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

[230] Pleasant it was to roam about
     The lettered world as he had done,
And see the lords of song without
     Their singing robes and garlands on.
With Wordsworth paddle Rydal mere,
     Taste rugged Elliott's home-brewed beer,
And with the ears of Rogers, at fourscore,
     Hear Garrick's buskined tread and Walpole's wit once more.

And one there was, a dreamer born,
     Who, with a mission to fulfil,
Had left the Muses' haunts to turn
     The crank of an opinion-mill,
Making his rustic reed of song
     A weapon in the war with wrong,
Yoking his fancy to the breaking-plough
     That beam-deep turned the soil for truth to spring and grow.

Too quiet seemed the man to ride
     The winged Hippogriff Reform;
Was his a voice from side to side
     To pierce the tumult of the storm?
A silent, shy, peace-loving man,
     He seemed no fiery partisan
To hold his way against the public frown,
     The ban of Church and State, the fierce mob's hounding down.

For while he wrought with strenuous will
     The work his hands had found to do,
He heard the fitful music still
     Of winds that out of dream-land blew.