Classic Poetry ~ "Forgiveness" by John Greenleaf Whittier

John Greenleaf Whittier, 1809 - 1894

John Greenleaf Whittier, known as The Quaker Poet, The Slave Poet and The Fireside Poet, wrote from the time he was a child until he died at 85. A Quaker devoted to social causes and reform, Whittier worked for years as an editor and writer at a series of abolitionist newspapers and magazines. Additionally, he was a politician and abolitionist, opposing slavery before it became the divisive subject that resulted in civil war. Most famous for lengthy works, such as the oft-referred-to poem, Snowbound, Whittier occasionally wrote shorter pieces like Forgiveness, below.

Forgiveness

My heart was heavy, for its trust had been

Abused, its kindness answered with foul wrong;
So, turning gloomily from my fellow-men,
One summer Sabbath day I strolled among
The green mounds of the village burial-place;
Where, pondering how all human love and hate
Find one sad level; and how, soon or late,
Wronged and wrongdoer, each with meekened face,
And cold hands folded over a still heart,
Pass the green threshold of our common grave,
Whither all footsteps tend, whence none depart,
Awed for myself, and pitying my race,
Our common sorrow, like a mighty wave,
Swept all my pride away, and trembling I forgave!

After reading this anew, I cannot help but hope that each of us experiences the same epiphany.  ~Kim

Classic Poetry~ "Autumn Thoughts" by John Greenleaf Whittier

John Greenleaf Whittier

Autumn Thoughts

Gone hath the Spring, with all its flowers,

And gone the Summer's pomp and show,

And Autumn, in his leafless bowers,

Is waiting for the Winter's snow.

I said to Earth, so cold and gray,

'An emblem of myself thou art.'

'Not so,' the Earth did seem to say,

'For Spring shall warm my frozen heart.'

I soothe my wintry sleep with dreams

Of warmer sun and softer rain,

And wait to hear the sound of streams

And songs of merry birds again.

But thou, from whom the Spring hath gone,

For whom the flowers no longer blow,

Who standest blighted and forlorn,

Like Autumn waiting for the snow;

No hope is thine of sunnier hours,

Thy Winter shall no more depart;

No Spring revive thy wasted flowers,

Nor Summer warm thy frozen heart.

American poet and editor, John Greenleaf Whittier, was born December 17, 1807, in Massachusetts. A shoemaker and schoolteacher by trade, Whittier garnered literary attention before he was twenty and throughout his long life. A devout Quaker, he was politicallly active, devoted himself to to social causes and reform, and doggedly worked for the abolition of slavery.

Popular with other poets and writers, Whittier celebrated his seventieth birthday with a large group of friends that included Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Mark Twain, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, and William Dean Howells. He died in New Hampshire, on September 7, 1892.