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Home  »  The Poetical Works In Four Volumes  »  My Namesake

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

Poems Subjective and Reminiscent

My Namesake

  • Addressed to Francis Greenleaf Allinson of Burlington, New Jersey.


  • YOU scarcely need my tardy thanks,

    Who, self-rewarded, nurse and tend—

    A green leaf on your own Green Banks—

    The memory of your friend.

    For me, no wreath, bloom-woven, hides

    The sobered brow and lessening hair:

    For aught I know, the myrtled sides

    Of Helicon are bare.

    Their scallop-shells so many bring

    The fabled founts of song to try,

    They ’ve drained, for aught I know, the spring

    Of Aganippe dry.

    Ah well!—The wreath the Muses braid

    Proves often Folly’s cap and bell;

    Methinks, my ample beaver’s shade

    May serve my turn as well.

    Let Love’s and Friendship’s tender debt

    Be paid by those I love in life.

    Why should the unborn critic whet

    For me his scalping-knife?

    Why should the stranger peer and pry

    One’s vacant house of life about,

    And drag for curious ear and eye

    His faults and follies out?—

    Why stuff, for fools to gaze upon,

    With chaff of words, the garb he wore,

    As corn-husks when the ear is gone

    Are rustled all the more?

    Let kindly Silence close again,

    The picture vanish from the eye,

    And on the dim and misty main

    Let the small ripple die.

    Yet not the less I own your claim

    To grateful thanks, dear friends of mine.

    Hang, if it please you so, my name

    Upon your household line.

    Let Fame from brazen lips blow wide

    Her chosen names, I envy none:

    A mother’s love, a father’s pride,

    Shall keep alive my own!

    Still shall that name as now recall

    The young leaf wet with morning dew,

    The glory where the sunbeams fall

    The breezy woodlands through.

    That name shall be a household word,

    A spell to waken smile or sigh;

    In many an evening prayer be heard

    And cradle lullaby.

    And thou, dear child, in riper days

    When asked the reason of thy name,

    Shalt answer: “One ’t were vain to praise

    Or censure bore the same.

    “Some blamed him, some believed him good,

    The truth lay doubtless ’twixt the two;

    He reconciled as best he could

    Old faith and fancies new.

    “In him the grave and playful mixed,

    And wisdom held with folly truce,

    And Nature compromised betwixt

    Good fellow and recluse.

    “He loved his friends, forgave his foes;

    And, if his words were harsh at times,

    He spared his fellow-men,—his blows

    Fell only on their crimes.

    “He loved the good and wise, but found

    His human heart to all akin

    Who met him on the common ground

    Of suffering and of sin.

    “Whate’er his neighbors might endure

    Of pain or grief his own became;

    For all the ills he could not cure

    He held himself to blame.

    “His good was mainly an intent,

    His evil not of forethought done;

    The work he wrought was rarely meant

    Or finished as begun.

    “Ill served his tides of feeling strong

    To turn the common mills of use;

    And, over restless wings of song,

    His birthright garb hung loose!

    “His eye was beauty’s powerless slave,

    And his the ear which discord pains;

    Few guessed beneath his aspect grave

    What passions strove in chains.

    “He had his share of care and pain,

    No holiday was life to him;

    Still in the heirloom cup we drain

    The bitter drop will swim.

    “Yet Heaven was kind, and here a bird

    And there a flower beguiled his way;

    And, cool, in summer noons, he heard

    The fountains plash and play.

    “On all his sad or restless moods

    The patient peace of Nature stole;

    The quiet of the fields and woods

    Sank deep into his soul.

    “He worshipped as his fathers did,

    And kept the faith of childish days,

    And, howsoe’er he strayed or slid,

    He loved the good old ways.

    “The simple tastes, the kindly traits,

    The tranquil air, and gentle speech,

    The silence of the soul that waits

    For more than man to teach.

    “The cant of party, school, and sect,

    Provoked at times his honest scorn,

    And Folly, in its gray respect,

    He tossed on satire’s horn.

    “But still his heart was full of awe

    And reverence for all sacred things;

    And, brooding over form and law,

    He saw the Spirit’s wings!

    “Life’s mystery wrapt him like a cloud;

    He heard far voices mock his own,

    The sweep of wings unseen, the loud,

    Long roll of waves unknown.

    “The arrows of his straining sight

    Fell quenched in darkness; priest and sage,

    Like lost guides calling left and right,

    Perplexed his doubtful age.

    “Like childhood, listening for the sound

    Of its dropped pebbles in the well,

    All vainly down the dark profound

    His brief-lined plummet fell.

    “So, scattering flowers with pious pains

    On old beliefs, of later creeds,

    Which claimed a place in Truth’s domains,

    He asked the title-deeds.

    “He saw the old-time’s groves and shrines

    In the long distance fair and dim;

    And heard, like sound of far-off pines,

    The century-mellowed hymn!

    “He dared not mock the Dervish whirl,

    The Brahmin’s rite, the Lama’s spell;

    God knew the heart; Devotion’s pearl

    Might sanctify the shell.

    “While others trod the altar stairs

    He faltered like the publican;

    And, while they praised as saints, his prayers

    Were those of sinful man.

    “For, awed by Sinai’s Mount of Law,

    The trembling faith alone sufficed,

    That, through its cloud and flame, he saw

    The sweet, sad face of Christ!

    “And listening, with his forehead bowed,

    Heard the Divine compassion fill

    The pauses of the trump and cloud

    With whispers small and still.

    “The words he spake, the thoughts he penned,

    Are mortal as his hand and brain,

    But, if they served the Master’s end,

    He has not lived in vain!”

    Heaven make thee better than thy name,

    Child of my friends!—For thee I crave

    What riches never bought, nor fame

    To mortal longing gave.

    I pray the prayer of Plato old:

    God make thee beautiful within,

    And let thine eyes the good behold

    In everything save sin!

    Imagination held in check

    To serve, not rule, thy poisëd mind;

    Thy Reason, at the frown or beck

    Of Conscience, loose or bind.

    No dreamer thou, but real all,—

    Strong manhood crowning vigorous youth;

    Life made by duty epical

    And rhythmic with the truth.

    So shall that life the fruitage yield

    Which trees of healing only give,

    And green-leafed in the Eternal field

    Of God, forever live!

    1856.