The same conditions have produced the same results also
at the South, and nothing but slavery blocks the way to a perfect
sympathy between the two sections.
Mr. Whittier is essentially a lyric poet, and the fervor of his
temperament gives his pieces of that kind a remarkable force and
effectiveness. Twenty years ago many of his poems were in the nature of
_conciones ad populum_, vigorous stump-speeches in verse, appealing as
much to the blood as the brain, and none the less convincing for that.
By regular gradations ever since his tone has been softening and his
range widening. As a poet he stands somewhere between Burns and Cowper,
akin to the former in patriotic glow, and to the latter in intensity of
religious anxiety verging sometimes on morbidness. His humanity, if it
lack the humorous breadth of the one, has all the tenderness of the
other. In love of outward nature he yields to neither. His delight in it
is not a new sentiment or a literary tradition, but the genuine passion
of a man born and bred in the country, who has not merely a visiting
acquaintance with the landscape, but stands on terms of lifelong
friendship with hill, stream, rock, and tree. In his descriptions he
often catches the _expression_ of rural scenery, a very different thing
from the mere _looks_, with the trained eye of familiar intimacy. A
somewhat shy and hermitical being we take him to be, and more a student
of his own heart than of men.
Pages:
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134