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قراءة كتاب Whittier-land A Handbook of North Essex, Containing Many Anecdotes of and Poems by John Greenleaf Whittier Never Before Collected.
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Whittier-land A Handbook of North Essex, Containing Many Anecdotes of and Poems by John Greenleaf Whittier Never Before Collected.
training school of the city, and may be found, little changed except by accretion, on Winter Street, near the city hall. As this ode does not appear in any of his collected works, and is certainly creditable as a juvenile production, it is given here. It was sung to the air of "Pillar of Glory:"—
Illumine these walls—let them evermore be
A shrine where thy votaries offerings may tender,
Hallowed by genius, and sacred to thee.
Warmed by thy genial glow,
Here let thy laurels grow
Greenly for those who rejoice at thy name.
Here let thy spirit rest,
Thrilling the ardent breast,
Rousing the soul with thy promise of fame.
Wherever her voice at thine altar is known
There shall no cloud of oppression come o'er thee,
No envious tyrant thy splendor disown.
Sons of the proud and free
Joyous shall cherish thee,
Long as their banners in triumph shall wave;
And from its peerless height
Ne'er shall thy orb of light
Sink, but to set upon Liberty's grave.
Bowed down 'neath oppression's unhallowed control.
Spirit of Science! O, crown our endeavor;
Here shed thy beams on the night of the soul;
Then shall thy sons entwine,
Here for thy sacred shrine,
Wreaths that shall flourish through ages to come,
Bright in thy temple seen,
Robed in immortal green,
Fadeless memorials of genius shall bloom.
Haverhill, although but three miles wide, is ten miles long, and includes many a fertile farm out of sight of city spires, and out of sound of city streets. As Whittier says in the poem "Haverhill:"—
Along its southward sloping hill,
And overlooks on either hand
A rich and many-watered land.
From mart and crowd, her old-time grace,
And guards with fondly jealous arms
The wild growths of outlying farms.
Her autumn leaves by Saltonstall
No lavished gold can richer make
Her opulence of hill and lake."
This "opulence of hill and lake" is the especial charm of Haverhill. The two symmetrical hills, named Gold and Silver, near the river, one above and one below the city proper, are those referred to in "The Sycamores" as viewed by Washington with admiring comment, standing in his stirrups and
On the hills of Gold and Silver
Rimming round the little town."
Silver Hill is the one with the tower on it. As one takes at the railway station the electric car for the three-mile trip to the Whittier birthplace, two lakes are soon passed on the right. The larger one, overlooked by the stone castle on top of a great hill embowered in trees, is Kenoza—a name signifying pickerel. It was christened by Whittier with the poem which has permanently fixed its name. The whole lake and the beautiful wooded hills surrounding it, with the picturesque castle crowning one of them, are now included in a public park of which any city might be proud. Our car passes close at hand, on the left, another lake not visible because it is so much above us. This is a singular freak of nature—a deep lake fed by springs on top of a hill. The surface of this lake is far above the tops of most of the houses of Haverhill, and it is but a few rods from Kenoza, which lies almost a hundred feet below. Our road is at middle height between the two, and only a stone's throw from either.
As we approach the birthplace, it is over the northern shoulder of Job's Hill, the summit of which is high above us at the right. This hill was named for an Indian chief of the olden time. We look down at the left into an idyllic valley, and through the trees that skirt a lovely brook catch sight of the ancient farmhouse on a gentle slope which seems designed by nature for its reception. To the west and south high hills crowd closely upon this valley, but to the east are green meadows through which winds, at last at leisure, the brook just released from its tumble among the rocks of old Job's left shoulder. The road by which we have come is comparatively new, and was not in existence when the Whittiers lived here. The old road crosses it close by the brook, which is here bridged. The house faces the brook, and not the road, presenting to the highway the little eastern porch that gives entrance to the kitchen,—the famous kitchen of "Snow-Bound."
The barn is across the road directly opposite this porch. It is now much longer than it was