interest save their own Monotonous round of small economies, Or the poor scandal of the neighborhood; Blind to the beauty everywhere revealed, Treading the May-flowers with regardless feet; For them the song-sparrow and the bobolink Sang not, nor winds made music in the leaves; For them in vain October's holocaust Burned, gold and crimson, over all the hills, The sacramental mystery of the woods. Church-goers, fearful of the unseen Powers, But grumbling over pulpit-tax and pew-rent, Saving, as shrewd economists, their souls And winter pork with the least possible outlay Of salt and sanctity; in daily life Showing as little actual comprehension Of Christian charity and love and duty, As if the Sermon on the Mount had been Outdated like a last year's almanac Rich in broad woodlands and in half-tilled fields, And yet so pinched and bare and comfortless, The veriest straggler limping on his rounds, The sun and air his sole inheritance, Laughed at a poverty that paid its taxes, And hugged his rags in self-complacency!

Not such should be the homesteads of a land Where whoso wisely wills and acts may dwell As king and lawgiver, in broad-acred state, With beauty, art, taste, culture, books, to make His hour of leisure richer than a life Of fourscore to the barons of old time, Our yeoman should be equal to his home Set in the fair, green valleys, purple walled, A man to match his mountains, not to creep Dwarfed and abased below them. I would fain In this light way (of which I needs must own With the knife-grinder of whom Canning sings, "Story, God bless you! I have none to tell you!") Invite the eye to see and heart to feel The beauty and the joy within their reach,-- Home, and home loves, and the beatitudes Of nature free to all. Haply in years That wait to take the places of our own, Heard where some breezy balcony looks down On happy homes, or where the lake in the moon Sleeps dreaming of the mountains, fair as Ruth, In the old Hebrew pastoral, at the feet Of Boaz, even this simple lay of mine May seem the burden of a prophecy, Finding its late fulfilment in a change Slow as the oak's growth, lifting manhood up Through broader culture, finer manners, love, And reverence, to the level of the hills.

O Golden Age, whose light is of the dawn, And not of sunset, forward, not behind, Flood the new heavens and earth, and with thee bring All the old virtues, whatsoever things Are pure and honest and of good repute, But add thereto whatever bard has sung Or seer has told of when in trance and dream They saw the Happy Isles of prophecy Let Justice hold her scale, and Truth divide Between the right and wrong; but give the heart The freedom of its fair inheritance; Let the poor prisoner, cramped and starved so long, At Nature's table feast his ear and eye With joy and wonder; let all harmonies Of sound, form, color, motion, wait upon The princely guest, whether in soft attire Of leisure clad, or the coarse frock of toil, And, lending life to the dead form of faith, Give human nature reverence for the sake Of One who bore it, making it divine With the ineffable tenderness of God; Let common need, the brotherhood of prayer, The heirship of an unknown destiny, The unsolved mystery round about us, make A man more precious than the gold of Ophir. Sacred, inviolate, unto whom all things Should minister, as outward types and signs Of the eternal beauty which fulfils The one great purpose of creation, Love, The sole necessity of Earth and Heaven!

. . . . . . . . . . .

For weeks the clouds had raked the hills And vexed the vales with raining, And all the woods were sad with mist, And all the brooks complaining.

At last, a sudden night-storm tore The mountain veils asunder, And swept the valleys clean before The besom of the thunder.

Through Sandwich notch the west-wind sang Good morrow to the cotter; And once again Chocorua's horn Of shadow pierced the water.

Above his broad lake Ossipee, Once more the sunshine wearing, Stooped, tracing on that silver shield His grim armorial bearing.

Clear drawn against the hard blue sky, The peaks had winter's keenness; And, close on autumn's frost, the vales Had more than June's fresh greenness.

Again the sodden forest floors With golden lights were checkered, Once more rejoicing leaves in wind And sunshine danced and flickered.

It was as if the summer's late Atoning for it's sadness Had borrowed every season's charm To end its days in gladness.

Rivers of gold-mist flowing down From far celestial fountains,-- The great sun flaming through the rifts Beyond the wall of mountains.

We paused at last where home-bound cows Brought down the pasture's treasure, And in the barn the rhythmic flails Beat out a harvest measure.

We heard the night-hawk's sullen plunge, The crow his tree-mates calling The shadows lengthening down the slopes About our feet were falling.

And through them smote the level sun In broken lines of splendor, Touched the gray rocks and made the green Of the shorn grass more tender.

The maples bending o'er the gate, Their arch of leaves just tinted With yellow warmth, the golden glow Of coming autumn hinted.

Keen white between the farm-house showed, And smiled on porch and trellis, The fair democracy of flowers That equals cot and palace.

And weaving garlands for her dog, 'Twixt chidings and caresses, A human flower of childhood shook The sunshine from her tresses.

Clear drawn against the hard blue sky, The peaks had winter's keenness; And, close on autumn's frost, the vales Had more than June's fresh greenness.

Again the sodden forest floors With golden lights were checkered, Once more rejoicing leaves in wind And sunshine danced and flickered.

It was as if the summer's late Atoning for it's sadness Had borrowed every season's charm To end its days in gladness.

I call to mind those banded vales Of shadow and of shining, Through which, my hostess at my side, I drove in day's declining.

We held our sideling way above The river's whitening shallows, By homesteads old, with wide-flung barns Swept through and through by swallows;

By maple orchards, belts of pine And larches climbing darkly The mountain slopes, and, over all, The great peaks rising starkly.

You should have seen that long hill-range With gaps of brightness riven,-- How through each pass and hollow streamed The purpling lights of heaven,--

On either hand we saw the signs Of fancy and of shrewdness, Where taste had wound its arms of vines Round thrift's uncomely rudeness.

The sun-brown farmer in his frock Shook hands, and called to Mary Bare-armed, as Juno might, she came, White-aproned from her dairy.

Her air, her smile, her motions, told Of womanly completeness; A music as of household songs Was in her voice of sweetness.

Not fair alone in curve and line, But something more and better, The secret charm eluding art, Its spirit, not its letter;--

An inborn grace that nothing lacked Of culture or appliance, The warmth of genial courtesy, The calm of self-reliance.

Before her queenly womanhood How dared our hostess utter The paltry errand of her need To buy her fresh-churned butter?

She led the way with housewife pride, Her goodly store disclosing, Full tenderly the golden balls With practised hands disposing.

Then, while along the western hills We watched the changeful glory Of sunset, on our homeward way, I heard her simple story.

The early crickets sang; the stream Plashed through my friend's narration Her rustic patois of the hills Lost in my free-translation.