Thou,
Whom the rich heavens did so endow
With eyes of power and Jove's own brow,
* * * * *
Too soon for us, too soon for thee,
Beside thy lonely Northern sea,
Where long and low the marsh-lands spread,
Laid wearily down thy august head."
Whittier is emphatically the poet of New England. His verses which will
live the longest are those which spring directly from its soil. His poem
entitled _The Barefoot Boy_ tells how the typical New England farmer's lad
acquired:--
"Knowledge never learned of schools,
Of the wild bee's morning chase,
Of the wild flower's time and place,
Flight of fowl and habitude
Of the tenants of the wood."
[Illustration: WHITTIER'S BIRTHPLACE IN WINTER (SCENE OF "SNOW BOUND")]
His greatest poem, the one by which he will probably be chiefly known to
posterity, is _Snow-Bound_, which describes the life of a rural New England
household. At the beginning of this poem of 735 lines, the coming of the
all-enveloping snowstorm, with its "ghostly finger tips of sleet" on the
window-panes, is the central event, but we soon realize that this storm
merely serves to focus intensely the New England life with which he was
familiar.
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