16, 17, 53, 54 is particularly good, the repetition of the spirant suggesting the insistence of memory. What harmony of sound and thought in the line Heavy and slow? IV. Read the poem aloud. Bring out clearly its restrained pathos. Imagine that you are the lover, telling the story to a friend. Hear all the time in your ears the sound of the chore-girl's song, Mistress Mary is dead and gone! THE HUSKERS I. The account of the corn-picking and the corn-husking furnish the poet occasion to make two fine descriptions: one of a New England country landscape on an autumn afternoon, the other of an evening scene by lantern-light in the barn. Read the poem first with the following outline:- 1. Introductory: a. General introduction: time, place, preliminary description. b. Introductory pictures: (1) An autumn morning. (2) An autumn mid-day. 2. The autumn afternoon, and the corn-gathering. 3. Sunset and early evening - transitional. 4. The husking-bee. The poem is written in four-line stanzas, each line having seven feet with iambic movement. The rime is aabb. The melody is smooth and quiet. II. Study adjectives and epithets used to describe the season in the first stanza. Does the poet describe the Indian Summer sunrise and mid-day correctly? Observe carefully all the adjectives in the second stanza. III. Prepare to sketch, on a large sheet of paper, the landscape described in stanzas three to eight. What field is most important in this poem? Is it the one described with greatest minuteness of detail? What persons does it contain? What part of your picture should it occupy? Where will you put the hills, orchards, meadows, woods, and farm-buildings? What signs of life and motion in the picture? Notice the adjectives and epithets. How many of them refer to color? Are they well-chosen? What color-words do you find that are not adjectives? Why should color-words be so prominent in this description? The metaphor in line 10 gives the Indian Summer "atmosphere" to the picture; explain it clearly. IV. The description of sunset (lines 31-36) follows that of afternoon. With line 31 compare lines 6 and 34. Study word by word the glorious picture of sunset and moon-rise in lines 33-36. Lines 37-40 bring the farming people to the huskingfrolic, and introduce the second of the two main pictures of the poem. V. The interior of the barn is described as the background of the picture. What, as main object of interest, should occupy the center foreground? Who are gathered about the pile of corn? What persons are to be made most prominent in this group of young people? From the lanterns hanging above this group light falls particularly on the pile of yellow ears, and on the maiden and the master. The other huskers are outside the brightest cir cle of light. The background for this bright center is the shadowy barn, where sit the old men. Here is a study in light and shade worthy of the great master, Rembrandt. VI. The value of this poem is in its pictures of New England and New England customs. With perfect fidelity and exquisite expression the poet leads us to paint in our imagination scenes familiar to his boyhood, and rural customs fast passing away. For its truthfulness and simple dignity, The Huskers deserved to be esteemed most highly among The Songs of Labor. What other industries are celebrated in this group of poems? Discuss the Dedication. VII. The master's Corn-Song has shorter lines than The Huskers, and this gives it a more animated lyric character. The lines contain alternately four and three iambic feet. The rime is abab. Corn is compared with and preferred to the fruits of tropic lands (lines 57-64). It is preferred even to other products of our own latitude (lines 93-104). The raising of the corn is described (lines 65-84), and the meal is praised (lines 81-82). Discuss the epithets used in The Corn-Song. Autumn is personified and represented as bearing a horn of plenty (lines 55, 56); possibly the poet had in mind the Roman goddess Ceres. What metaphor in line 76? In line 88? The color of the corn suggests frequent comparison to gold, ånd that leads us, by metonymy, to wealth in general. See lines 53, 54, 55, 80, 84, 96, 103. THE ETERNAL GOODNESS I. This is, perhaps, the best of Whittier's religious poems. The student will appreciate better its spirit if he first will read Jonathan Edwards' sermon on Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God (Stedman and Hutchinson II). The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider or other loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. . . . O sinner! Consider the fearful danger you are in: it is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath, that you are held over in the hand of that God, whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you as against many of the damned in hell. You hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe it and burn it asunder. The Westminster Shorter Catechism, too, will give some notion of the elaborate system of Calvinistic theology that ruled New England in earlier days. The Quakers were a liberal sect, and opposed to the iron-bound creed of the orthodox New England churches. For the influence of the Bible on Whittier, see Pickard, Life, I, 37. II. The poem is addressed to Whittier's Calvinistic neighbors. Read it with the following notes. Lines 3, 4: What virtues have these Calvinists? Lines 5, 6: The strong point in the creed is its unanswerable logic. Lines 7, 8: What is Whittier's attitude toward this system of theology? Lines 9, 10: Explain. Why "iron"? Lines 13, 14: This theology explains the purposes of the Creator, and his "Plan of Salvation." Lines 17, 18: See Exodus 3:5. The bare feet symbolized reverence. Line 20: What divine qualities does Whittier emphasize regard as measureless? Line 21: What quality did the Calvinists place most stress on? Line 23: They seek one to give them laws and commandments; the Quaker poet desires only healing of spirit. Matthew 9:20; 27:35. Line 25: See Genesis 3:16-19. 5:3-11; for line 28 see Luke 23:24. For line 27 see Matthew Line 29: Does Whittier regard himself as undeserving of eternal punishment? Line 36: He has no "claim" through merit on divine mercy. Line 37: Whittier is not trying to pretend that there is no sin in this world. Line 42: Explain the figure. Line 44: To what divine attribute does Whittier fasten his hope? Line 45: See Isaiah 6:1-5. Line 47: Since love is the best feeling that can possibly enter the human heart, hate is the worst. How, then, can a Divine Being cherish the hate that Edwards describes in his sermon? Line 49: The sin of hate. Line 55: See Psalms 19:10. Line 57: Whittier holds his faith in the midst of sorrow and affliction; and (lines 61-64) in spite of any trouble that may come into his life. Line 65: No trouble will come to him that he will not be given strength to bear. Isaiah 42:3. Line 69: "I have no merit." Line 71: "Even what I do for others is simply transferring a gift He has given me." Line 73-80: Do not miss the point of this beautiful metaphor. Line 81: See Line 1. His belief differs greatly from theirs. SNOW-BOUND I. Snow-Bound is a poem of rural New England in winter. It describes a heavy snow-storm and the appearance of the |