Page:
John Greenleaf Whittier
Maud Muller
MAUD Muller, on a summer's day,
Raked the meadow sweet with hay.
Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth
Of simple beauty and rustic health.
Singing, she wrought, and her merry glee 5
The mock-bird echoed from his tree.
But when she glanced to the far-off town,
White from its hill-slope looking down,
The sweet song died, and a vague unrest
And a nameless longing filled her breast,— 10
A wish that she hardly dared to own,
For something better than she had known.
The Judge rode slowly down the lane,
Smoothing his horse's chestnut mane.
He drew his bridle in the shade 15
Of the apple-trees to greet the maid,
And ask a draught from the spring that flowed
Through the meadow across the road.
She stooped where the cool spring bubbled up,
And filled for him her small tin cup, 20
And blushed as she gave it, looking down
On her feet so bare, and her tattered gown.
"Thanks!" said the Judge; "a sweeter draught
From a fairer hand was never quaffed."
He spoke of the grass and flowers and trees, 25
Of the singing birds and the humming bees;
Then talked of the haying, and wondered whether
The cloud in the west would bring foul weather.
And Maud forgot her brier-torn gown
And her graceful ankles bare and brown; 30
And listened, while a pleased surprise
Looked from her long-lashed hazel eyes.
At last, like one who for delay
Seeks a vain excuse, he rode away.
Maud Muller looked and sighed: "Ah me! 35
That I the Judge's bride might be!
"He would dress me up in silks so fine,
And praise and toast me at his wine.
"My father should wear a broadcloth coat;
My brother should sail a painted boat. 40
"I'd dress my mother so grand and gay,
And the baby should have a new toy each day.
"And I'd feed the hungry and clothe the poor,
And all should bless me who left our door."
The Judge looked back as he climbed the hill, 45
And saw Maud Muller standing still.
"A form more fair, a face more sweet,
Ne'er hath it been my lot to meet.
"And her modest answer and graceful air
Show her wise and good as she is fair. 50
"Would she were mine, and I to-day,
Like her, a harvester of hay:
"No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs,
Nor weary lawyers with endless tongues,
"But low of cattle and song of birds, 55
And health and quiet and loving words."
But he thought of his sisters proud and cold,
And his mother vain of her rank and gold.
So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on,
And Maud was left in the field alone. 60
But the lawyers smiled that afternoon,
When he hummed in court an old love-tune;
And the young girl mused beside the well,
Till the rain on the unraked clover fell.
He wedded a wife of richest dower, 65
Who lived for fashion, as he for power.
Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow,
He watched a picture come and go;
And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes
Looked out in their innocent surprise. 70
Oft, when the wine in his glass was red,
He longed for the wayside well instead;
And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms
To dream of meadows and clover-blooms.
And the proud man sighed, with a secret pain, 75
"Ah, that I were free again!
"Free as when I rode that day,
Where the barefoot maiden raked her hay."
She wedded a man unlearned and poor,
And many children played round her door. 80
But care and sorrow, and childbirth pain,
Left their traces on heart and brain.
And oft, when the summer sun shone hot
On the new-mown hay in the meadow lot,
And she heard the little spring brook fall 85
Over the roadside, through the wall,
In the shade of the apple-tree again
She saw a rider draw his rein.
And, gazing down with timid grace,
She felt his pleased eyes read her face. 90
Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls
Stretched away into stately halls;
The weary wheel to a spinet turned,
The tallow candle an astral burned,
And for him who sat by the chimney lug, 95
Dozing and grumbling o'er pipe and mug,
A manly form at her side she saw,
And joy was duty and love was law.
Then she took up her burden of life again,
Saying only, "It might have been." 100
Alas for maiden, alas for Judge,
For rich repiner and household drudge!
God pity them both! and pity us all,
Who vainly the dreams of youth recall.
For of all sad words of tongue or pen, 105
The saddest are these: "It might have been!"
Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies
Deeply buried from human eyes;
And, in the hereafter, angels may
Roll the stone from its grave away! 110
MAUD Muller, on a summer's day,
Raked the meadow sweet with hay.
Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth
Of simple beauty and rustic health.
Singing, she wrought, and her merry glee 5
The mock-bird echoed from his tree.
But when she glanced to the far-off town,
White from its hill-slope looking down,
The sweet song died, and a vague unrest
And a nameless longing filled her breast,— 10
A wish that she hardly dared to own,
For something better than she had known.
The Judge rode slowly down the lane,
Smoothing his horse's chestnut mane.
He drew his bridle in the shade 15
Of the apple-trees to greet the maid,
And ask a draught from the spring that flowed
Through the meadow across the road.
She stooped where the cool spring bubbled up,
And filled for him her small tin cup, 20
And blushed as she gave it, looking down
On her feet so bare, and her tattered gown.
"Thanks!" said the Judge; "a sweeter draught
From a fairer hand was never quaffed."
He spoke of the grass and flowers and trees, 25
Of the singing birds and the humming bees;
Then talked of the haying, and wondered whether
The cloud in the west would bring foul weather.
And Maud forgot her brier-torn gown
And her graceful ankles bare and brown; 30
And listened, while a pleased surprise
Looked from her long-lashed hazel eyes.
At last, like one who for delay
Seeks a vain excuse, he rode away.
Maud Muller looked and sighed: "Ah me! 35
That I the Judge's bride might be!
"He would dress me up in silks so fine,
And praise and toast me at his wine.
"My father should wear a broadcloth coat;
My brother should sail a painted boat. 40
"I'd dress my mother so grand and gay,
And the baby should have a new toy each day.
"And I'd feed the hungry and clothe the poor,
And all should bless me who left our door."
The Judge looked back as he climbed the hill, 45
And saw Maud Muller standing still.
"A form more fair, a face more sweet,
Ne'er hath it been my lot to meet.
"And her modest answer and graceful air
Show her wise and good as she is fair. 50
"Would she were mine, and I to-day,
Like her, a harvester of hay:
"No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs,
Nor weary lawyers with endless tongues,
"But low of cattle and song of birds, 55
And health and quiet and loving words."
But he thought of his sisters proud and cold,
And his mother vain of her rank and gold.
So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on,
And Maud was left in the field alone. 60
But the lawyers smiled that afternoon,
When he hummed in court an old love-tune;
And the young girl mused beside the well,
Till the rain on the unraked clover fell.
He wedded a wife of richest dower, 65
Who lived for fashion, as he for power.
Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow,
He watched a picture come and go;
And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes
Looked out in their innocent surprise. 70
Oft, when the wine in his glass was red,
He longed for the wayside well instead;
And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms
To dream of meadows and clover-blooms.
And the proud man sighed, with a secret pain, 75
"Ah, that I were free again!
"Free as when I rode that day,
Where the barefoot maiden raked her hay."
She wedded a man unlearned and poor,
And many children played round her door. 80
But care and sorrow, and childbirth pain,
Left their traces on heart and brain.
And oft, when the summer sun shone hot
On the new-mown hay in the meadow lot,
And she heard the little spring brook fall 85
Over the roadside, through the wall,
In the shade of the apple-tree again
She saw a rider draw his rein.
And, gazing down with timid grace,
She felt his pleased eyes read her face. 90
Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls
Stretched away into stately halls;
The weary wheel to a spinet turned,
The tallow candle an astral burned,
And for him who sat by the chimney lug, 95
Dozing and grumbling o'er pipe and mug,
A manly form at her side she saw,
And joy was duty and love was law.
Then she took up her burden of life again,
Saying only, "It might have been." 100
Alas for maiden, alas for Judge,
For rich repiner and household drudge!
God pity them both! and pity us all,
Who vainly the dreams of youth recall.
For of all sad words of tongue or pen, 105
The saddest are these: "It might have been!"
Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies
Deeply buried from human eyes;
And, in the hereafter, angels may
Roll the stone from its grave away! 110
John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892).
Anti-Slavery Poems
The Slaves of Martinique
(Suggested by a daguerreotype taken from a small French engraving of two negro figures, sent to the writer by Oliver Johnson.)
BEAMS of noon, like burning lances,
through the tree-tops flash and glisten,
As she stands before her lover,
with raised face to look and listen.
Dark, but comely, like the maiden
in the ancient Jewish song:
Scarcely has the toil of task-fields
done her graceful beauty wrong.
He, the strong one and the manly,
with the vassal’s garb and hue,
Holding still his spirit’s birthright,
to his higher nature true;
Hiding deep the strengthening purpose
of a freeman in his heart,
As the gregree holds his Fetich
from the white man’s gaze apart.
Ever foremost of his comrades,
when the driver’s morning horn
Calls away to stifling mill-house,
to the fields of cane and corn:
Fall the keen and burning lashes
never on his back or limb;
Scarce with look or word of censure,
turns the driver unto him.
Yet, his brow is always thoughtful,
and his eye is hard and stern;
Slavery’s last and humblest lesson
he has never deigned to learn.
And, at evening, when his comrades
dance before their master’s door,
Folding arms and knitting forehead,
stands he silent evermore.
God be praised for every instinct
which rebels against a lot
Where the brute survives the human,
and man’s upright form is not!
As the serpent-like bejuco
winds his spiral fold on fold
Round the tall and stately ceiba,
till it withers in his hold;
Slow decays the forest monarch,
closer girds the fell embrace,
Till the tree is seen no longer,
and the vine is in its place;
So a base and bestial nature
round the vassal’s manhood twines,
And the spirit wastes beneath it,
like the ceiba choked with vines.
God is Love, saith the Evangel;
and our world of woe and sin
Is made light and happy only
when a Love is shining in.
Ye whose lives are free as sunshine,
finding, where-so e’er ye roam,
Smiles of welcome, looks of kindness,
making all the world like home;
In the veins of whose affections
kindred blood is but a part,
Of one kindly current throbbing
from the universal heart;
Can ye know the deeper meaning
of a love in Slavery nursed,
Last flower of a lost Eden,
blooming in that Soil accursed?
Love of Home, and Love of Woman!—
dear to all, but doubly dear
To the heart whose pulses elsewhere
measure only hate and fear.
All around the desert circles,
underneath a brazen sky,
Only one green spot remaining
where the dew is never dry!
From the horror of that desert,
from its atmosphere of hell,
Turns the fainting spirit thither,
as the diver seeks his bell.
’Tis the fervid tropic noontime;
faint and low the sea-waves beat;
Hazy rise the inland mountains
through the glimmer of the heat,—
Where, through mingled leaves and blossoms,
arrowy sunbeams flash and glisten,
Speaks her lover to the slave-girl,
and she lifts her head to listen:—
“We shall live as slaves no longer!
Freedom’s hour is close at hand!
Rocks her bark upon the waters,
rests the boat upon the strand!
“I have seen the Haytien Captain;
I have seen his swarthy crew,
Haters of the pallid faces,
to their race and color true.
“They have sworn to wait our coming
till the night has passed its noon,
And the gray and darkening waters
roll above the sunken moon!”
Oh, the blessed hope of freedom!
how with joy and glad surprise,
For an instant throbs her bosom,
for an instant beam her eyes!
But she looks across the valley,
where her mother’s hut is seen,
Through the snowy bloom of coffee,
and the lemon-leaves so green.
And she answers, sad and earnest:
“It were wrong for thee to stay;
God hath heard thy prayer for freedom,
and his finger points the way.
“Well I know with what endurance,
for the sake of me and mine,
Thou hast borne too long a burden
never meant for souls like thine.
“Go; and at the hour of midnight,
when our last farewell is o’er,
Kneeling on our place of parting,
I will bless thee from the shore.
“But for me, my mother, lying
on her sick-bed all the day,
Lifts her weary head to watch me,
coming through the twilight gray.
“Should I leave her sick and helpless,
even freedom, shared with thee
Would be sadder far than bondage,
lonely toil, and stripes to me.
“For my heart would die within me,
and my brain would soon be wild;
I should hear my mother calling
through the twilight for her child!”
Blazing upward from the ocean,
shines the sun of morning-time,
Through the coffee-trees in blossom,
and green hedges of the lime.
Side by side, amidst the slave-gang,
toil the lover and the maid;
Wherefore looks he o’er the waters,
leaning forward on his spade?
Sadly looks he, deeply sighs he:
’tis the Haytien’s sail he sees,
Like a white cloud of the mountains,
driven seaward by the breeze!
But his arm a light hand presses,
and he hears a low voice call:
Hate of Slavery, hope of Freedom,
Love is mightier than all.
1848.
Anti-Slavery Poems
The Slaves of Martinique
(Suggested by a daguerreotype taken from a small French engraving of two negro figures, sent to the writer by Oliver Johnson.)
BEAMS of noon, like burning lances,
through the tree-tops flash and glisten,
As she stands before her lover,
with raised face to look and listen.
Dark, but comely, like the maiden
in the ancient Jewish song:
Scarcely has the toil of task-fields
done her graceful beauty wrong.
He, the strong one and the manly,
with the vassal’s garb and hue,
Holding still his spirit’s birthright,
to his higher nature true;
Hiding deep the strengthening purpose
of a freeman in his heart,
As the gregree holds his Fetich
from the white man’s gaze apart.
Ever foremost of his comrades,
when the driver’s morning horn
Calls away to stifling mill-house,
to the fields of cane and corn:
Fall the keen and burning lashes
never on his back or limb;
Scarce with look or word of censure,
turns the driver unto him.
Yet, his brow is always thoughtful,
and his eye is hard and stern;
Slavery’s last and humblest lesson
he has never deigned to learn.
And, at evening, when his comrades
dance before their master’s door,
Folding arms and knitting forehead,
stands he silent evermore.
God be praised for every instinct
which rebels against a lot
Where the brute survives the human,
and man’s upright form is not!
As the serpent-like bejuco
winds his spiral fold on fold
Round the tall and stately ceiba,
till it withers in his hold;
Slow decays the forest monarch,
closer girds the fell embrace,
Till the tree is seen no longer,
and the vine is in its place;
So a base and bestial nature
round the vassal’s manhood twines,
And the spirit wastes beneath it,
like the ceiba choked with vines.
God is Love, saith the Evangel;
and our world of woe and sin
Is made light and happy only
when a Love is shining in.
Ye whose lives are free as sunshine,
finding, where-so e’er ye roam,
Smiles of welcome, looks of kindness,
making all the world like home;
In the veins of whose affections
kindred blood is but a part,
Of one kindly current throbbing
from the universal heart;
Can ye know the deeper meaning
of a love in Slavery nursed,
Last flower of a lost Eden,
blooming in that Soil accursed?
Love of Home, and Love of Woman!—
dear to all, but doubly dear
To the heart whose pulses elsewhere
measure only hate and fear.
All around the desert circles,
underneath a brazen sky,
Only one green spot remaining
where the dew is never dry!
From the horror of that desert,
from its atmosphere of hell,
Turns the fainting spirit thither,
as the diver seeks his bell.
’Tis the fervid tropic noontime;
faint and low the sea-waves beat;
Hazy rise the inland mountains
through the glimmer of the heat,—
Where, through mingled leaves and blossoms,
arrowy sunbeams flash and glisten,
Speaks her lover to the slave-girl,
and she lifts her head to listen:—
“We shall live as slaves no longer!
Freedom’s hour is close at hand!
Rocks her bark upon the waters,
rests the boat upon the strand!
“I have seen the Haytien Captain;
I have seen his swarthy crew,
Haters of the pallid faces,
to their race and color true.
“They have sworn to wait our coming
till the night has passed its noon,
And the gray and darkening waters
roll above the sunken moon!”
Oh, the blessed hope of freedom!
how with joy and glad surprise,
For an instant throbs her bosom,
for an instant beam her eyes!
But she looks across the valley,
where her mother’s hut is seen,
Through the snowy bloom of coffee,
and the lemon-leaves so green.
And she answers, sad and earnest:
“It were wrong for thee to stay;
God hath heard thy prayer for freedom,
and his finger points the way.
“Well I know with what endurance,
for the sake of me and mine,
Thou hast borne too long a burden
never meant for souls like thine.
“Go; and at the hour of midnight,
when our last farewell is o’er,
Kneeling on our place of parting,
I will bless thee from the shore.
“But for me, my mother, lying
on her sick-bed all the day,
Lifts her weary head to watch me,
coming through the twilight gray.
“Should I leave her sick and helpless,
even freedom, shared with thee
Would be sadder far than bondage,
lonely toil, and stripes to me.
“For my heart would die within me,
and my brain would soon be wild;
I should hear my mother calling
through the twilight for her child!”
Blazing upward from the ocean,
shines the sun of morning-time,
Through the coffee-trees in blossom,
and green hedges of the lime.
Side by side, amidst the slave-gang,
toil the lover and the maid;
Wherefore looks he o’er the waters,
leaning forward on his spade?
Sadly looks he, deeply sighs he:
’tis the Haytien’s sail he sees,
Like a white cloud of the mountains,
driven seaward by the breeze!
But his arm a light hand presses,
and he hears a low voice call:
Hate of Slavery, hope of Freedom,
Love is mightier than all.
1848.
this past month my mom actually gave me a 1800's copy of JOHN G. WHITTIER poems....its epic. now to try and find the time to sit down and read.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/POEMS-By-JOHN-G-WHITTIER-Antique-HARDCOVER-BOOK-Vintage-1800s-GREENLEAF-POETRY-/112439928275
https://www.ebay.com/itm/POEMS-By-JOHN-G-WHITTIER-Antique-HARDCOVER-BOOK-Vintage-1800s-GREENLEAF-POETRY-/112439928275
