To meet some spirit that could answer mine;
Then chide me not that I so soon have learned
To talk with thine.
Oh, thou wilt cherish what some hearts would spurn;
So gentle and so full of soul thou art,
And shrine my feelings in that holy urn,
Thine own true heart!”
His niece, Lizzie Whittier, afterward Mrs. Pickard, told of the poet’s strong home affections. She said that from his early childhood in his games he was always playing at house-keeping; and all his life the ideal of home and the love of it never left his heart.
“A rose-cloud, dimly seen above,
Melting in heaven’s blue depths away,—