His last utterance was a little group of poems, At Sundown, having for the controlling thought the close of life’s day. One of them, ‘Burning Drift-Wood,’ was the poet’s farewell; and with the quotation of four of its stanzas we may bring to an end this brief survey of Whittier’s work.
What matter that it is not May,
That birds have flown, and trees are bare,
That darker grows the shortening day,
And colder blows the wintry air!
The wrecks of passion and desire,
The castles I no more rebuild,
May fitly feed my drift-wood fire,
And warm the hands that age has chilled.
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