![\"John](\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5583\/2021\/03\/06135955\/17-200x300.jpg\")
\r\n\r\nJohn Greenleaf Whittier contributed to the continuing and growing call for a national literature through his works on New England folklore and history. He set his most accomplished poem, \u201cSnow-Bound: A Winter Idyll\u201d (1866), in his childhood home, a farm in the Merrimack Valley. His American voice was sentimental and moralistic; it was also sharp, detailed, and simple.<\/p>\r\n
The simplicity may have been influenced by his Quaker faith; this faith certainly influenced his sense of public duty. Beginning in 1828, Whittier wrote for such important newspapers and journals as The American Manufacturer, New England Weekly Review, and The National Era; he also helped found the Atlantic Monthly. Over the course of his public life, Whittier published hundreds of journal articles, pamphlets, essays, and poems on such important social issues as labor conditions and Abolition. In 1833, he served as a delegate to the National Anti-Slavery Convention in Philadelphia. He also was elected to the Massachusetts legislature, founded the Liberty party, and ran for Congress. In 1835, while on a lecture tour, he and the British abolitionist George Thompson were attacked by an armed mob. Though shot at, they escaped unharmed.<\/p>\r\n
In addition to these political activities, Whittier devoted a good part of his writing to the Abolitionist cause with such influential works as Justice and Expediency (1833), \u201cThe Slave Ships\u201d (1834), and \u201cIchabod\u201d (1850). This last poem attacked Daniel Webster, who sought to compromise with those who supported slavery and the Fugitive Slave Law.<\/p>\r\n
After the Civil War and Emancipation, Whittier turned his attention again to New England life and land. \u201cThe Barefoot Boy\u201d (1855), a popular poem set to music, gave voice to his love of nature and the country life. Home Ballads and Other Poems (1860) memorialized his family, especially his sister Mary who had recently died. The success of his Poetical Works (1869) contributed to his growing fame and prosperity. Both of these were marked at the dinner celebration of his seventieth birthday given by the Atlantic Monthly and attended by seventy guests, including such important American writers as Emerson, Longfellow, and Mark Twain.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Have ye heard of our hunting, o\u2019er mountain and glen,\r\nThrough cane-brake and forest,\u2014the hunting of men?\r\nThe lords of our land to this hunting have gone,\r\nAs the fox-hunter follows the sound of the horn;\r\nHark! the cheer and the hallo! the crack of the whip,\r\nAnd the yell of the hound as he fastens his grip!\r\nAll blithe are our hunters, and noble their match,\r\nThough hundreds are caught, there are millions to catch.\r\nSo speed to their hunting, o\u2019er mountain and glen,\r\nThrough cane-brake and forest,\u2014the hunting of men!<\/p>\r\n
Gay luck to our hunters! how nobly they ride\r\nIn the glow of their zeal, and the strength of their pride!\r\nThe priest with his cassock flung back on the wind,\r\nJust screening the politic statesman behind;\r\nThe saint and the sinner, with cursing and prayer,\r\nThe drunk and the sober, ride merrily there.\r\nAnd woman, kind woman, wife, widow, and maid,\r\nFor the good of the hunted, is lending her aid\r\nHer foot\u2019s in the stirrup, her hand on the rein,\r\nHow blithely she rides to the hunting of men!<\/p>\r\n
Oh, goodly and grand is our hunting to see,\r\nIn this \u201cland of the brave and this home of the free.\u201d\r\nPriest, warrior, and statesman, from Georgia to Maine,\r\nAll mounting the saddle, all grasping the rein;\r\nRight merrily hunting the black man, whose sin\r\nIs the curl of his hair and the hue of his skin!\r\nWoe, now, to the hunted who turns him at bay\r\nWill our hunters be turned from their purpose and prey?\r\nWill their hearts fail within them? their nerves tremble, when\r\nAll roughly they ride to the hunting of men?<\/p>\r\n
Ho! alms for our hunters! all weary and faint,\r\nWax the curse of the sinner and prayer of the saint.\r\nThe horn is wound faintly, the echoes are still,\r\nOver cane-brake and river, and forest and hill.\r\nHaste, alms for our hunters! the hunted once more\r\nHave turned from their flight with their backs to the shore\r\nWhat right have they here in the home of the white,\r\nShadowed o\u2019er by our banner of Freedom and Right?\r\nHo! alms for the hunters! or never again\r\nWill they ride in their pomp to the hunting of men!<\/p>\r\n
Alms, alms for our hunters! why will ye delay,\r\nWhen their pride and their glory are melting away?\r\nThe parson has turned; for, on charge of his own,\r\nWho goeth a warfare, or hunting, alone?\r\nThe politic statesman looks back with a sigh,\r\nThere is doubt in his heart, there is fear in his eye.\r\nOh, haste, lest that doubting and fear shall prevail,\r\nAnd the head of his steed take the place of the tail.\r\nOh, haste, ere he leave us! for who will ride then,\r\nFor pleasure or gain, to the hunting of men?<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Of A Virginia Slave Mother To Her Daughters Sold Into Southern Bondage<\/p>\r\n
Gone, gone,\u2014sold and gone\r\nTo the rice-swamp dank and lone.\r\nWhere the slave-whip ceaseless swings\r\nWhere the noisome insect stings\r\nWhere the fever demon strews\r\nPoison with the falling dews\r\nWhere the sickly sunbeams glare\r\nThrough the hot and misty air;\r\nGone, gone,\u2014sold and gone,\r\nTo the rice-swamp dank and lone,\r\nFrom Virginia\u2019s hills and waters;\r\nWoe is me, my stolen daughters!<\/p>\r\n
Gone, gone,\u2014sold and gone\r\nTo the rice-swamp dank and lone\r\nThere no mother\u2019s eye is near them,\r\nThere no mother\u2019s ear can hear them;\r\nNever, when the torturing lash\r\nSeams their back with many a gash\r\nShall a mother\u2019s kindness bless them\r\nOr a mother\u2019s arms caress them.\r\nGone, gone,\u2014sold and gone,\r\nTo the rice-swamp dank and lone,\r\nFrom Virginia\u2019s hills and waters;\r\nWoe is me, my stolen daughters!<\/p>\r\n
Gone, gone,\u2014sold and gone,\r\nTo the rice-swamp dank and lone,\r\nOh, when weary, sad, and slow,\r\nFrom the fields at night they go\r\nFaint with toil, and racked with pain\r\nTo their cheerless homes again,\r\nThere no brother\u2019s voice shall greet them\r\nThere no father\u2019s welcome meet them.\r\nGone, gone,\u2014sold and gone,\r\nTo the rice-swamp dank and lone,\r\nFrom Virginia\u2019s hills and waters;\r\nWoe is me, my stolen daughters!<\/p>\r\n
Gone, gone,\u2014sold and gone,\r\nTo the rice-swamp dank and lone\r\nFrom the tree whose shadow lay\r\nOn their childhood\u2019s place of play;\r\nFrom the cool sprmg where they drank;\r\nRock, and hill, and rivulet bank;\r\nFrom the solemn house of prayer,\r\nAnd the holy counsels there;\r\nGone, gone,\u2014sold and gone,\r\nTo the rice-swamp dank and lone,\r\nFrom Virginia\u2019s hills and waters;\r\nWoe is me, my stolen daughters!<\/p>\r\n
Gone, gone,\u2014sold and gone,\r\nTo the rice-swamp dank and lone;\r\nToiling through the weary day,\r\nAnd at night the spoiler\u2019s prey.\r\nOh, that they had earlier died,\r\nSleeping calmly, side by side,\r\nWhere the tyrant\u2019s power is o\u2019er\r\nAnd the fetter galls no more!\r\nGone, gone,\u2014sold and gone,\r\nTo the rice-swamp dank and lone;\r\nFrom Virginia\u2019s hills and waters\r\nWoe is me, my stolen daughters!<\/p>\r\n
Gone, gone,\u2014sold and gone,\r\nTo the rice-swamp dank and lone;\r\nBy the holy love He beareth;\r\nBy the bruised reed He spareth;\r\nOh, may He, to whom alone\r\nAll their cruel wrongs are known,\r\nStill their hope and refuge prove,\r\nWith a more than mother\u2019s love.\r\nGone, gone,\u2014sold and gone,\r\nTo the rice-swamp dank and lone,\r\nFrom Virginia\u2019s hills and waters;\r\nWoe is me, my stolen daughters!<\/p>\r\n\r\n