John Greenleaf Whittier, b. 1807. Whittier must have been very popular around the turn of the century. My book, The Year’s Entertainments, has several pages in the December chapter devoted to a program celebrating Whittier’s birthday. One page is entitled “Notes About Whittier’s Life (to be read aloud by several pupils).”
Whittier scribbled verses on his slate when he was a little boy, but he was a lad of nineteen when he sent his first poem to William Lloyd Garrison, editor of The Free Press. Garrison was so pleased with poem that he drove out to the farm to see the writer and found him hoeing in the field. They had a long talk, the editor advising Whittier to take some course of study as a training for a literary future.
Whittier’s education had been limited to the district school, half a mile away, and with a term of but twelve weeks later in the year. He was puzzled to know how to secure the means to gain the coveted education, and finally solved the problem by learning to make shoes. From the money he so earned he got six months’ board and tuition in Haverhill Academy. At the close of this term of study, he became editor of a home paper, and also edited the Hartford New England Review; consquently he soon became known to all the writers and thinkers of New England.”
And’s here’s a sample poem by Whittier, suitable for considering as the primary elections come close upon the new year. Iowa will be holding its caucuses on January 3rd, and New Hampshire, Michigan, Nevada, South Carolina, and Florida will follow with primary elections or caucuses in January, too.
The proudest now is but my peer,
The highest not more high;
Today of all the weary year,
A king of men am I.
Today, alike are great and small,
The nameless and the known;
My place is the people’s hall,
The ballot-box my throne!
Who serves today up on the list
Beside the served shall stand;
Alike the brown and wrinkled fist,
The gloved and dainty hand!
The rich is level with the poor,
The weak is strong today;
The sleekest broadcloth counts no more
Than homespun frock on gray.
Today let pomp and vain pretence
My stubborn right abide;
I set a plain man’s common sense
Against the pedant’s pride.
Today shall simple manhood try
The strength of gold and land;
The wide world has not wealth to buy
The power in my right hand!
While there’s grief to seek redress,
Or balance to adjust,
Where weighs our living manhood less
Than Mammon’s vilest dust,–
While there’s a right to need my vote,
A wrong to sweep away,
Up! clouted knee and ragged coat!
A man’s a man today!