Pity, forgive, but urge them back no more
Who, drunk with passion, flaunt disunion’s rag
With its vile reptile-blazon.”
But soon he came to recognize that God may speak “in battle’s stormy voice, and his praise be in the wrath of man.”
Whittier’s war rhymes are not so numerous as his Voices of Freedom, nor are they in any way remarkable as poetical compositions.
The lines on Barbara Frietchie derive their interest from the incident narrated, and not from any beauty of thought or language with which it has been clothed. They are popular because old Barbara Frietchie waving the flag of the Union above Stonewall Jackson’s army as it passed, with measured tread, through the streets of Frederick, is a striking and dramatic figure. There could be no more convincing proof of the barrenness of Whittier’s imagination than the poor use which he has made of so poetical an episode.
“In her attic window the staff she set
To show that one heart was loyal yet.”
And yet of all his poems this is probably the best known and the most popular.
The Voices of Freedom and the Songs in War Time both belong to the class of occasional poetry which more than any other kind is apt to confer a short-lived fame upon authors whose chief merit consists in being fortunate. He who sings the conqueror’s praise will never lack admirers.