Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/142

110  A-swing upon his elm. A faint perfume Breathed through the open windows of the room From locust-trees, heavy with clustered bloom.

Thither, perchance, sore-tried confessors came, Whose fervor jail nor pillory could tame, Proud of the cropped ears meant to be their shame,

Men who had eaten slavery’s bitter bread In Indian isles; pale women who had bled Under the hangman’s lash, and bravely said

God’s message through their prison’s iron bars; And gray old soldier-converts, seamed with scars From every stricken field of England’s wars.

Lowly before the Unseen Presence knelt Each waiting heart, till haply some one felt On his moved lips the seal of silence melt.

Or, without spoken words, low breathings stole Of a diviner life from soul to soul, Baptizing in one tender thought the whole.

When shaken hands announced the meeting o’er, The friendly group still lingered at the door, Greeting, inquiring, sharing all the store

Of weekly tidings. Meanwhile youth and maid Down the green vistas of the woodland strayed, Whispered and smiled and oft their feet delayed.

Did the boy’s whistle answer back the thrushes? Did light girl laughter ripple through the bushes, As brooks make merry over roots and rushes?

Unvexed the sweet air seemed. Without a wound The ear of silence heard, and every sound Its place in nature’s fine accordance found.

And solemn meeting, summer sky and wood, Old kindly faces, youth and maidenhood Seemed, like God’s new creation, very good!

And, greeting all with quiet smile and word, Pastorius went his way. The unscared bird Sang at his side; scarcely the squirrel stirred

At his hushed footstep on the mossy sod; And, wheresoe’er the good man looked or trod, He felt the peace of nature and of God.

His social life wore no ascetic form, He loved all beauty, without fear of harm, And in his veins his Teuton blood ran warm.

Strict to himself, of other men no spy, He made his own no circuit-judge to try The freer conscience of his neighbors by.

With love rebuking, by his life alone, Gracious and sweet, the better way was shown, The joy of one, who, seeking not his own,

And faithful to all scruples, finds at last The thorns and shards of duty overpast, And daily life, beyond his hope’s forecast,

Pleasant and beautiful with sight and sound And flowers upspringing in its narrow round, And all his days with quiet gladness crowned.

He sang not; but if sometimes tempted strong, He hummed what seemed like Altorf’s Burschen-song, His good wife smiled and did not count it wrong.

For well he loved his boyhood’s brother band; His Memory, while he trod the New World’s strand, A double-ganger walked the Fatherland!

If, when on frosty Christmas eves the light Shone on his quiet hearth, he missed the sight Of Yule-log, Tree, and Christ-child all in white;