Page:Genius, and other essays.djvu/124

GENIUS AND OTHER ESSAYS termed a Yankee Galahad; a pure and simple heart was laid bare to those who loved him in "My Psalm," "My Triumph," and "An Autograph." The spiritual habit abated no whit of his inborn sagacity, and it is said that in his later years political leaders found no shrewder sage with whom to take counsel. When the question of primacy among American poets was canvassed by a group of the public men of Lincoln's time, the vote was for Whittier; he was at least one whom they understood, and who expressed their feeling and convictions. Parkman called him "The poet of New England," but as the North and West then were charged with the spirit of the New England states, the two verdicts were much the same. The facts remain that no other poet has sounded more native notes, or covered so much of the American legendary, and that Whittier's name, among the patriotic, clean and true, was one with which to conjure. He was revered by the people cleaving to their altars and their fires, and his birthdays were calendared as festivals, on which greetings were sent to him by young and old. [110]