The writings of John Greenleaf Whittier, Volume 4.
John Greenleaf Whittier, Ed.

[229]
     To fling their loads of custom down,
Like drift-weed, on the sand-slopes brown,
     And in the sea waves drown the restless pack
Of duties, claims, and needs that barked upon their track.

One, with his beard scarce silvered, bore
     A ready credence in his looks,
A lettered magnate, lording o'er
     An ever-widening realm of books.
In him brain-currents, near and far,
     Converged as in a Leyden jar;
The old, dead authors thronged him round about,
     And Elzevir's gray ghosts from leathern graves looked out.

He knew each living pundit well,
     Could weigh the gifts of him or her,
And well the market value tell
     Of poet and philosopher.
But if he lost, the scenes behind,
     Somewhat of reverence vague and blind,
Finding the actors human at the best,
     No readier lips than his the good he saw confessed.

His boyhood fancies not outgrown,
     He loved himself the singer's art;
Tenderly, gently, by his own
     He knew and judged an author's heart.
No Rhadamanthine brow of doom
     Bowed the dazed pedant from his room;
And bards, whose name is legion, if denied,
     Bore off alike intact their verses and their pride.