Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/139

Rh Manly in thought, in simple ways a child, His white hair floating round his visage mild,

The Swedish pastor sought the Quaker’s door, Pleased from his neighbor’s lips to hear once more His long-disused and half-forgotten lore.

For both could baffle Babel’s lingual curse, And speak in Bion’s Doric, and rehearse Cleanthes’ hymn or Virgil’s sounding verse.

And oft Pastorius and the meek old man Argued as Quaker and as Lutheran, Ending in Christian love, as they began.

With lettered Lloyd on pleasant morns he strayed Where Sommerhausen over vales of shade Looked miles away, by every flower delayed,

Or song of bird, happy and free with one Who loved, like him, to let his memory run Over old fields of learning, and to sun

Himself in Plato’s wise philosophies, And dream with Philo over mysteries Whereof the dreamer never finds the keys;

To touch all themes of thought, nor weakly stop For doubt of truth, but let the buckets drop Deep down and bring the hidden waters up.

For there was freedom in that wakening time Of tender souls; to differ was not crime; The varying bells made up the perfect chime.

On lips unlike was laid the altar’s coal, The white, clear light, tradition-colored, stole Through the stained oriel of each human soul.

Gathered from many sects, the Quaker brought His old beliefs, adjusting to the thought That moved his soul the creed his fathers taught.

One faith alone, so broad that all mankind Within themselves its secret witness find, The soul’s communion with the Eternal Mind,

The Spirit’s law, the Inward Rule and Guide, Scholar and peasant, lord and serf, allied, The polished Penn and Cromwell’s Ironside.

As still in Hemskerck’s Quaker Meeting, face By face in Flemish detail, we may trace How loose-mouthed boor and fine ancestral grace

Sat in close contrast,—the clipt-headed churl, Broad market-dame, and simple serving-girl By skirt of silk and periwig in curl!

For soul touched soul; the spiritual treasure-trove Made all men equal, none could rise above Nor sink below that level of God’s love.

So, with his rustic neighbors sitting down, The homespun frock beside the scholar’s gown, Pastorius to the manners of the town

Added the freedom of the woods, and sought The bookless wisdom by experience taught, And learned to love his new-found home, while not

Forgetful of the old; the seasons went Their rounds, and somewhat to his spirit lent Of their own calm and measureless content.

Glad even to tears, he heard the robin sing His song of welcome to the Western spring, And bluebird borrowing from the sky his wing.

And when the miracle of autumn came, And all the woods with many-colored flame Of splendor, making summer’s greenness tame,

Burned, unconsumed, a voice without a sound