John Greenleaf Whittier Poems

'To the winds give our banner!
Bear homeward again!'
Cried the Lord of Acadia,
Cried Charles of Estienne;
...

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
...

Amidst these glorious works of Thine,
The solemn minarets of the pine,
And awful Shasta's icy shrine,--
...

Make, for he loved thee well, our Merrimac,
From wave and shore a low and long lament
For him, whose last look sought thee, as he went
...

Ah! weary Priest! - with pale hands pressed
On thy throbbing brow of pain,
Baffled in thy life-long quest,
Overworn with toiling vain,
...

THE robins sang in the orchard, the buds into
blossoms grew;
Little of human sorrow the buds and the robins
knew!
...

A MOONY breadth of virgin face,
By thought unviolated;
A patient mouth, to take from scorn
The hook with bank-notes baited!
...

Unnoted as the setting of a star
He passed; and sect and party scarcely knew
When from their midst a sage and seer withdrew
...

THE winding way the serpent takes
The mystic water took,
From where, to count its beaded lakes,
The forest sped its brook.
...

I.
The mercy, O Eternal One!
By man unmeasured yet,
In joy or grief, in shade or sun,
...