The Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier: Complete in Two Volumes, Volume 1

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Ticknor and Fields, 1868

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Page 156 - Gone, gone, — sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone, From Virginia's hills and waters; Woe is me, my stolen daughters!
Page 333 - We know de promise nebber fail, An' nebber lie de word ; So like de 'postles in de jail, We waited for de Lord : An' now he open ebery door, An' trow away de key ; He tink we lub him so before, We lub him better free.
Page 265 - 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. Angel of Patience ! sent to calm Our feverish brows with cooling...
Page 129 - What, ho! our countrymen in chains! The whip on woman's shrinking flesh! Our soil yet reddening with the stains Caught from her scourging, warm and fresh! What! mothers from their children riven! What! God's own image bought and sold! Americans to market driven, And bartered as the brute for gold!
Page 173 - All that a sister State should do, all that a free State may, Heart, hand, and purse we proffer, as in our early day; But that one dark loathsome burden ye must stagger with alone, And reap the bitter harvest which ye yourselves have sown! Hold, while ye may, your struggling slaves, and burden God's free air With woman's shriek beneath the lash, and manhood's wild despair; Cling closer to the "cleaving curse" that writes upon your plains The blasting of Almighty wrath against a land of chains.
Page 349 - Her home is brave in Jaffrey Street, With stately stairways worn By feet of old Colonial knights And ladies gentle-born. Still green about its ample porch The English ivy twines, Trained back to show in English oak The herald's carven signs. And on her, from the wainscot old, Ancestral faces frown, — •And this has worn the soldier's sword, And that the judge's gown.
Page 253 - And the lady smiled on the worn old man through the dark and clustering curls Which veiled her brow as she bent to view his silks and glittering pearls ; And she placed their price in the old man's hand, and lightly turned away, But she paused at the wanderer's earnest call, • — "My gentle lady, stay!
Page 5 - Silent with wonder, where the mountain wall Is piled to heaven ; and, through the narrow rift Of the vast rocks, against whose rugged feet Beats the mad torrent with perpetual roar, Where noonday is as twilight, and the wind Comes burdened with the everlasting moan Of forests and of far-off water-falls...
Page 275 - Th' eternal step of Progress beats To that great anthem, calm and slow, Which God repeats. Take heart ! — the Waster builds again, — A charmed life old Goodness hath ; The tares may perish, — but the grain Is not for death. God works in all things ; all obey His first propulsion from the night : Wake thou and watch ! — the world is gray With morning light ! THE PRISONER FOR DEBT.
Page 134 - I love thee with a brother's love, I feel my pulses thrill To mark thy spirit soar above The cloud of human ill. My heart hath leaped to answer thine, And echo back thy words, As leaps the warrior's at the shine And flash of kindred swords...

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