.. innocent of books,
Was rich in lore of fields and brooks,
* * * * *
A simple, guileless, childlike man,
Strong only on his native grounds,
The little world of sights and sounds
Whose girdle was the parish bounds,"
the aunt, who:--
"Found peace in love's unselfishness,"
the sister:--
"A full rich nature, free to trust,
Truthful and even sternly just,
Impulsive, earnest, prompt to act,
And make her generous thought a fact,
Keeping with many a light disguise
The secret of self-sacrifice."
Some read Snow-Bound for its pictures of nature and some for its still more
remarkable portraits of the members of that household. This poem has
achieved for the New England fireside what Burns accomplished for the
hearths of Scotland in _The Cotter's Saturday Night_.
Whittier wrote many fine short lyrical poems, such as _Ichabod_, _The Lost
Occasion_, _My Playmate_ (which was Tennyson's favorite), _In School Days_,
_Memories_, _My Triumph_, _Telling the Bees_, _The Eternal Goodness_, and
the second part of _A Sea Dream_. His narrative poems and ballads are
second only to Longfellow's.
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