Selections From American Poetry | Page 6

He sings; and their fame
Is his, and not his; and the praise
And the pride of a name.

For voices pursue him by day
And haunt him by night,
And he listens and needs must obey,
When the Angel says: 'Write!'
John Greenleaf Whittier seems to suffer by coming in such close
proximity to Longfellow. Genuine he was, but his spirit was less
buoyant than Longfellow's and he touches our hearts less. Most of his
early poems were devoted to a current political issue. They aimed to
win converts to the cause of anti-slavery. Such poems always suffer in
time in comparison with the song of a man who sings because "the
heart is so full that a drop overfills it." Whittier's later poems belong
more to this class and some of them speak to-day to our emotions as

well as to our intellects. "The Hero" moves us with a desire to serve
mankind, and the stirring tone of "Barbara Frietchie" arouses our
patriotism by its picture of the same type of bravery. In similar vein is
"Barclay of Ury," which must have touched deeply the heart of the
Quaker poet. "The Pipes of Lucknow" is dramatic in its intense grasp of
a climactic hour and loses none of its force in the expression. We can
actually hear the skirl of the bagpipes. Whittier knew the artiste of the
world and talked to us about Raphael and Burns with clear-sighted,
affectionate interest. His poems show varied characteristics; the love of
the sterner aspects of nature, modified by the appreciation of the
humble flower; the conscience of the Puritan, tinged with sympathy for
the sorrowful; the steadfastness of the Quaker, stirred by the fire of the
patriot.
The poetry of Ralph Waldo Emerson is marked by serious
contemplation rather than by warmth of emotional expression. In
Longfellow the appeal is constantly to a heart which is not
disassociated from a brain; in Emerson the appeal is often to the
intellect alone. We recognize the force of the lesson in "The Titmouse,"
even if it leaves us less devoted citizens than does "The Hero" and less
capable women than does "Evangeline." He reaches his highest
excellence when he makes us feel as well as understand a lesson, as in
"The Concord Hymn" and "Forbearance." If we could all write on the
tablets of our hearts that single stanza, forbearance would be a real
factor in life. And it is to this poet whom we call unemotional that we
owe this inspiring quatrain:
"So nigh is grandeur to our dust,
So near is God to man,
When duty whispers low, Thou must,
The youth replies, I can!"
James Russell Lowell was animated by a well-defined purpose which
he described in the following lines:
"It may be glorious to write
Thoughts that make glad the two or
three
High souls like those far stars that
come in sight

Once in a century.