Before my drift-wood fire I sit, And see, with every waif I burn, Old dreams and fancies coloring it, And folly’s unlaid ghosts return. O ships of mine, whose swift keels cleft The enchanted sea on which they sailed, Are these poor fragments only left Of vain desires and hopes that failed? Did I not […]

Climbing a path which leads back never more We heard behind his footsteps and his cheer; Now, face to face, we greet him standing here Upon the lonely summit of Fourscore Welcome to us, o’er whom the lengthened day Is closing and the shadows colder grow, His genial presence, like an afterglow, Following the one […]

From purest wells of English undefiled None deeper drank than he, the New World’s child, Who in the language of their farm-fields spoke The wit and wisdom of New England folk, Shaming a monstrous wrong. The world-wide laugh Provoked thereby might well have shaken half The walls of Slavery down, ere yet the ball And […]

AN AUTOGRAPH. The daughter of Daniel Gurteen, Esq., delegate from Haverhill, England, to the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary celebration of Haverhill, Massachusetts. The Rev. John Ward of the former place and many of his old parishioners were the pioneer settlers of the new town on the Merrimac. Graceful in name and in thyself, our […]

1640-1890. Read at the Celebration of the Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the City, July 2, 1890. O river winding to the sea! We call the old time back to thee; From forest paths and water-ways The century-woven veil we raise. The voices of to-day are dumb, Unheard its sounds that go and come; […]

For the bass-relief by Preston Powers, carved upon the huge boulder in Denver Park, Col., and representing the Last Indian and the Last Bison. The eagle, stooping from yon snow-blown peaks, For the wild hunter and the bison seeks, In the changed world below; and finds alone Their graven semblance in the eternal stone.

Inscription on her Memorial Tablet in Christ Church at Hartford, Conn. She sang alone, ere womanhood had known The gift of song which fills the air to-day Tender and sweet, a music all her own May fitly linger where she knelt to pray.

Inscription on the Memorial Window in St. Margaret’s Church, Westminster, the gift of George W. Childs, of America. The new world honors him whose lofty plea For England’s freedom made her own more sure, Whose song, immortal as its theme, shall be Their common freehold while both worlds endure.

December 17, 1891. Blossom and greenness, making all The winter birthday tropical, And the plain Quaker parlors gay, Have gone from bracket, stand, and wall; We saw them fade, and droop, and fall, And laid them tenderly away. White virgin lilies, mignonette, Blown rose, and pink, and violet, A breath of fragrance passing by; Visions […]

Up from the sea, the wild north wind is blowing Under the sky’s gray arch; Smiling, I watch the shaken elm-boughs, knowing It is the wind of March. Between the passing and the coming season, This stormy interlude Gives to our winter-wearied hearts a reason For trustful gratitude. Welcome to waiting ears its harsh forewarning […]

Between the gates of birth and death An old and saintly pilgrim passed, With look of one who witnesseth The long-sought goal at last. O thou whose reverent feet have found The Master’s footprints in thy way, And walked thereon as holy ground, A boon of thee I pray. “My lack would borrow thy excess, […]

Summer’s last sun nigh unto setting shines Through yon columnar pines, And on the deepening shadows of the lawn Its golden lines are drawn. Dreaming of long gone summer days like this, Feeling the wind’s soft kiss, Grateful and glad that failing ear and sight Have still their old delight, I sit alone, and watch […]

8TH Mo. 29TH, 1892. This, the last of Mr. Whittier’s poems, was written but a few weeks before his death. Among the thousands who with hail and cheer Will welcome thy new year, How few of all have passed, as thou and I, So many milestones by! We have grown old together; we have seen, […]

CHAPTER I. DR. SINGLETARY is dead! Well, what of it? All who live die sooner or later; and pray who was Dr. Singletary, that his case should claim particular attention? Why, in the first place, Dr. Singletary, as a man born to our common inheritance of joy and sorrow, earthly instincts and heavenward aspirations,–our brother […]

WHAT AMINADAB IVISON DREAMED ABOUT. AMINADAB IVISON started up in his bed. The great clock at the head of the staircase, an old and respected heirloom of the family, struck one. “Ah,” said he, heaving up a great sigh from the depths of his inner man, “I’ve had a tried time of it.” “And so […]

[1833.] I know not, I ask not, what guilt’s in thy heart, But I feel that I love thee, whatever thou art. Moor. THE township of Haverhill, on the Merrimac, contained, in the autumn of 1641, the second year of its settlement, but six dwelling-houses, situated near each other, on the site of the present […]

[1833.] Heavens! what a revulsion! what an upheaving from its lowest depths of the inner spirit! what an apocalypse of the world within me! Here was a panacea, a pharmakon nepenthes for all human woes; here was the secret of happiness about which philosophers had disputed for so many ages: happiness might be bought for […]

[1833] THE student sat at his books. All the day he had been poring over an old and time-worn volume; and the evening found him still absorbed in its contents. It was one of that interminable series of controversial volumes, containing the theological speculations of the ancient fathers of the Church. With the patient perseverance […]

Published originally in Our Young Folks, 1865. WHO of my young friends have read the sorrowful story of “Enoch Arden,” so sweetly and simply told by the great English poet? It is the story of a man who went to sea, leaving behind a sweet young wife and little daughter. He was cast away on […]

Published originally in The Little Pilgrim, Philadelphia, 1843. OUR old homestead (the house was very old for a new country, having been built about the time that the Prince of, Orange drove out James the Second) nestled under a long range of hills which stretched off to the west. It was surrounded by woods in […]