Chapter III: The Period of Conflict (1840-1876) (1)

The muffled drum's sad roll has beat
The soldier's last tattoo;
No more on Life's parade shall meet
That brave and fallen few.
On Fame's eternal camping-ground
Their silent tents are spread,
And Glory guards, with solemn round,
The bivouac of the dead.

O'Hara, "The Bivouac of the Dead"

POLITICAL HISTORY. To study the history of America after 1840 is to
have our attention drawn as by a powerful lodestone to the Civil
War. It looms there in the middle of the nineteenth century, a
stupendous thing, dominating and dwarfing all others. To it
converge many ways that then seemed aimless or wandering, the
unanswered questions of the Constitution, the compromises of
statesmen, the intrigues of politicians, the clamor of impatient
reformers, the silent degradation of the slave. And from it, all
its passion and suffering forgotten, its heroism remembered,
proceed the unexpected blessings of a finer love of country, a
broader sense of union, a surer faith in democracy, a better
understanding of the spirit of America, more gratitude for her
glorious past, more hope for her future. So every thought or
mention of the mighty conflict draws us onward, as the first sight
of the Rockies, massive and snow crowned, lures the feet of the
wanderer on the plains.

We shall not attempt here to summarize the war between the South
and the North or even to list its causes and consequences. The
theme is too vast. We note only that the main issues of the
conflict, state rights and slavery, had been debated for the better
part of a century, and might still have found peaceful solution had
they not been complicated by the minor issues of such an age of
agitation as America never saw before and, as we devoutly hope, may
never see again.

[Sidenote: THE AGE OF AGITATION]

Such agitation was perhaps inevitable in a country that had grown
too rapidly for its government to assimilate the new possessions.
By the Oregon treaty, the war with Mexico and the annexation of
Texas vast territories had suddenly been added to the Union, each
with its problem that called for patient and wise deliberation, but
that a passionate and half-informed Congress was expected to settle
overnight. With the expansion of territory in the West came a
marvelous increase of trade and wealth in the North, and a
corresponding growth in the value of cotton and slave labor in the
South. Then arose an economic strife; the agricultural interests of
one part of the country clashed with the manufacturing interests of
another (in such matters as the tariff, for example), and in the
tumult of party politics it was impossible to reach any harmonious
adjustment. Finally, the violent agitation of the slave question
forced it to the front not simply as a moral or human but as a
political issue; for the old "balance of power" between the states
was upset when the North began to outstrip the South in population,
and every state was then fiercely jealous of its individual rights
and obligations in a way that we can now hardly comprehend.

As a result of these conflicting interests and the local or
sectional passions which they aroused, there was seldom a year
after 1840 when the country did not face a situation of extreme
difficulty or danger. Indeed, even while Webster was meditating his
prophetic oration with its superb climax of "Liberty and Union, now
and forever, one and inseparable," many of the most thoughtful
minds, south and north, believed that Congress faced a problem
beyond its power to solve; that no single government was wise
enough or strong enough to meet the situation, especially a
government divided against itself.

[Sidenote: THE WIND AND THE WHIRLWIND]

In the midst of the political tumult, which was increased by the
clamor of agitators and reformers, came suddenly the secession of a
state from the Union, an act long threatened, long feared, but
which arrived at last with the paralyzing effect of a thunderbolt.
Then the clamor ceased; minor questions were swept aside as by a
tempest, and the main issues were settled not by constitutional
rights, not by orderly process of law or the ballot, but by the
fearful arbitrament of the sword. And even as the thunderbolt fell
and the Union trembled, came also unheralded one gaunt, heroic,
heaven-sent man to lead the nation in its hour of peril:

Oh, slow to smite and swift to spare,
Gentle and merciful and just!
Who in the fear of God didst bear
The sword of power, a nation's trust!

Such is an outline of the period of conflict, an outline to which
the political measures or compromises of the time, its sectional
antagonism, its score of political parties, its agitators,
reformers, and all other matters of which we read confusedly in the
histories, are but so many illuminating details.

SOCIAL AND INTELLECTUAL CHANGES. The mental ferment of the period
was almost as intense as its political agitation. Thus, the
antislavery movement, which aimed to rescue the negro from his
servitude, was accompanied by a widespread communistic attempt to
save the white man from the manifold evils of our competitive
system of industry. Brook Farm [Footnote: This was a Massachusetts
society, founded in 1841 by George Ripley. It included Hawthorne,
Dana and Curtis in its large membership, and it had the support of
Emerson, Greeley, Channing, Margaret Fuller and a host of other
prominent men and women] was the most famous of these communities;
but there were more than thirty others scattered over the country,
all holding property in common, working on a basis of mutual
helpfulness, aiming at a nobler life and a better system of labor
than that which now separates the capitalist and the workingman.

[Sidenote: WIDENING HORIZONS]

This brave attempt at human brotherhood, of which Brook Farm was
the visible symbol, showed itself in many other ways: in the
projection of a hundred social reforms; in the establishment of
lyceums throughout the country, where every man with a message
might find a hearing. In education our whole school system was
changed by applying the methods of Pestalozzi, a Swiss reformer;
for the world had suddenly become small, thanks to steam and
electricity, and what was spoken in a corner the newspapers
immediately proclaimed from the housetops. In religious circles the
Unitarian movement, under Channing's leadership, gained rapidly in
members and in influence; in literature the American horizon was
broadened by numerous translations from the classic books of
foreign countries; in the realm of philosophy the western mind was
stimulated by the teaching of the idealistic system known as
Transcendentalism.

[Sidenote: TRANSCENDENTALISM]

Emerson was the greatest exponent of this new philosophy, which
made its appearance here in 1836. It exalted the value of the
individual man above society or institutions; and in dealing with
the individual it emphasized his freedom rather than his subjection
to authority, his soul rather than his body, his inner wealth of
character rather than his outward possessions. It taught that
nature was an open book of the Lord in which he who runs may read a
divine message; and in contrast with eighteenth-century philosophy
(which had described man as a creature of the senses, born with a
blank mind, and learning only by experience), it emphasized the
divinity of man's nature, his inborn ideas of right and wrong, his
instinct of God, his passion for immortality,--in a word, his
higher knowledge which transcends the knowledge gained from the
senses, and which is summarized in the word "Transcendentalism."

We have described this in the conventional way as a new philosophy,
though in truth it is almost as old as humanity. Most of the great
thinkers of the world, in all ages and in all countries, have been
transcendentalists; but in the original way in which the doctrine
was presented by Emerson it seemed like a new revelation, as all
fine old things do when they are called to our attention, and it
exercised a profound influence on our American life and literature.

LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD. The violent political agitation and the profound social unrest of the period found expression in multitudinous works of prose or verse; but the curious fact is that these are all minor works, and could without much loss be omitted from our literary records. They are mostly sectional in spirit, and only what is national or human can long endure.

[Sidenote: MINOR WORKS]

To illustrate our criticism, the terrible war that dominates the period never had any worthy literary expression; there are thousands of writings but not a single great poem or story or essay or drama on the subject. The antislavery movement likewise brought forth its poets, novelists, orators and essayists; some of the greater writers were drawn into its whirlpool of agitation, and Whittier voiced the conviction that the age called for a man rather than a poet in a cry which was half defiance and half regret:

Better than self-indulgent years
The outflung heart of youth,
Than pleasant songs in idle ears
The tumult of the truth!

That was the feeling in the heart of many a promising young southern or northern poet in midcentury, just as it was in 1776, when our best writers neglected literature for political satires against Whigs or Tories. Yet of the thousand works which the antislavery agitation inspired we can think of only one, Mrs. Stowe's _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, which lives with power to our own day; and there is something of universal human nature in that famous book, written not from knowledge or experience but from the imagination, which appeals broadly to our human sympathy, and which makes it welcome in countries where slavery as a political or a moral issue has long since been forgotten.

[Sidenote: GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS]

Though the ferment of the age produced no great books, it certainly influenced our literature, making it a very different product from that of the early national period. For example, nearly every political issue soon became a moral issue; and there is a deep ethical earnestness in the essays of Emerson, the poems of Longfellow and the novels of Hawthorne which sets them apart, as of a different spirit, from the works of Irving, Poe and Cooper.

Again, the mental unrest of the period showed itself in a passion for new ideas, new philosophy, new prose and poetry. We have already spoken of the transcendental philosophy, but even more significant was the sudden broadening of literary interest. American readers had long been familiar with the best English poets; now they desired to know how our common life had been reflected by poets of other nations. In answer to that desire came, first, the establishment of professorships of _belles-lettres_ in our American colleges; and then a flood of translations from European and oriental literatures. As we shall presently see, every prominent writer from Emerson to Whitman was influenced by new views of life as reflected in the world's poetry. Longfellow is a conspicuous example; with his songs inspired by Spanish or German or Scandinavian originals he is at times more like an echo of Europe than a voice from the New World.

[Sidenote: AN AGE OF POETRY]

Finally, this period of conflict was governed more largely than usual by ideals, by sentiment, by intense feeling. Witness the war, with the heroic sentiments which it summoned up south and north. As the deepest human feeling cannot be voiced in prose, we confront the strange phenomenon of an American age of poetry. This would be remarkable Poetry enough to one who remembers that the genius of America had hitherto appeared practical and prosaic, given to action rather than speech, more concerned to "get on" in life than to tell what life means; but it is even more remarkable in view of the war, which covers the age with its frightful shadow. As Lincoln, sad and overburdened, found the relief of tears in the beautiful ending of Longfellow's "Building of the Ship," so, it seems, the heart of America, torn by the sight of her sons in conflict, found blessed relief in songs of love, of peace, of home, of beauty,--of all the lovely and immortal ideals to which every war offers violent but impotent contradiction. And this may be the simple explanation of the fact that the most cherished poems produced by any period of war are almost invariably its songs of peace.

* * * * *

THE GREATER POETS

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW (1807-1882)

When Longfellow sent forth his _Voices of the Night_, in 1839, that modest little volume met with a doubly warm reception. Critics led by Poe pounced on the work to condemn its sentimentality or moralizing, while a multitude of readers who needed no leader raised a great shout of welcome.

Now as then there are diverse critical opinions of Longfellow, and unfortunately these opinions sometimes obscure the more interesting facts: that Longfellow is still the favorite of the American home, the most honored of all our elder poets; that in foreign schools his works are commonly used as an introduction to English verse, and that he has probably led more young people to appreciate poetry than any other poet who ever wrote our language. That strange literary genius Lafcadio Hearn advised his Japanese students to begin the study of poetry with Longfellow, saying that they might learn to like other poets better in later years, but that Longfellow was most certain to charm them at the beginning.

The reason for this advice, given to the antipodes, was probably this, that young hearts and pure hearts are the same the world over, and Longfellow is the poet of the young and pure in heart.

LIFE. The impression of serenity in Longfellow's work may be
explained by the gifts which Fortune offered him in the way of
endowment, training and opportunity. By nature he was a gentleman;
his home training was of the best; to his college education four
years of foreign study were added, a very unusual thing at that
time; and no sooner was he ready for his work than the way opened
as if the magic _Sesame_ were on his lips. His own college
gave him a chair of modern languages and literature, which was the
very thing he wanted; then Harvard offered what seemed to him a
wider field, and finally his country called him from the
professor's chair to teach the love of poetry to the whole nation.
Before his long and beautiful life ended he had enjoyed for half a
century the two rewards that all poets desire, and the most of them
in vain; namely, fame and love. The first may be fairly won; the
second is a free gift.

Longfellow was born (1807) in the town of Falmouth, Maine, which
has since been transformed into the city of Portland. Like Bryant
he was descended from Pilgrim stock; but where the older poet's
training had been strictly puritanic, Longfellow's was more liberal
and broadly cultured. Bryant received the impulse to poetry from
his grandfather's prayers, but Longfellow seems to have heard his
first call in the sea wind. Some of his best lyrics sing of the
ocean; his early book of essays was called _Driftwood_, his
last volume of poetry _In the Harbor_; and in these lyrics and
titles we have a reflection of his boyhood impressions in looking
forth from the beautiful Falmouth headland, then a wild,
wood-fringed pasture but now a formal park:

I remember the black wharves and the slips,
And the sea tides tossing free,
And Spanish sailors with bearded lips,
And the beauty and mystery of the ships,
And the magic of the sea.

[Sidenote: THE CALL OF BOOKS]

This first call was presently neglected for the more insistent
summons of literature; and thereafter Longfellow's inspiration was
at second hand, from books rather than from nature or humanity.
Soon after his graduation from Bowdoin (1825) he was offered a
professorship in modern languages on condition that he prepare
himself for the work by foreign study. With a glad heart he
abandoned the law, which he had begun to study in his father's
office, and spent three happy years in France, Spain and Italy.
There he steeped himself in European poetry, and picked up a
reading knowledge of several languages. Strangely enough, the
romantic influence of Europe was reflected by this poet in a book
of prose essays, _Outre Mer_, modeled on Irving's _Sketch
Book_.

[Sidenote: YEARS OF TEACHING]

For five years Longfellow taught the modern languages at Bowdoin,
and his subject was so new in America that he had to prepare his
own textbooks. Then, after another period of foreign study (this
time in Denmark and Germany), he went to Harvard, where he taught
modern languages and literature for eighteen years. In 1854 he
resigned his chair, and for the remainder of his life devoted
himself whole-heartedly to poetry.

His literary work began with newspaper verses, the best of which
appear in the "Earlier Poems" of his collected works. Next he
attempted prose in his _Outre Mer_, _Driftwood Essays_
and the romances _Hyperion_ and _Kavanagh_. In 1839
appeared his first volume of poetry, _Voices of the Night_,
after which few years went by without some notable poem or volume
from Longfellow's pen. His last book, _In the Harbor_,
appeared with the news of his death, in 1882.

[Sidenote: HIS SERENITY]

Aside from these "milestones" there is little to record in a career
so placid that we remember by analogy "The Old Clock on the
Stairs." For the better part of his life he lived in Cambridge,
where he was surrounded by a rare circle of friends, and whither
increasing numbers came from near or far to pay the tribute of
gratitude to one who had made life more beautiful by his singing.
Once only the serenity was broken by a tragedy, the death of the
poet's wife, who was fatally burned before his eyes,--a tragedy
which occasioned his translation of Dante's _Divina Commedia_
(by which work he strove to keep his sorrow from overwhelming him)
and the exquisite "Cross of Snow." The latter seemed too sacred for
publication; it was found, after the poet's death, among his
private papers.

[Sidenote: HIS WORK AND INFLUENCE]

Reading Longfellow's poems one would never suspect that they were
produced in an age of turmoil. To be sure, one finds a few poems on
slavery (sentimental effusions, written on shipboard to relieve the
monotony of a voyage), but these were better unwritten since they
added nothing to the poet's song and took nothing from the slave's
burden. Longfellow has been criticized for his inaction in the
midst of tumult, but possibly he had his reasons. When everybody's
shouting is an excellent time to hold your tongue. He had his own
work to do, a work for which he was admirably fitted; that he did
not turn aside from it is to his credit and our profit. One demand
of his age was, as we have noted elsewhere, to enter into the
wealth of European poetry; and he gave thirty years of his life to
satisfying that demand. Our own poetry was then sentimental, a kind
of "sugared angel-cake"; and Longfellow, who was sentimental enough
but whose sentiment was balanced by scholarship, made poetry that
was like wholesome bread to common men. Lowell was a more brilliant
writer, and Whittier a more inspired singer; but neither did a work
for American letters that is comparable to that of Longfellow, who
was essentially an educator, a teacher of new ideas, new values,
new beauty. His influence in broadening our literary culture, in
deepening our sympathy for the poets of other lands, and in making
our own poetry a true expression of American feeling is beyond
measure.

MINOR POEMS. It was by his first simple poems that Longfellow won the hearts of his people, and by them he is still most widely and gratefully remembered. To name these old favorites ("The Day is Done," "Resignation," "Ladder of St. Augustine," "Rainy Day," "Footsteps of Angels," "Light of Stars," "Reaper and the Flowers," "Hymn to the Night," "Midnight Mass," "Excelsior," "Village Blacksmith," "Psalm of Life") is to list many of the poems that are remembered and quoted wherever in the round world the English language is spoken.

[Sidenote: VESPER SONGS]

Ordinarily such poems are accepted at their face value as a true expression of human sentiment; but if we examine them critically, remembering the people for whom they were written, we may discover the secret of their popularity. The Anglo-Saxons are first a busy and then a religious folk; when their day's work is done their thoughts turn naturally to higher matters; and any examination of Longfellow's minor works shows that a large proportion of them deal with the thoughts or feelings of men at the close of day. Such poems would be called _Abendlieder_ in German; a good Old-English title for them would be "Evensong"; and both titles suggest the element of faith or worship. In writing these poems Longfellow had, unconsciously perhaps, the same impulse that leads one man to sing a hymn and another to say his prayers when the day is done. Because he expresses this almost universal feeling simply and reverently, his work is dear to men and women who would not have the habit of work interfere with the divine instinct of worship.

Further examination of these minor poems shows them to be filled with sentiment that often slips over the verge of sentimentality. The sentiments expressed are not of the exalted, imaginative kind; they are the sentiments of plain people who feel deeply but who can seldom express their feeling. Now, most people are sentimental (though we commonly try to hide the fact, more's the pity), and we are at heart grateful to the poet who says for us in simple, musical language what we are unable or ashamed to say for ourselves. In a word, the popularity of Longfellow's poems rests firmly on the humanity of the poet.

[Sidenote: TYPICAL POEMS]

Besides these vesper songs are a hundred other short poems, among which the reader must make his own selection. The ballads should not be neglected, for Longfellow knew how to tell a story in verse. If he were too prone to add a moral to his tale (a moral that does not speak for itself were better omitted), we can overlook the fault, since his moral was a good one and his readers liked it. The "occasional" poems, also, written to celebrate persons or events (such as "Building of the Ship," "Hanging of the Crane," "Morituri Salutamus," "Bells of Lynn," "Robert Burns," "Chamber over the Gate") well deserved the welcome which the American people gave them. And the sonnets (such as "Three Friends," "Victor and Vanquished," "My Books," "Nature," "Milton," "President Garfield," "Giotto's Tower") are not only the most artistic of Longfellow's works but rank very near to the best sonnets in the English language.

AMERICAN IDYLS. In the same spirit in which Tennyson wrote his _English Idyls_ the American poet sent forth certain works reflecting the beauty of common life on this side of the ocean; and though he never collected or gave them a name, we think of them as his "American Idyls." Many of his minor poems belong to this class, but we are thinking especially of _Evangeline_, _Miles Standish_ and _Hiawatha_. The last-named, with its myths and legends clustering around one heroic personage, is commonly called an epic; but its songs of Chibiabos, Minnehaha, Nokomis and the little Hiawatha are more like idyllic pictures of the original Americans.

[Sidenote: EVANGELINE]

_Evangeline: a Tale of Acadie_ (1847) met the fate of Longfellow's earlier poems in that it was promptly attacked by a few critics while a multitude of people read it with delight. Its success may be explained on four counts. First, it is a charming story, not a "modern" or realistic but a tender, pathetic story such as we read in old romances, and such as young people will cherish so long as they remain young people. Second, it had a New World setting, one that was welcomed in Europe because it offered readers a new stage, more vast, shadowy, mysterious, than that to which they were accustomed; and doubly welcomed here because it threw the glamor of romance over familiar scenes which deserved but had never before found their poet. Third, this old romance in a new setting was true to universal human nature; its sentiments of love, faith and deathless loyalty were such as make the heart beat faster wherever true hearts are found. Finally, it was written in an unusual verse form, the unrimed hexameter, which Longfellow handled as well, let us say, as most other English poets who have tried to use that alluring but difficult measure. For hexameters are like the Italian language, which is very easy to "pick up," but which few foreigners ever learn to speak with the rhythm and melody of a child of Tuscany.

Longfellow began his hexameters fairly well, as witness the opening lines of _Evangeline_:

This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
Loud from its rocky caverns the deep-voiced neighboring ocean
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.

Occasionally also he produced a very good but not quite perfect line or passage:

And as the voice of the priest repeated the service of sorrow,
So with a mournful sound, like the voice of a vast congregation,
Solemnly answered the sea, and mingled its roar with the dirges.

One must confess, however, that such passages are exceptional, and that one must change the proper stress of a word too frequently to be enthusiastic over Longfellow's hexameters. Some of his lines halt or hobble, refusing to move to the chosen measure, and others lose all their charm when spoken aloud:

When she had passed it seemed like the ceasing of exquisite music.

That line has been praised by critics, but one must believe that they never pronounced it. To voice its sibilant hissing is to understand the symbol for a white man in the Indian sign language; that is, two fingers of a hand extended before the face, like the fork of a serpent's tongue. [Footnote: This curious symbol, a snake's tongue to represent an Englishman, was invented by some Indian whose ears were pained by a language in which the _s_ sounds occur too frequently. Our plurals are nearly all made that way, unfortunately; but Longfellow was able to make a hissing line without the use of a single plural.] On the whole, Longfellow's verse should be judged not by itself but as a part of the tale he was telling. Holmes summed up the first impression of many readers by saying that he found these "brimming lines" an excellent medium for a charming story.

That is more than one can truthfully say of the next important idyl, _The Courtship of Miles Standish_ (1858). The story is a good one and, more than all the histories, has awakened a romantic interest in the Pilgrims; but its unhappy hexameters go jolting along, continually upsetting the musical rhythm, until we wish that the tale had been told in either prose or poetry.

[Sidenote: SONG OF HIAWATHA]

_The Song of Hiawatha_ (1855) was Longfellow's greatest work, and by it he will probably be longest remembered as a world poet. The materials for this poem, its musical names, its primitive traditions, its fascinating folklore, were all taken from Schoolcraft's books about the Ojibway Indians; its peculiar verse form, with its easy rhythm and endless repetition, was copied from the _Kalevala_, the national epic of Finland. Material and method, the tale and the verse form, were finely adapted to each other; and though Longfellow showed no originality in _Hiawatha_, his poetic talent or genius appears in this: that these tales of childhood are told in a childlike spirit; that these forest legends have the fragrance of hemlock in them; and that as we read them, even now, we seem to see the wigwam with its curling smoke, and beyond the wigwam the dewy earth, the shining river, and the blue sky with its pillars of tree trunks and its cloud of rustling leaves. The simplicity and naturalness of primitive folklore is in this work of Longfellow, who of a hundred writers at home and abroad was the first to reveal the poetry in the soul of an Indian.

As the poem is well known we forbear quotation; as it is too long, perhaps, we express a personal preference in naming "Hiawatha's Childhood," his "Friends," his "Fishing" and his "Wooing" as the parts most likely to please the beginner. The best that can be said of _Hiawatha_ is that it adds a new tale to the world's storybook. That book of the centuries has only a few stories, each of which portrays a man from birth to death, fronting the problems of this life, meeting its joy or sorrow in man fashion, and then setting his face bravely to "Ponemah," the Land of the Hereafter. That Longfellow added a chapter to the volume which preserves the stories of Ulysses, Beowulf, Arthur and Roland is undoubtedly his best or most enduring achievement.

HIS EXPERIMENTAL WORKS. Unless the student wants to encourage a sentimental mood by reading _Hyperion_, Longfellow's prose works need not detain us. Much more valuable and readable are his translations from various European languages, and of these his metrical version of _The Divine Comedy_ of Dante is most notable. He attempted also several dramatic works, among which _The Spanish Student_ (1843) is still readable, though not very convincing. In _Christus: a Mystery_ he attempted a miracle play of three acts, dealing with Christianity in the apostolic, medieval and modern eras; but not even his admirers were satisfied with the result. "The Golden Legend" (one version of which Caxton printed on the first English press, and which a score of different poets have paraphrased) is the only part of _Christus_ that may interest young readers by its romantic portrayal of the Middle Ages. To name such works is to suggest Longfellow's varied interests and his habit of experimenting with any subject or verse form that attracted him in foreign literatures.

The _Tales of a Wayside Inn_ (1863-1873) is the most popular of Longfellow's miscellaneous works. Here are a score of stories from ancient or modern sources, as told by a circle of the poet's friends in the Red Horse Inn, at Sudbury. The title suggests at once the _Canterbury Tales_ of Chaucer; but it would be unwise to make any comparison between the two works or the two poets. The ballad of "Paul Revere's Ride" is the best known of the _Wayside Inn_ poems; the Viking tales of "The Saga of King Olaf" are the most vigorous; the mellow coloring of the Middle Ages appears in such stories as "The Legend Beautiful" and "The Bell of Atri."

CHARACTERISTICS OF LONGFELLOW. The broad sympathy of Longfellow, which made him at home in the literatures of a dozen nations, was one of his finest qualities. He lived in Cambridge; he wrote in English; he is called the poet of the American home; but had he lived in Finland and written in a Scandinavian tongue, his poems must still appeal to us. Indeed, so simply did he reflect the sentiments of the human heart that Finland or any other nation might gladly class him among its poets.

[Sidenote: A POET OF ALL PEOPLES]

For example, many Englishmen have written about their Wellington, but, as Hearn says, not even Tennyson's poem on the subject is quite equal to Longfellow's "Warden of the Cinque Ports." The spirit of the Spanish missions, with their self-sacrificing monks and their soldiers "with hearts of fire and steel," is finely reflected in "The Bells of San Blas." The half-superstitious loyalty of the Russian peasant for his hereditary ruler has never been better reflected than in "The White Czar." The story of Belisarius has been told in scores of histories and books of poetry; but you will feel a deeper sympathy for the neglected old Roman soldier in Longfellow's poem than in anything else you may find on the same theme. And there are many other foreign heroes or brave deeds that find beautiful expression in the verse of our American poet. Of late it has become almost a critical habit to disparage Longfellow; but no critic has pointed out another poet who has reflected with sympathy and understanding the feelings of so many widely different peoples.

Naturally such a poet had his limitations. In comparison with Chaucer, for example, we perceive instantly that Longfellow knew only one side of life, the better side. Unhappy or rebellious or turbulent souls were beyond his ken. He wrote only for those who work by day and sometimes go to evensong at night, who hopefully train their children or reverently bury their dead, and who cleave to a writer that speaks for them the fitting word of faith or cheer or consolation on every proper occasion. As humanity is largely made of such men and women, Longfellow will always be a popular poet. For him, with his serene outlook, there were not nine Muses but only three, and their names were Faith, Hope and Charity.

[Sidenote: POETIC FAULTS]

Concerning his faults, perhaps the most illuminating thing that can be said is that critics emphasize and ordinary readers ignore them. The reason for this is that every poem has two elements, form and content: a critic looks chiefly at the one, an ordinary reader at the other. Because the form of Longfellow's verse is often faulty it is easy to criticize him, to show that he copies the work of others, that he lacks originality, that his figures are often forced or questionable; but the reader, the young reader especially, may be too much interested in the charm of the poet's story or the truth of his sentiment to dissect his poetic figures. Thus, in the best-known of his earlier poems, "A Psalm of Life," he uses the famous metaphor of "footprints on the sands of time." That is so bad a figure that to analyze is to reject it; yet it never bothers young people, who would understand the poet and like him just as well even had he written "signboards" instead of "footprints." The point is that Longfellow is so obviously a true and pleasant poet that his faults easily escape attention unless we look for them. There is perhaps no better summary of our poet's qualities than to record again the simple fact that he is the poet of young people, to whom sentiment is the very breath of life. Should you ask the reason for his supremacy in this respect, the answer is a paradox. Longfellow was not an originator; he had no new song to sing, no new tale to tell. He was the poet of old heroes, old legends, old sentiments and ideals. Therefore he is the poet of youth.

* * * * *

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER (1807-1892)

The strange mixture of warrior and peace lover in Whittier has led to a strange misjudgment of his work. From the obscurity of a New England farm he emerged as the champion of the Abolitionist party, and for thirty tumultuous years his poems were as war cries. By such work was he judged as "the trumpeter of a cause," and the judgment stood between him and his audience when he sang not of a cause but of a country. Even at the present time most critics speak of Whittier as "the antislavery poet." Stedman, for example, focuses our attention on certain lyrics of reform which he calls "words wrung from the nation's heart"; but the plain fact is that only a small part of the nation approved these lyrics or took any interest in the poet who wrote them.

Such was Whittier on one side, a militant poet of reform, sending forth verses that had the brattle of trumpets and the waving of banners in them:

Lift again the stately emblem on the Bay State's rusted shield,
Give to Northern winds the Pine Tree on our banner's tattered field.
Sons of men who sat in council with their Bibles round the board,
Answering England's royal missive with a firm, "Thus saith the Lord!"
Rise again for home and freedom! set the battle in array!
What the fathers did of old time we their sons must do to-day.

On the other side he was a Friend, or Quaker, and the peaceful spirit of his people found expression in lyrics of faith that have no equal in our poetry. He was also a patriot to the core. He loved America with a profound love; her ideals, her traditions, her epic history were in his blood, and he glorified them in ballads and idyls that reflect the very spirit of brave Colonial days. To judge Whittier as a trumpeter, therefore, is to neglect all that is important in his work; for his reform poems merely awaken the dying echoes of party clamor, while his ballads and idyls belong to the whole American people, and his hymns of faith to the wider audience of humanity.

LIFE. The span of Whittier's life was almost the span of the
nineteenth century. He was born (1807) in the homestead of his
ancestors at Haverhill, Massachusetts, and spent his formative
years working in the fields by day, reading beside the open fire at
night, and spending a few terms in a "deestrict" school presided
over by teachers who came or went with the spring. His schooling
was, therefore, of the scantiest kind; his real education came from
a noble home, from his country's history, from his toil and outdoor
life with its daily contact with nature. The love of home and of
homely virtues, the glorification of manhood and womanhood, the
pride of noble traditions, and always a background of meadow or
woodland or sounding sea,--these were the subjects of Whittier's
best verse, because these were the things he knew most intimately.

[Sidenote: FIRST VERSES]

It was a song of Burns that first turned Whittier to poetry; but
hardly had he begun to write songs of his own when Garrison, the
antislavery agitator, turned his thought from the peaceful farm to
the clamoring world beyond. Attracted by certain verses (Whittier's
sister Elizabeth had sent them secretly to Garrison's paper) the
editor came over to see his contributor and found to his surprise a
country lad who was in evident need of education. Instead of asking
for more poetry, therefore, Garrison awakened the boy's ambition.
For two terms he attended the Haverhill Academy, supporting himself
meanwhile by making shoes. Then his labor was needed at home; but
finding his health too delicate for farm work he chose other
occupations and contributed manfully to the support of his family.

For several years thereafter Whittier was like a man trying to find
himself. He did factory work; he edited newspapers; he showed a
talent for political leadership; he made poems which he sold at a
price to remind him of what he had once received for making shoes.
While poetry and politics both called to him alluringly a crisis
arose; Garrison summoned him; and with a sad heart, knowing that he
left all hope of political or literary success behind, he went over
to the Abolitionist party. That was in 1833, when Whittier was
twenty-six years old. At that time the Abolitionists were detested
in the North as well as in the South, and to join them was to
become an outcast.

[Sidenote: STORM AND STRESS]

Then came the militant period of Whittier's life. He became editor
of antislavery journals; he lectured in the cause; he was stoned
for his utterances; his printing shop was burned by a mob.
Meanwhile his poems were sounding abroad like trumpet blasts,
making friends, making enemies. It was a passionate age, when
political enemies were hated like Hessians, but Whittier was always
chivalrous with his opponents. Read his "Randolph of Roanoke" for a
specific example. His "Laus Deo" (1865), a chant of exultation
written when he heard the bells ringing the news of the
constitutional amendment prohibiting slavery, was the last poem of
this period of storm and stress.

In the following year Whittier produced _Snow-Bound_, his
masterpiece. Though he had been writing for half a century, he had
never won either fame or money by his verse; but the publication of
this beautiful idyl placed him in the front rank of American poets.
Thereafter he was a national figure, and the magazines which once
scorned his verses were now most eager to print them. So he made an
end of the poverty which had been his portion since childhood.

[Sidenote: PEACEFUL YEARS]

For the remainder of his life he lived serenely at Amesbury, for
the most part, in a modest house presided over by a relative. He
wrote poetry now more carefully, for a wider audience, and every
few years saw another little volume added to his store: _Ballads
of New England_, _Miriam and Other Poems_, _Hazel
Blossoms_, _Poems of Nature_, _St. Gregory's Quest_,
_At Sundown_. When he died (1892) he was honored not so widely
perhaps as Longfellow, but more deeply, as we honor those whose
peace has been won through manful strife. Holmes, the ready poet of
all occasions, expressed a formal but sincere judgment in the
lines:

Best loved and saintliest of our singing train,
Earth's noblest tributes to thy name belong:
A lifelong record closed without a stain,
A blameless memory shrined in deathless song.

EARLIER WORKS. [Footnote: Though we are concerned here with Whittier's poetry, we should at least mention certain of his prose works, such as _Legends of New England_, _Leaves from Margaret Smith's Journal_ and _Old Portraits and Modern Sketches_. The chief value of these is in their pictures of Colonial life.] In Whittier's poetry we note three distinct stages, and note also that he was on the wrong trail until he followed his own spirit. His earliest work was inspired by Burns, but this was of no consequence. Next he fell under the spell of Scott and wrote "Mogg Megone" and "The Bridal of Pennacook." These Indian romances in verse are too much influenced by Scott's border poems and also by sentimental novels of savage life, such as Mrs. Child's _Hobomok_; they do not ring true, and in this respect are like almost everything else in literature on the subject of the Indians.

[Sidenote: REFORM POEMS]

In _Voices of Freedom_ (1849) and other poems inspired by the antislavery campaign Whittier for the first time came close to his own age. He was no longer an echo but a voice, a man's voice, shouting above a tumult. He spoke not for the nation but for a party; and it was inevitable that his reform lyrics should fall into neglect with the occasions that called them forth. They are interesting now not as poems but as sidelights on a critical period of our history. Their intensely passionate quality appears in "Faneuil Hall," "Song of the Free," "The Pine Tree," "Randolph of Roanoke" and "The Farewell of an Indian Slave Mother."

There is a fine swinging rhythm in these poems, in "Massachusetts to Virginia" especially, which recalls Macaulay's "Armada"; and two of them at least show astonishing power and vitality. One is "Laus Deo," to which we have referred in our story of the poet's life. The other is "Ichabod" (1850), written after the "Seventh of March Speech" of Webster, when that statesman seemed to have betrayed the men who elected and trusted him. Surprise, anger, scorn, indignation, sorrow,--all these emotions were loosed in a flood after Webster's speech; but Whittier waited till he had fused them into one emotion, and when his slow words fell at last they fell with the weight of judgment and the scorching of fire upon their victim. If words could kill a man, these surely are the words. "Ichabod" is the most powerful poem of its kind in our language; but it is fearfully unjust to Webster. Those who read it should read also "The Lost Occasion," written thirty years later, which Whittier placed next to "Ichabod" in the final edition of his poems. So he tried to right a wrong (unfortunately after the victim was dead) by offering generous tribute to the statesman he had once misjudged.

BALLADS AND AMERICAN IDYLS. Whittier's manly heart and his talent for flowing verse made him an excellent ballad writer; but his work in this field is so different from that of his predecessors that he came near to inventing a new type of poetry. Thus, many of the old ballads celebrate the bravery that mounts with fighting; but Whittier always lays emphasis on the higher quality that we call moral courage. "Barclay of Ury" will illustrate our criticism: the verse has a martial swing; the hero is a veteran who has known the lust of battle; but his courage now appears in self-mastery, in the ability to bear in silence the jeers of a mob. Again, the old ballad aims to tell a story, nothing else, and drives straight to its mark; but Whittier portrays the whole landscape and background of the action. He deals largely with Colonial life in New England, and his descriptions of place and people are unrivaled in our poetry. Read one of his typical ballads, "The Wreck of Rivermouth" or "The Witch's Daughter" or "The Garrison of Cape Ann" or "Skipper Ireson's Ride," and see how closely he identifies himself with the place and time of his story.

[Sidenote: PATRIOTIC QUALITY]

There is one quality, however, in which our Quaker poet resembles the old ballad makers, namely, his intense patriotism, and this recalls the fact that ballads were the first histories, the first expression not only of brave deeds but of the national pride which the deeds symbolized. Though Whittier keeps himself modestly in the background, as a story teller ought to do, he can never quite repress the love of his native land or the quickened heartbeats that set his verse marching as if to the drums. This patriotism, though intense, was never intolerant but rather sympathetic with men of other lands, as appears in "The Pipes at Lucknow", a ballad dealing with a dramatic incident of the Sepoy Rebellion. The Scotsman who could read that ballad unmoved, without a kindling of the eye or a stirring of the heart, would be unworthy of his clan or country.

Even better than Whittier's ballads are certain narrative poems reflecting the life of simple people, to which we give the name of idyls. "Telling the Bees," "In School Days," "My Playmate," "Maud Muller," "The Barefoot Boy,"--there are no other American poems quite like these, none so tender, none written with such perfect sympathy. Some of them are like photographs; and the lens that gathered them was not a glass but a human heart. Others sing the emotion of love as only Whittier, the Galahad of poets, could have sung it,--as in this stanza from "A Sea Dream":

Draw near, more near, forever dear!
Where'er I rest or roam,
Or in the city's crowded streets,
Or by the blown sea foam,
The thought of thee is home!

SNOW-BOUND. The best of Whittier's idyls is _Snow-Bound_ (1866), into which he gathered a boy's tenderest memories. In naming this as the best poem in the language on the subject of home we do not offer a criticism but an invitation. Because all that is best in human life centers in the ideal of home, and because Whittier reflected that ideal in a beautiful way, _Snow-Bound_ should be read if we read nothing else of American poetry. There is perhaps only one thing to prevent this idyl from becoming a universal poem: its natural setting can be appreciated only by those who live within the snow line, who have seen the white flakes gather and drift, confining every family to the circle of its own hearth fire in what Emerson calls "the tumultuous privacy of storm."

The plan of the poem is simplicity itself. It opens with a description of a snowstorm that thickens with the December night. The inmates of an old farmhouse gather about the open fire, and Whittier describes them one by one, how they looked to the boy (for _Snow-Bound_ is a recollection of boyhood), and what stories they told to reveal their interests. The rest of the poem is a reverie, as of one no longer a boy, who looks into his fire and sees not the fire-pictures but those other scenes or portraits that are graved deep in every human heart.

[Sidenote: CHARM OF SNOW-BOUND]

To praise such a work is superfluous, and to criticize its artless sincerity is beyond our ability. Many good writers have explained the poem; yet still its deepest charm escapes analysis, perhaps because it has no name. The best criticism that the present writer ever heard on the subject came from a Habitant farmer in the Province of Quebec, a simple, unlettered man, who was a poet at heart but who would have been amazed had anyone told him so. His children, who were learning English literature through the happy medium of _Evangeline_ and _Snow-Bound_, brought the latter poem home from school, and the old man would sit smoking his pipe and listening to the story. When they read of the winter scenes, of the fire roaring its defiance up the chimney-throat at the storm without,

What matter how the night behaved?
What matter how the north-wind raved?
Blow high, blow low, not all its snow
Could quench our hearth-fire's ruddy glow,--

then he would stir in his chair, make his pipe glow fiercely, and blow a cloud of smoke about his head. But in the following scene, with its memories of the dead and its immortal hope, he would sit very still, as if listening to exquisite music. When asked why he liked the poem his face lighted: "W'y I lak heem, M'sieu Whittier? I lak heem 'cause he speak de true. He know de storm, and de leetle _cabane_, and heart of de boy an' hees moder. _Oui, oui_, he know de man also."

Nature, home, the heart of a boy and a man and a mother,--the poet who can reflect such elemental matters so that the simple of earth understand and love their beauty deserves the critic's best tribute of silence.

POEMS OF FAITH AND NATURE. Aside from the reform poems it is hard to group Whittier's works, which are all alike in that they portray familiar scenes against a natural background. In his _Tent on the Beach_ (1867) he attempted a collection of tales in the manner of Longfellow's _Wayside Inn_, but of these only one or two ballads, such as "Abraham Davenport" and "The Wreck of Rivermouth," are now treasured. The best part of the book is the "Prelude," which pictures the poet among his friends and records his impressions of sky and sea and shore.

[Sidenote: TWO VIEWS OF NATURE]

The outdoor poems of Whittier are interesting, aside from their own beauty, as suggesting two poetic conceptions of nature which have little in common. The earlier regards nature as a mistress to be loved or a divinity to be worshiped for her own sake; she has her own laws or mercies, and man is but one of her creatures. The Anglo-Saxon scops viewed nature in this way; so did Bryant, in whose "Forest Hymn" is the feeling of primitive ages. Many modern poets (and novelists also, like Scott and Cooper) have outgrown this conception; they regard nature as a kind of stage for the drama of human life, which is all-important.

Whittier belongs to this later school; he portrays nature magnificently, but always as the background for some human incident, sad or tender or heroic, which appears to us more real because viewed in its natural setting. Note in "The Wreck of Rivermouth," for example, how the merry party in their sailboat, the mowers on the salt marshes, the "witch" mumbling her warning, the challenge of a careless girl, the skipper's fear, the river, the breeze, the laughing sea,--everything is exactly as it should be. It is this humanized view of the natural world which makes Whittier's ballads unique and which gives deeper meaning to his "Hampton Beach," "Among the Hills," "Trailing Arbutus," "The Vanishers" and other of his best nature poems.

[Sidenote: WHITTIER'S CREED]

Our reading of Whittier should not end until we are familiar with "The Eternal Goodness," "Trust," "My Soul and I," "The Prayer of Agassiz" and a few more of his hymns of faith. Our appreciation of such hymns will be more sympathetic if we remember, first, that Whittier came of ancestors whose souls approved the opening proposition of the Declaration of Independence; and second, that he belonged to the Society of Friends, who believed that God revealed himself directly to every human soul (the "inner light" they called it), and that a man's primal responsibility was to God and his own conscience. The creed of Whittier may therefore be summarized in two articles: "I believe in the Divine love and in the equality of men." The latter article appears in all his poems; the former is crystallized in "The Eternal Goodness," a hymn so trustful and reverent that it might well be the evensong of humanity.