A presence ever near,
Through the deep silence of the flesh
I reach the inward ear.
* * * * *
The stern behest of duty,
The doom-book open thrown,
The heaven ye seek, the hell ye fear,
Are with yourselves alone.
Whittier did not include ‘The Preacher’ among his religious poems. This fine picture of the ‘great awakening’ might be so classified. Also ‘The Chapel of the Hermits,’ ‘Tauler,’ and yet others. In general the religious poems consist of meditations on sacred characters and scenes, poetic settings of Biblical narrative, and reflective poems in which Whittier gives voice to phases of his spiritual life, and above all to a faith so broad that the distinctions of sect and creed are lost in its catholic charity. ‘Questions of Life,’ ‘The Over-Heart,’ ‘Trinitas,’ ‘The Shadow and the Light,’ and ‘The Eternal Goodness’ are the expressions of this lofty and inspiring side of his poetic genius.
Whittier’s singing voice lost none of its flexibility but rather gained as time went on. ‘The Henchman’ was a striking performance for a man of seventy. ‘It is not exactly a Quakerly piece, nor is it didactic, and it has no moral that I know of,’ observed Whittier. He must have known that it had the moral of exquisite beauty. Indeed he admitted that it was ‘not unpoetical.’