A Woman

Oh, dwarfed and wronged, and stained with ill,
Behold! thou art a woman still!
And, by that sacred name and dear,
I bid thy better self appear.
Still, through thy foul disguise, I see
The rudimental purity,
That, spite of change and loss, makes good
Thy birthright-claim of womanhood;
An inward loathing, deep, intense;
A shame that is half innocence.
Cast off the grave-clothes of thy sin!
Rise from the dust thou liest in,
As Mary rose at Jesus' word,
Redeemed and white before the Lord!
Reclairn thy lost soul! In His name,
Rise up, and break thy bonds of shame.
Art weak? He 's strong. Art fearful? Hear
The world's O'ercomer: "Be of cheer!"
What lip shall judge when He approves?
Who dare to scorn the child He loves

John Greenleaf Whittier

John Greenleaf Whittier was an American Quaker poet and advocate of the abolition of slavery in the United States. He was born on December 17, 1807, in Haverhill, Massachusetts, and died on September 7, 1892, in Hampton Falls, New Hampshire. Whittier is remembered particularly for his anti-slavery writings as well as his association with the Fireside Poets, a group of New England writers whose work became notable in American literature in the 19th century.

John Greenleaf Whittier

The Bartholdi Statue

John Greenleaf Whittier, Simple Poetry

The Moral Warfare

John Greenleaf Whittier, Simple Poetry

For Righteousness' Sake

John Greenleaf Whittier, Simple Poetry

My Psalm

John Greenleaf Whittier, Simple Poetry

English

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Magdalena.

Who falsely called thee destroyer, still white Angel of Death?
Oh not a destroyer here, but a kind restorer, thou,
For the guilty look is gone, died out with her failing breath,
And the sinless peace of a babe has come to lip and brow.

Drowned in the heaving tide with her life, is her burden of woe,
The dreary weight of sin, the woeful, troublesome years,
The cold pure touch of the water has washed the shame from her brow
Leaving a calm immortal, that looks like the chrism of peace.

I fancy her smile was like this, as she pulled at her mother's gown
Drawing her out with childish fingers to watch the red of the skies
On the old brown doorstep of home, while the peaceful sun went down,
With her mother's hand on her brow, and the glow of the west in her eyes.

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The New Wife And The Old

Dark the halls, and cold the feast,
Gone the bridemaids, gone the priest.
All is over, all is done,
Twain of yesterday are one!
Blooming girl and manhood gray,
Autumn in the arms of May!

Hushed within and hushed without,
Dancing feet and wrestlers' shout;
Dies the bonfire on the hill;
All is dark and all is still,
Save the starlight, save the breeze
Moaning through the graveyard trees,
And the great sea-waves below,
Pulse of the midnight beating slow.

From the brief dream of a bride
She hath wakened, at his side.
With half-uttered shriek and start,
Feels she not his beating heart?
And the pressure of his arm,
And his breathing near and warm?

Lightly from the bridal bed
Springs that fair dishevelled head,
And a fe...

John Greenleaf Whittier

The Worst Of It

I.
Would it were I had been false, not you!
I that am nothing, not you that are all
I, never the worse for a touch or two
On my speckled hide; not you, the pride
Of the day, my swan, that a first flecks fall
On her wonder of white must unswan, undo!

II.
I had dipped in lifes struggle and, out again,
Bore specks of it here, there, easy to see,
When I found my swan and the cure was plain;
The dull turned bright as I caught your white
On my bosom: you saved me saved in vain
If you ruined yourself, and all through me!

III.
Yes, all through the speckled beast that I am,
Who taught you to stoop; you gave me yourself,
And bound your soul by the vows that damn:
Since on better thought you break, as you ought,
Vows words, no angel set down,...

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Lines On A Fly-Leaf

I need not ask thee, for my sake,
To read a book which well may make
Its way by native force of wit
Without my manual sign to it.
Its piquant writer needs from me
No gravely masculine guaranty,
And well might laugh her merriest laugh
At broken spears in her behalf;
Yet, spite of all the critics tell,
I frankly own I like her well.
It may be that she wields a pen
Too sharply nibbed for thin-skinned men,
That her keen arrows search and try
The armor joints of dignity,
And, though alone for error meant,
Sing through the air irreverent.
I blame her not, the young athlete
Who plants her woman's tiny feet,
And dares the chances of debate
Where bearded men might hesitate,
Who, deeply earnest, seeing well
The ludicrous and laughable,
Ming...

John Greenleaf Whittier

The Answer

Spare me, dread angel of reproof,
And let the sunshine weave to-day
Its gold-threads in the warp and woof
Of life so poor and gray.

Spare me awhile; the flesh is weak.
These lingering feet, that fain would stray
Among the flowers, shall some day seek
The strait and narrow way.

Take off thy ever-watchful eye,
The awe of thy rebuking frown;
The dullest slave at times must sigh
To fling his burdens down;

To drop his galley's straining oar,
And press, in summer warmth and calm,
The lap of some enchanted shore
Of blossom and of balm.

Grudge not my life its hour of bloom,
My heart its taste of long desire;
This day be mine: be those to come
As duty shall require.

The deep voice answered to my own,
Smiting my sel...

John Greenleaf Whittier

The Disenthralled

He had bowed down to drunkenness,
An abject worshipper:
The pride of manhood's pulse had grown
Too faint and cold to stir;
And he had given his spirit up
To the unblessëd thrall,
And bowing to the poison cup,
He gloried in his fall!
There came a change the cloud rolled off,
And light fell on his brain
And like the passing of a dream
That cometh not again,
The shadow of the spirit fled.
He saw the gulf before,
He shuddered at the waste behind,
And was a man once more.
He shook the serpent folds away,
That gathered round his heart,
As shakes the swaying forest-oak
Its poison vine apart;
He stood erect; returning pride
Grew terrible within,
And conscience sat in judgment, on
His most familiar sin.
The light of Intellect aga...

John Greenleaf Whittier