His humor so seldom caught in his writings by reason of the many and deeper powers in him, here glowed in his thoughts and flashed up in his words warming and cheering his atmosphere as the open fire of which he was so fond warmed and brightened the garden room. And, indeed, it seems as if there must have been a subtle sympathy between the two forces. For the poet was never keener or more racy than when, having thrown on fresh wood, he knelt on one knee, adjusted the sticks, watched the flames dart out and catch the new fuel, and then suddenly turned his head with that birdlike motion of his and made some remark to his visitor, often, as has been said, catching the latter’s very thought.
III
As a poet should sing of his home, Whittier sang the beauties of the scenery in and around the town in which he lived, its walks and drives giving views of hilltop and lake, of stream and ocean.
Amesbury is set among the hills, Powow Hill at its back and the swift stream of the same name running from the foot of this hill through the town and going on to join the Merrimac. Amesbury is a border town—the only town of this name in the whole country, this and its neighbor Salisbury being called from the famous Amesbury and its adjacent Salisbury in England. Amesbury with the beautiful Merrimac River on its south, has on its north the rounded summits which make New Hampshire from its very beginning the land of hills. It was one of the earliest settled towns in America, receiving its name in 1667, and electing its board of “Prudenshall” the following year. From earliest times, Whittier’s own family figured largely in the annals of this region, Whittier Hill in Amesbury having been named from one of his ancestors. It was impossible that Whittier should not have deep interest in its history and legends, and in its people among whom he had intimate and dear friends.
With the poet’s keen eye for beauty he saw
“the winding Powow fold
The green hill in its belt of gold.”
He pictures on the banks of the Powow old “Cobbler Keezar” beholding through his magic lapstone the river, then
“Woodsy and wild and lonesome,”
changed to the day when the mighty forest was “broken by many a steepled town.”