Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

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

Personal Poems

To a Friend, on her Return from Europe

HOW smiled the land of France

Under thy blue eye’s glance,

Light-hearted rover!

Old walls of chateaux gray,

Towers of an early day,

Which the Three Colors play

Flauntingly over.

Now midst the brilliant train

Thronging the banks of Seine:

Now midst the splendor

Of the wild Alpine range,

Waking with change on change

Thoughts in thy young heart strange,

Lovely, and tender.

Vales, soft Elysian,

Like those in the vision

Of Mirza, when, dreaming,

He saw the long hollow dell,

Touched by the prophet’s spell,

Into an ocean swell

With its isles teeming.

Cliffs wrapped in snows of years,

Splintering with icy spears

Autumn’s blue heaven:

Loose rock and frozen slide,

Hung on the mountain-side,

Waiting their hour to glide

Downward, storm-driven!

Rhine-stream, by castle old,

Baron’s and robber’s hold,

Peacefully flowing;

Sweeping through vineyards green,

Or where the cliffs are seen

O’er the broad wave between

Grim shadows throwing.

Or, where St. Peter’s dome

Swells o’er eternal Rome,

Vast, dim, and solemn;

Hymns ever chanting low,

Censers swung to and fro,

Sable stoles sweeping slow

Cornice and column!

Oh, as from each and all

Will there not voices call

Evermore back again?

In the mind’s gallery

Wilt thou not always see

Dim phantoms beckon thee

O’er that old track again?

New forms thy presence haunt,

New voices softly chant,

New faces greet thee!

Pilgrims from many a shrine

Hallowed by poet’s line,

At memory’s magic sign,

Rising to meet thee.

And when such visions come

Unto thy olden home,

Will they not waken

Deep thoughts of Him whose hand

Led thee o’er sea and land

Back to the household band

Whence thou wast taken?

While, at the sunset time,

Swells the cathedral’s chime,

Yet, in thy dreaming,

While to thy spirit’s eye

Yet the vast mountains lie

Piled in the Switzer’s sky,

Icy and gleaming:

Prompter of silent prayer,

Be the wild picture there

In the mind’s chamber,

And, through each coming day

Him who, as staff and stay,

Watched o’er thy wandering way,

Freshly remember.

So, when the call shall be

Soon or late unto thee,

As to all given,

Still may that picture live,

All its fair forms survive,

And to thy spirit give

Gladness in Heaven!

1841.