The Kansas Emigrants

We cross the prairie as of old
The pilgrims crossed the sea,
To make the West, as they the East,
The homestead of the free!

We go to rear a wall of men
On Freedoms southern line,
And plant beside the cotton-tree
The rugged Northern pine!

Were flowing from our native hills
As our free rivers flow;
The blessing of our Mother-land
Is on us as we go.

We go to plant her common schools,
On distant prairie swells,
And give the Sabbaths of the wild
The music of her bells.

Upbearing, like the Ark of old,
The Bible in our van,
We go to test the truth of God
Against the fraud of man.

No pause, nor rest, save where the streams
That feed the Kansas run,
Save where our Pilgrim gonfalon
Shall flout the setting sun!

Well tread the prairie as of old
Our fathers sailed the sea,
And make the West, as they the East,
The homestead of the free!

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

Mountain Pictures

John Greenleaf Whittier, Simple Poetry

O. W. Holmes On His Eightieth Birth-Day

John Greenleaf Whittier, Simple Poetry

The Cypress-Tree Of Ceylon

John Greenleaf Whittier, Simple Poetry

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John Greenleaf Whittier, Simple Poetry

English

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The Crisis

Across the Stony Mountains, o'er the desert's drouth and sand,
The circles of our empire touch the western ocean's strand;
From slumberous Timpanogos, to Gila, wild and free,
Flowing down from Nuevo-Leon to California's sea;
And from the mountains of the east, to Santa Rosa's shore,
The eagles of Mexitli shall beat the air no more.
O Vale of Rio Bravo! Let thy simple children weep;
Close watch about their holy fire let maids of Pecos keep;
Let Taos send her cry across Sierra Madre's pines,
And Santa Barbara toll her bells amidst her corn and vines;
For lo! the pale land-seekers come, with eager eyes of gain,
Wide scattering, like the bison herds on broad Salada's plain.
Let Sacramento's herdsmen heed what sound the winds bring down
Of footsteps on the crisping snow, from col...

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Banished From Massachusetts

Over the threshold of his pleasant home
Set in green clearings passed the exiled Friend,
In simple trust, misdoubting not the end.
"Dear heart of mine!" he said, "the time has come
To trust the Lord for shelter." One long gaze
The goodwife turned on each familiar thing,
The lowing kine, the orchard blossoming,
The open door that showed the hearth-fire's blaze,
And calmly answered, "Yes, He will provide."
Silent and slow they crossed the homestead's bound,
Lingering the longest by their child's grave-mound.
"Move on, or stay and hang!" the sheriff cried.
They left behind them more than home or land,
And set sad faces to an alien strand.

Safer with winds and waves than human wrath,
With ravening wolves than those whose zeal for God
Was cruelty to man, the ...

John Greenleaf Whittier

Westward Ho!

Away to the west! Westward ho! Westward ho!
Where over the prairies the summer winds blow!

Why known to so few were its rivers and plains,
Where rustle so tall in their ripeness the grains?
The bison and Red-men alone cared to roam
O'er realms that to millions must soon give a home;
The vast fertile levels Old Time loved to reap
The haymaker's song hath awakened from sleep.

Away to the West! Westward ho! Westward ho!
Why waited we fearing to plant and to sow?

Not ours was the waiting! By God was ordained
The hour when the ocean's grey steeds were up-reined,
And green marshes rose, and the bittern's abode
Became the Lone Land where the wild hunter strode,
And soils with grass harvests grew rich, and the clime
For us was prepared in the fulness of T...

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Haverhill

O river winding to the sea!
We call the old time back to thee;
From forest paths and water-ways
The century-woven veil we raise.

The voices of to-day are dumb,
Unheard its sounds that go and come;
We listen, through long-lapsing years,
To footsteps of the pioneers.

Gone steepled town and cultured plain,
The wilderness returns again,
The drear, untrodden solitude,
The gloom and mystery of the wood!

Once more the bear and panther prowl,
The wolf repeats his hungry howl,
And, peering through his leafy screen,
The Indian's copper face is seen.

We see, their rude-built huts beside,
Grave men and women anxious-eyed,
And wistful youth remembering still
Dear homes in England's Haverhill.

We summon forth to mortal view<...

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Our State

The South-land boasts its teeming cane,
The prairied West its heavy grain,
And sunset's radiant gates unfold
On rising marts and sands of gold!
Rough, bleak, and hard, our little State
Is scant of soil, of limits strait;
Her yellow sands are sands alone,
Her only mines are ice and stone!
From Autumn frost to April rain,
Too long her winter woods complain;
Fom budding flower to falling leaf,
Her summer time is all too brief.
Yet, on her rocks, and on her sands,
And wintry hills, the school-house stands,
And what her rugged soil denies,
The harvest of the mind supplies.
The riches of the Commonwealth
Are free, strong minds, and hearts of health;
And more to her than gold or grain,
The cunning hand and cultured brain.
For well she keeps her an...

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Le Marais Du Cygne

A blush as of roses
Where rose never grew!
Great drops on the bunch-grass,
But not of the dew!
A taint in the sweet air
For wild bees to shun!
A stain that shall never
Bleach out in the sun!
Back, steed of the prairies!
Sweet song-bird, fly back!
Wheel hither, bald vulture!
Gray wolf, call thy pack!
The foul human vultures
Have feasted and fled;
The wolves of the Border
Have crept from the dead.
From the hearths of their cabins,
The fields of their corn,
Unwarned and unweaponed,
The victims were torn,
By the whirlwind of murder
Swooped up and swept on
To the low, reedy fen-lands,
The Marsh of the Swan.
With a vain plea for mercy
No stout knee was crooked;
In the mouths of the rifles
Right manly they looked...

John Greenleaf Whittier