The writings of John Greenleaf Whittier, Volume 1.
John Greenleaf Whittier, Ed.

His was the Christian's unsung Age of Gold,
     A truer idyl than the bards have told
Of Arno's banks or Arcady of old.

Where still the Friends their place of burial keep,
     And century-rooted mosses o'er it creep,
The Niirnberg scholar and his helpmeet sleep.

And Anna's aloe? If it flowered at last
     In Bartram's garden, did John Woolman cast
A glance upon it as he meekly passed?

And did a secret sympathy possess
     That tender soul, and for the slave's redress
Lend hope, strength, patience? It were vain to guess.

Nay, were the plant itself but mythical,
     Set in the fresco of tradition's wall
Like Jotham's bramble, mattereth not at all.

Enough to know that, through the winter's frost
     And summer's heat, no seed of truth is lost,
And every duty pays at last its cost.

For, ere Pastorius left the sun and air,
     God sent the answer to his life-long prayer;
The child was born beside the Delaware,