Whittier at close range

by Frances C. Sparhawk

His “Port Royal” is a burst of joy and triumph, with the song of the freedmen in the minor key, so far are they yet from the reality of the freedom which they have in name. In “Barbara Frietchie” we have not only an inspiring ballad which has flown the wide world over; but we have also a touch of the nobler nature of the South epitomized in the order of Stonewall Jackson; and the poem, in trend if not in speech, is a prophecy of returning loyalty, a prophecy of the day when—not by force, but through love of them—the stars and stripes were to float over North and South alike.

One day during the Civil War, when the poet was at her house, the doctor’s wife said to him:

“Mr. Whittier, what did you mean when you wrote that poem, ‘What of the Day’? You wrote it in 1857, four years before the war. It’s a perfect prophecy of the present time. You remember, it begins:

‘A sound of tumult troubles all the air.’

What did you mean by it?” she repeated.

“I don’t know myself what I meant by it,” he answered her as earnestly as she had spoken; and his look finished what more he would have added—that the poem was, indeed, an inspiration, a real prophecy.

Thus, to the poet who sang a “higher wisdom,” who lived a holier life than words alone of any creed can enjoin, to him in the world’s imperative need of holiness to endure and of inspiration to conquer in the stress and strain of the life of today we turn for glimpses of his inspiration.

VI

Whittier was born into love of right and freedom and the atmosphere of his home fostered this.

Even in speaking the words, “My mother,” his very tone changed to loving reverence. No doubt he owed much to her in the help and inspiration which great men so often owe to their mothers. Yet it was for what she embodied in herself, even more than what she was to him, that he reverenced her. She was a strong, high-souled woman, thoughtful and full of the ability and resources which the training of the Friends develops so remarkably in their woman. None of the broad questions which interested her son were too great for her. On the contrary, the life of devotion to the freedom of the slave which Whittier and his sister Elizabeth lived, had been born with them and preached into their ears and laid upon their hearts from their childhood. It was not Mrs. Whittier who followed their lead for companionship with them; it was they who took up the service to which she desired and prayed to have them consecrated.