John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892). The Poetical Works in Four Volumes. 1892.
Personal PoemsThe Singer
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Two sisters sought at eve my door;
Two song-birds wandering from their nest,
A gray old farm-house in the West.
Half smiles, half tears, like rain in sun!
Her gravest mood could scarce displace
The dimples of her nut-brown face.
For quick and tremulous tenderness;
And, following close her merriest glance,
Dreamed through her eyes the heart’s romance.
Even then a smile too sweetly sad;
The crown of pain that all must wear
Too early pressed her midnight hair.
Her modest lips were sweet with song;
A memory haunted all her words
Of clover-fields and singing birds.
The broad horizons of the west;
Her speech dropped prairie flowers; the gold
Of harvest wheat about her rolled.
I queried not with destiny:
I knew the trial and the need,
Yet, all the more, I said, God speed!
Could I a singing-bird forbid?
Deny the wind-stirred leaf? Rebuke
The music of the forest brook?
But left me richer than before;
Thenceforth I knew her voice of cheer,
The welcome of her partial ear.
A pleasant household word became:
All felt behind the singer stood
A sweet and gracious womanhood.
Her tired feet climbed a weary way;
And even through her lightest strain
We heard an undertone of pain.
The good she did she rarely knew,
Unguessed of her in life the love
That rained its tears her grave above.
She waited for her great release;
And that old friend so sage and bland,
Our later Franklin, held her hand.
Had moved that woman’s heart of hers,
And men who toiled in storm and sun
Found her their meet companion.
To healthful themes of life she led:
The out-door world of bud and bloom
And light and sweetness filled her room.
Of loss to come within us wrought,
And all the while we felt the strain
Of the strong will that conquered pain.
The common way that all have passed
She went, with mortal yearnings fond,
To fuller life and love beyond.
My dear ones! Give the singer place
To you, to her,—I know not where,—
I lift the silence of a prayer.
The gone before, the left behind,
All mortal voices die between;
The unheard reaches the unseen.
Wake, laughing, from their winter dreams,
And tremble in the April showers
The tassels of the maple flowers.
The sweet surprises of the wood;
And bird and flower are lost to her
Who was their best interpreter!
What hear the ears that death has sealed?
What undreamed beauty passing show
Requites the loss of all we know?
Enough if there alone be love,
And mortal need can ne’er outgrow
What it is waiting to bestow!
Float some sweet song the waters o’er,
Our faith confirm, our fears dispel,
With the old voice we loved so well!