“God should be most where man is least: So, where is neither church nor priest, And never rag nor form of creed To clothe the nakedness of need,- Where farmer folk in silence meet,- I turn my bell-unsummoned feet; I lay the critic's glass aside, I tread upon my lettered pride, And, lowest-seated, testify To the oneness of humanity; Confess the universal want, And share whatever Heaven may grant. He findeth not who seeks his own, The soul is lost that's saved alone.”
Source: Among the Hills, and Other Poems
“The great eventful Present hides the Past; but through the din Of its loud life hints and echoes from the life behind steal in.”
Source: Poems of John Greenleaf Whittier
“Thee lift me, and I lift thee, and together we ascend.”
“The saddest thing of word or pen, To know the things that might have been.”
“We faintly hear, we dimly see, In differing phrase we pray; But dim or clear, we own in Him The life, the truth, the way.”
“With smoking axle hot with speed, with steeds of fire and steam, Wide-waked To-day leaves Yesterday behind him like a dream. Still, from the hurrying train of Life, fly backward far and fast The milestones of the fathers, the landmarks of the past. But human hearts remain unchanged: the sorrow and the sin, The loves and hopes and fears of old, are to our own akin; And if, in tales our fathers told, the songs our mothers sung, Tradition wears a snowy beard, Romance is always young.”
Source: Narrative and Legendary Poems, Complete Volume I., the Works of Whittier
“We search the world for truth; we cull The good, the pure, the beautiful, From all old flower fields of the soul; And, weary seeker of the best, We come back laden from out quest, To find that all the sages said Is in the Book our mothers read.”
Source: The complete poetical works of John Greenleaf Whittier
“I dimly guess, from blessings known, of greater out of sight.”
Source: The complete poetical works of John Greenleaf Whittier
“God gives quietness at last.”
“There's life alone in duty done, And rest alone in striving.”
Source: Poems of John Greenleaf Whittier
“The still, sad music of humanity.”
“If woman lost us Eden, such As she alone restore it.”
Source: The complete poetical works of John Greenleaf Whittier
“They who wander widest lift No more of beauties' jealous veils, Than they who from their doorways see The miracle of flowers and trees.”
“Up from the meadows rich with corn, Clear in the cool September morn”
“Thanks to Allah, who gives the palm!”
Source: Poems of John Greenleaf Whittier
“With silence only as their benediction, God's angels come Where in the shadow of a great affliction, The soul sits dumb!”
Source: The complete poetical works of John Greenleaf Whittier
“A faint blush melting through the light of thy transparent cheek like a rose-leaf bathed in dew.”
“Blow, bugles of battle, the marches of peace; East, west, north, and south let the long quarrel cease; Sing the song of great joy that the angels began, Sing the glory to God and of good-will to man!”
Source: Poems of John Greenleaf Whittier
“The sun that brief December day Rose cheerless over hills of gray, And, darkly circled, gave at noon A sadder light than waning moon.”
Source: The complete poetical works of John Greenleaf Whittier
“God fills the gaps of human need, Each crisis brings its word and deed.”
Source: Personal Poems, Complete Volume IV., the Works of Whittier: Personal Poems
“Alas for him who never sees The stars shine through his cypress-trees Who, hopeless, lays his dead away, Nor looks to see the breaking day Across the mournful marbles play!”
Source: The complete poetical works of John Greenleaf Whittier
“Green calm below, blue quietness above.”
Source: The complete poetical works of John Greenleaf Whittier
“So let it be in God's own might We gird us for the coming fight, And, strong in Him whose cause is ours In conflict with unholy powers, We grasp the weapons he has given,-- The Light, and Truth, and Love of Heaven.”
Source: The complete poetical works of John Greenleaf Whittier
“And let these altars, wreathed with flowers And piled with fruits, awake again Thanksgivings for the golden hours, The early and the latter rain!”
Source: The complete poetical works of John Greenleaf Whittier
“In kindly showers and sunshine bud The branches of the dull gray wood; Out from its sunned and sheltered nooks The blue eye of the violet looks.”
Source: Poems of John Greenleaf Whittier
“Thine to work as well as pray, Clearing thorny wrongs away; Plucking up the weeds of sin, Letting heaven's warm sunshine in.”
Source: The complete poetical works of John Greenleaf Whittier
“Freedom's soil hath only place For a free and fearless race!”
Source: The complete poetical works of John Greenleaf Whittier
“What miracle of weird transforming Is this wild work of frost and light, This glimpse of glory infinite?”
Source: The complete poetical works of John Greenleaf Whittier
“Beauty is its own excuse.”
Source: Poems of John Greenleaf Whittier
“Happy he whose inward ear Angel comfortings can hear, O'er the rabble's laughter; And, while Hatred's fagots burn, Glimpses through the smoke discern Of the good hereafter.”
Source: The complete poetical works of John Greenleaf Whittier
“From purest wells of English undefiled None deeper drank than he, the New World's Child, Who in the language of their farm field spoke The wit and wisdom of New England folk.”
Source: Personal Poems, Complete Volume IV., the Works of Whittier: Personal Poems
“Up from the sea, the wild north wind is blowing, under the sky's gray arch. Smiling, I watch the shaken elm boughs, knowing It is the wind of March.”
Source: Personal Poems, Complete Volume IV., the Works of Whittier: Personal Poems
“Dear Lord and Father of mankind, Forgive our foolish ways! Re-clothe us in our rightful mind, In purer lives thy service find, In deeper reverence praise”
“God blesses still the generous thought,And still the fitting word He speeds,And Truth, at His requiring taught,He quickens into deeds.”
Source: The complete poetical works of John Greenleaf Whittier
“The Beauty which old Greece or RomeSung, painted, wrought, lies close at home.”
Source: The complete poetical works of John Greenleaf Whittier
“Let the thick curtain fall;I better know than allHow little I have gained,How vast the unattained.”
Source: Poems of Nature, Poems Subjective and Reminiscent and Religious Poems, Complete Volume II., the Works of Whittier
“Sweeter than any sungMy songs that found no tongue;Nobler than any factMy wish that failed of act.Others shall sing the song,Others shall right the wrong,-Finish what I begin,And all I fail of win.”
Source: The complete poetical works of John Greenleaf Whittier
“Others may sing the song. Others may right the wrong.”
“Formed on the good old plan, A true and brave and downright honest man! He blew no trumpet in the market-place, Nor in the church with hypocritic face Supplied with cant the lack of Christian grace; Loathing pretence, he did with cheerful will What others talked of while their hands were still.”
Source: The complete poetical works of John Greenleaf Whittier
“And light is mingled with the gloom, And joy with grief; Divinest compensations come, Through thorns of judgment mercies bloom In sweet relief.”
Source: Poems of John Greenleaf Whittier
“Rap, rap! upon the well-worn stone, How falls the polished hammer! Rap, rap! the measured sound has grown A quick and merry clamor. Now shape the sole! now deftly curl The glassy vamp around it, And bless the while the bright-eyed girl Whose gentle fingers bound it!”
Source: Songs of Labor and Reform From Volume III., the Works of Whittier: Anti-Slavery Poems and Songs of Labor and Reform
“The low green tent Whose curtain never outward swings.”
Source: The complete poetical works of John Greenleaf Whittier
“What airs outblown from ferny dells And clover-bloom and sweet brier smells.”
Source: The Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier
“Swan flocks of lilies shoreward lying, In sweetness, not in music, dying.”
Source: The complete poetical works of John Greenleaf Whittier
“What is good looking, as Horace Smith remarks, but looking good? Be good, be womanly, be gentle,-generous in your sympathies, heedful of the well-being of all around you; and, my word for it, you will not lack kind words of admiration.”
Source: The Stranger in Lowell
“Press bravely onward! - not in vainYour generous trust in human kind;The good which bloodshed could not gainYour peaceful zeal shall find.”
Source: The complete poetical works of John Greenleaf Whittier
“Better heresy of doctrine than heresy of heart.”
Source: Poems of John Greenleaf Whittier
“Nature speaks in symbols and in signs.”
Source: The complete poetical works of John Greenleaf Whittier
“The Fates are just: they give us but our own; Nemesis ripens what our hands have sown.”
Source: The complete poetical works of John Greenleaf Whittier
“Simple duty hath no place for fear.”
Source: The complete poetical works of John Greenleaf Whittier
