Tag: John Greenleaf Whittier

From The Birmingham Age Herald, February 12, 1915. By John Greenleaf Whittier.

Shut in from all the world without,
We sat the clean winged hearth about,
Content to let the north wind roar
In baffled rage at pane and door
While the red logs before us beat
The frost line back with tropic heat;
And ever, when a louder blast
Shook beam and rafter as it passed,
The merrier up its roaring draught
The great throat of the chimney laughed.

The house dog on his paws outspread
Laid to the fire his drowsy head,
The cat’s dark silhouette on the wall
A couchant tiger’s seemed to fall;
And, for the winter fireside meet,
Between the andirons’ straddling feet,
A mug of cider simmering slow,
The apples sputtered in a row,
And close at hand, the basket stood
With nuts from brown October’s wood.

From The Birmingham Age-Herald, March 11, 1913.
 By John Greenleaf Whittier.
 

 Still sits the schoolhouse by the road,
     A ragged beggar sunning;
 Around it still the sumachs grow,
     And blackberry vines are running.
 
 Within, the master’s desk is seen,
     Deep scarred by raps official;
 The warping floor, the battered seats,
     The jack knife’s carved initial.
 
 The charcoal frescoes on the wall;
     Its door’s worn sill, betraying
 The feet that, creeping slow to school
     Went storming out to playing.
 
 Long years ago a winter sun
     Shone over it at setting;
 Lit up its western window panes,
     And low eaves icy fretting.
 
 It touched the tangled golden curls,
     And brown eyes full of grieving,
 Of one who still her steps delayed
     When all the school was leaving.
 
 For near her stood the little boy
     Her childish favor singled;
 His cap pulled low upon a face
     Where pride and shame were mingled.
 
 Pushing with restless feet the snow
     To right and left, he lingered—
 As restlessly her tiny hands
     The blue checked apron fingered.
 
 He saw her lift her eyes; he felt
     The soft hand’s light caressing,
 And heard the tremble of her voice,
     As if a fault confessing.
 
 “I’m sorry that I spelt the word;
     I hate to go above you,
 Because,”—the brown eyes lower fell—
     “Because, you see, I love you!”
 
 Still memory to gray haired man
     That sweet child face is showing,
 Dear girl! The grasses on her grave
     Have forty years been growing!
 
 He lives to learn in life’s hard school
     How few who pass above him
 Lament their triumph and his loss,
     Like her—because they love him.