Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892). The Poetical Works in Four Volumes. 1892.

Poems Subjective and Reminiscent

Abram Morrison

’MIDST the men and things which will

Haunt an old man’s memory still,

Drollest, quaintest of them all,

With a boy’s laugh I recall

Good old Abram Morrison.

When the Grist and Rolling Mill

Ground and rumbled by Po Hill,

And the old red school-house stood

Midway in the Powow’s flood,

Here dwelt Abram Morrison.

From the Beach to far beyond

Bear-Hill, Lion’s Mouth and Pond,

Marvellous to our tough old stock,

Chips o’ the Anglo-Saxon block,

Seemed the Celtic Morrison.

Mudknock, Balmawhistle, all

Only knew the Yankee drawl,

Never brogue was heard till when,

Foremost of his countrymen,

Hither came Friend Morrison;

Yankee born, of alien blood,

Kin of his had well withstood

Pope and King with pike and ball

Under Derry’s leaguered wall,

As became the Morrisons.

Wandering down from Nutfield woods

With his household and his goods,

Never was it clearly told

How within our quiet fold

Came to be a Morrison.

Once a soldier, blame him not

That the Quaker he forgot,

When, to think of battles won,

And the red-coats on the run,

Laughed aloud Friend Morrison.

From gray Lewis over sea

Bore his sires their family tree,

On the rugged boughs of it

Grafting Irish mirth and wit,

And the brogue of Morrison.

Half a genius, quick to plan,

Blundering like an Irishman,

But with canny shrewdness lent

By his far-off Scotch descent,

Such was Abram Morrison.

Back and forth to daily meals,

Rode his cherished pig on wheels,

And to all who came to see:

“Aisier for the pig an’ me,

Sure it is,” said Morrison.

Simple-hearted, boy o’er-grown,

With a humor quite his own,

Of our sober-stepping ways,

Speech and look and cautious phrase,

Slow to learn was Morrison.

Much we loved his stories told

Of a country strange and old,

Where the fairies danced till dawn,

And the goblin Leprecaun

Looked, we thought, like Morrison.

Or wild tales of feud and fight,

Witch and troll and second sight

Whispered still where Stornoway

Looks across its stormy bay,

Once the home of Morrisons.

First was he to sing the praise

Of the Powow’s winding ways;

And our straggling village took

City grandeur to the look

Of its poet Morrison.

All his words have perished. Shame

On the saddle-bags of Fame,

That they bring not to our time

One poor couplet of the rhyme

Made by Abram Morrison!

When, on calm and fair First Days,

Rattled down our one-horse chaise,

Through the blossomed apple-boughs

To the old, brown meeting-house,

There was Abram Morrison.

Underneath his hat’s broad brim

Peered the queer old face of him;

And with Irish jauntiness

Swung the coat-tails of the dress

Worn by Abram Morrison.

Still, in memory, on his feet,

Leaning o’er the elders’ seat,

Mingling with a solemn drone,

Celtic accents all his own,

Rises Abram Morrison.

“Don’t,” he ’s pleading, “don’t ye go,

Dear young friends, to sight and show,

Don’t run after elephants,

Learned pigs and presidents

And the likes!” said Morrison.

On his well-worn theme intent,

Simple, child-like, innocent,

Heaven forgive the half-checked smile

Of our careless boyhood, while

Listening to Friend Morrison!

We have learned in later days

Truth may speak in simplest phrase;

That the man is not the less

For quaint ways and home-spun dress,

Thanks to Abram Morrison!

Not to pander nor to please

Come the needed homilies,

With no lofty argument

Is the fitting message sent,

Through such lips as Morrison’s.

Dead and gone! But while its track

Powow keeps to Merrimac,

While Po Hill is still on guard,

Looking land and ocean ward,

They shall tell of Morrison!

After half a century’s lapse,

We are wiser now, perhaps,

But we miss our streets amid

Something which the past has hid,

Lost with Abram Morrison.

Gone forever with the queer

Characters of that old year!

Now the many are as one;

Broken is the mould that run

Men like Abram Morrison.

1884.