John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–92) was an American Quaker poet and abolitionist. His humanitarianism and great popular appeal established him as an important 19th-century figure.
Born on a farm near Haverhill, Massachusetts, Whittier was mostly self-educated. In 1829, he became a journalist and published Legends of New-England in Prose and Verse (1831,) a collection of poems and stories. He edited various journals 1829–46, including the abolitionist Pennsylvania Freeman.
In 1840, Whittier settled at Amesbury, Massachusetts, and devoted himself to the cause of emancipation. Called the “poet-seer of the Anti-Slavery Movement,” he wrote many anti-slavery poems and pamphlets and suffered from mob-violence and political hate.
Whittier’s zealous Christianity was manifest in many of his famous poems, including “The Yankee Girl,” “The Slavery-Ships,” “The Hunters of Men,” “Massachusetts to Virginia,” and “Ichabod.” Verses such as “Dear Lord and Father of mankind,” “Immortal love, for ever full,” and “O Brother Man” have also become well known as hymns. His poems on the subject of slavery were collected as Voices of Freedom (1846.)
Whittier’s later works include the collection In War Time (1864,) which contains the well-known ballad ‘Barbara Frietchie,’ and At Sundown (1892.)
After 1850, Whittier also wrote folksy New England ballads and narrative poems on rural themes. Among the most popular are “Skipper Ireson’s Ride,” “John Underhill,” “Maud Muller,” “Telling the Bees,” “The Barefoot Boy,” “Snow-Bound” (his most well-known,) “The Eternal Goodness,” and “My Psalm.”
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Yet, in the maddening maze of things, And tossed by storm and flood, To one fixed trust my spirit clings; I know that God is good.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Topics: God, Faith
Speak out in acts; the time for words has passed, and only deeds will suffice.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Topics: Action
The simple heart that freely asks in love, obtains.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Topics: Prayer, Work
For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: “It might have been!”
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Oh, brother man, fold to thy heart thy brother; where pity dwells, the peace of God is there.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
All the windows of my heart I open to the day.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Topics: Carpe-diem
Autumn, in his leafless bowers, is waiting for the winter’s snow.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Topics: Autumn
No longer forward nor behind
I look in hope or fear;
But, grateful, take the good I find,
The best of now and here.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Beauty seen is never lost, God’s colors all are fast.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Topics: Beauty
Who never climbs as rarely falls.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Topics: Success
How dwarfed against his manliness she sees the poor pretension, the wants, the aims, the follies, born of fashion and convention!
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Topics: Men
Of all that Orient lands can vaunt, of marvels with our own competing, the strangest is the Haschish plant, and what will follow on its eating.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Topics: Drugs
The smile of God is victory.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Topics: One liners
The craven’s fear is but selfishness, like his merriment.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Topics: Cowardice, Fear
Forever from the hand that takes one blessing from us, others fall; and soon or late, our Father makes his perfect recompense to all.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Before me, even as behind, God is, and all is well.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Topics: God, Faith
Clothe with life the weak intent, let me be the thing I meant.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
They tell me, Lucy, thou art dead, that all of thee we loved and cherished has with thy summer roses perished; and left, as its young beauty fled, an ashen memory in its stead.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Topics: Bereavement
Tradition wears a snowy beard.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Topics: Tradition
Who fathoms the Eternal Thought?$Who talks of scheme and plan?$The Lord is God! He needeth not$The poor device of man.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Topics: God, Faith
Give fools their gold, and knaves their power;
Let fortune’s bubbles rise and fall;
Who sows a field, or trains a flower,
Or plants a tree, is more than all.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Topics: Character
But beauty seen is never lost,
God
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Yet sometimes glimpses on my sight,
Through present wrong the eternal right;
And, step by step, since time began,
I see the steady gain of man…
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Topics: Progress
To be saved is only this,–salvation from our own selfishness.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Topics: Selfishness
The vain regret that steals above the wreck of squandered hours.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
When faith is lost, when honor dies, the man is dead.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Topics: Man, Faith
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